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Every once in a while, your significant other drops a bomb on you that you just weren’t expecting. For instance, lying in bed with The Girl the other night after watching Grey’s Anatomy, I told her what movies I was reviewing to wrap up Slasher September. “You know,” she said, “I’ve never seen Friday the 13th. I want to watch it, but some asshole at work already told me the ending.” I was stunned. Are there actually people who haven’t seen Friday the 13th? I know The Boy hasn’t, but that’s only because I didn’t break down and buy the damned thing until last week. So I give you a word of warning. For the seven of you, not counting The Boy and The Girl, who have not done your geekly duty and watched Friday the 13th, there are going to be spoilers in this review. I don’t normally do that, but in this case, it’s unavoidable. If you don’t want to know details about the movie, particularly the ending, click away now, my child. I don’t need to be known as “the asshole on JH who spoiled Friday the 13th” for you. If you refer to me as “the asshole on JH,” that’s fine. I figured that was coming anyway.
Really, is there anything new that can be said about Friday the 13th? It’s the legend. The big kahuna. The head cheese. The movie that started one of the longest running horror franchises of all time. For a film that began with the basic idea, “Let’s rip off Halloween,” this movie has surprising longevity and legs. But now, almost thirty years later, is Friday the 13th a good movie? Does it withstand the test of time?
Yes. Oh my, yes.
The movie starts at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. After a rousing acoustic version of “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore” or some shit like that, two of the counselors sneak off to the barn for a little… uh… arts and crafts. Yeah, that’s it. The guy wants to provide some wheat paste for her paper mache project. He wants to see her rug and she wants to shuttle his loom. And just as they’re about to get creative, they’re interrupted. Hurriedly, they dress, but that’s not enough. The boy is stabbed in the gut and lays down to die in the corner. The girl… well, we don’t see what happens to her, but we get the point. She gets cross-stitched.
Flash-forward to 1980 and the camp, which has been closed for years, is about to reopen. Annie (Robbi Morgan) has backpacked all the way into town. She’s the kitchen supervisor for Camp Crystal Lake redux, and she stops into a store. The customers all warn her away from the camp, especially Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney), who utters the immortal line, “It’s got a death curse!” before riding away on his Schwinn. Annie is not upset by this, and catches a ride with a local trucker. He tells her Camp Crystal Lake is jinxed. Every time someone has tried to re-open it, bad things have happened. Fires, bad water… and did you hear about those kids who got killed in the fifties? He urges Annie to quit, but she ignores him.
When the trucker drops Annie off, she catches the last ride of her life. The driver of the Jeep she’s riding in rolls right past the entrance to Camp Crystal Lake. Annie realizes she’s in danger and jumps from the vehicle, only to be chased through the woods by the mysterious driver. Annie can’t run worth shit and becomes victim number one, her throat slashed behind a tree. Annie always dies. What can you do?
In the meantime, the stereotypes have gathered at Camp Crystal Lake, the most important being Alice (Adrienne King), who although having an affair with Head Counselor Guy Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), is sweet, kind and destined to be the Last Girl. Count in the rest of the victims… I mean, counselors… and you’ve got a lot of people ready to strip naked and get killed. One of them is a young Kevin Bacon in his first major film role. Of course, there’s smoking the weed of evil, fucking and bad weather. And the killer is out there, with a shady motive and a variety of weapons.
On the surface, Friday the 13th is a cheap-ass, badly filmed, barely written movie. Why is this movie so important?
Because it works. Purely and simple brutal, this movie has everything a true horror geek needs. Not only that, but this is the movie that really invented the slasher genre. Sure, Halloween set the gold standard, but Friday the 13th set everything else. Let’s look at what Friday the 13th provided for all other crazed maniac movies to come.
* Isolated setting? Yup. Camp Crystal Lake was miles from anywhere, in the rustic woods of New Jersey. In the time before cell phones, getting help was a difficult prospect. There probably wouldn’t have been any coverage out there anyway.
* Stereotypical victim characters? Yeah. Friday the 13th invented that. The practical joker, the whore, the good guy, the jock and the all-important Last Girl. All of these unlikely folks gather together in the aforementioned isolated setting and are forced to fend for themselves. From Scream to a blue turd like Pulse, you will find the same formula followed.
* On-screen murders? You’ve got it, kids. None of that classy death-in-the-shadows stuff. When Annie gets killed, it’s in broad daylight. Her murder is vicious and base. If you want to know why kids want to be make-up effects technicians when they grow up, here’s the source. Hell, I wanted to be Tom Savini when I grew up. Instead, I just sit in my apartment and masturbate to scenes from the original Dawn of the Dead. Oh, fuck. Did I type that out loud? Dammit! Anyway, we continue.
* Crazy recognizable theme music? Carpenter may have invented it with his classic score for Halloween, but composer Harry Manfredini took it to the next level. The whole “Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma” thing, which doesn’t really count as music, gave Friday the 13th an identity all its own instantly.
* Completely unexpected killer identity? It started here. The revelation that Mrs. Voorhees was the one who shoved an arrow through Kevin Bacon’s neck comes totally out of left field. The echoes of that can be felt all the way down through the genre. I mean, how many times have you heard the line, “Oh my god, it’s YOU!” in a slasher flick? Yeah. I lost count, too.
* Twist ending? Look no further. Alice’s dream of being pulled underwater by a hideously rotted Jason boy paved the way for ambiguous endings a-plenty. It was just a dream, right? But it was one of the best jump-scares ever.
The blueprint may be crude, but we can’t deny the impact Friday the 13th has had on horror. And, I am pleased to say, it has aged quite well. It still has the same gut shot feel it had in 1980 and while not exactly a draining emotional experience, it certainly has enough creep and gross-out factor to it to make Friday the 13th a historically important film. After all, legend says this movie has the first on-screen decapitation ever. That in itself should be enough to make you watch it.
Badly written, badly filmed, but imbued with a power that must have been derived from Hell itself, Friday the 13th is an unrelenting ride through the dark side. More than the sum of its parts, this movie is pure classic horror. If you’ve never seen it, don’t hesitate.
