I love the "Friday the 13th" sequels. Trust me when I say those movies are pretty crappy though. I've seen enough of them to have rid my mind of any notions of going camping, hiking, or spending any time at all in the middle of the woods. Especially when you're miles from the nearest town or Coffee Bean (do summer camps have wifi now-a-days?) My thoughts going into the original "Friday" film would be that it's the best of all, because it's the first one, right!? Wrong.
Our story starts off at Camp Crystal Lake, a summer camp located in the middle of a heavily wooded area. After a flashback to 1958 in which we find out that two counselors were murdered, we are thrust (no pun intended) into the present day in which a new team of people is trying to re-open the camp after it's 22 year closure for a new wave of kids for the summer. Alice (Adrienne King) is an artist that finds herself out of place at Crystal Lake, but she gets along with the others, which include the wild Ned (Mark Nelson), Brenda (Laurie Bartram), Jack (a young Kevin Bacon in one of his first film roles), among others. Just as they are getting things ready to go, an unseen killer begins to stalk to camp and catches them having sex, smoking grass (you dig what I'm sayin', man?), and being... well, young people. The killer soon begins to pick off the not-quite-camp counselors one by one with no hope for anyone at the camp.
In this case, it was the audience who sat through the whole film that was doomed - "Friday the 13th"
This film gives us the trademark "Friday the 13th" killer POV shot, greatly doing what Spielberg did in "Jaws" in which we virtually, don't see the killer at all except for a few glimpses of legs, torso, and of course, the weapons being used against our characters. That I can recall, this is in all of the early "Friday" sequels as well, but I guess the filmmakers too grew tired of it (much like I did by the end of the film). Also different from the two movies mentioned above, is the type of genre this movie exists in. Specifically, this is a Slasher Film. Instead of meeting realistic, complex, and rich characters, this genre usually gives us cardboard cutout, characteristic, and horny 20-somethings who are unknowingly lining up for a slaughter.
This quality really shows in Friday the 13th. The only real character who seems to have any depth to him at all is Steve Christy (Peter Brauer) who is passionate about getting the camp going again and is spending every waking minute working on getting the facility functional once more, when he isn't being a creep to Alice. Another astounding thing to me about this film is how plainly average it was. The "Friday the 13th" sequels don't have much to offer either, but I'd figure the first in the series would be a standout. The only thing that really stood out about was Tom Savini's excellent special effects makeup work in which he found ways to safely plunge arrows through necks, slash throats, and plunge an axe into someone's head, all done pretty convincingly.
The woods themselves were a major disappointment. In the later sequels, we see dense shrubbery, tall rows of trees that seem to go on forever, and roads that lead to nowhere. This film never seemed like the characters could be swallowed by the woods or communicated any sense of claustrophobia and it isn't difficult to do. Alfonso Cuaron created a disturbingly beautiful sense of claustrophobia with his film "Gravity" (see my review for Day 6) using the vast openness of space. Sean Cunningham's direction is boring, average, and dull. Never once was I intrigued to make it to the end or kept on the edge of my seat by the events on screen or any aspect of the filmmaking, except for the makeup, like I said above.
Harry Manfredini's score to the film however is a saving grace, adding dense texture to dull scenes and making gory kills that much more terrifying. But it's dumb of me to expect a lot from a slasher film, a statement that makes me sad to say. Other "Friday the 13th" rip-offs are better because they are a lot more fun and well paced. Their characters are even far more interesting. "The Burning" is an excellent slasher film that takes the same concept of people being murdered at a summer camp and makes it far more exciting. "Terror Train" is far more of a textbook slasher picture than "Friday" and somehow, what supposed to be cinematic garbage (the unfortunate school of thought by may cinema gourmets about slasher films) is much more fun, entertaining, and scary.
"Friday the 13th" has been billed a classic because of its murder-mystery style plot, state of the art special effects, and Kevin Bacon. I've always wanted to see this film and I wasn't too happy with the end result. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. The revelation of who the killer is in the film's third act is also a major cheat on the audience. If you're a major fan of the horror or slasher genre, "Friday" warrants at least one watch, but that's it really. It doesn't have much to offer in terms of acting or story, but it a marvel for makeup. The picture did bring machetes into popular culture. I love a good machete.
5/10
Rated X
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Written by Victor Miller
Runtime - 95 minutes
Suggested Edition: Warner Bros. official Blu Ray release (I picked mine up at Walmart for about $8)
6.4 of 10 stars on IMDb
59% on Rotten Tomatoes
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