My Review of Friday The 13th (1980)

 

Written by Victor Miller And Ron Kurz

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham

Mrs. Voorhees: "Kill her, Mommy! Kill her! Don't let her get away, Mommy! Don't let her live! I won't, Jason, I won't."

I've been waiting for an appropriate to review this movie and guess what, that has finally come. There are many classic horror franchises I've touched on with this blog and now, it's time to pay attention to one that I previously haven't.

As a franchise, this has been one with a lot of movies, most of which have gotten more batshit that you almost forget how grounded and rather straightforward this original feature truly was. A simple tale of mother's desire for revenge following the death of her son at the hands of irresponsible workers at a summer camp.

Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) was a mother trying to provide for her son, Jason (Ari Lehman) by working as a cook at the camp in question. However when her son drown while the workers weren't doing their job, she snapped and went on one hell of a killing spree. As a result, the camp closed down and she kept an eye on things from afar.

However over two decades later, the camp reopened with a new generation of workers, all as hedonistic as the previous ones and Pamela decided to pick up where she left off. Needless to say, most of the young cast, including Kevin Bacon found themselves being taken out by the grieving and rather murderous mother, still avenging her son all these years later.

Of course, while Pamela had plenty of characters to kill at will, at least one character had to pose a threat to her murder spree. Every horror franchise needs a final girl and while this one has a few of them (and a final boy in later movies), the ball got rolling with fellow camp worker, Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) who came afoul of Mrs Voorhees and managed to live to tell the tale.

I wouldn't say Alice was the most compelling of final girls in either the horror genre in general or even this franchise but she does a decent job but it's undoubtedly Betsy Palmer's Pamela Voorhees that's the most compelling. A sympathetic but deeply psychotic villain with a wonderfully over the top performance, making the character truly memorable despite being overshadowed by her not so dead son from the second movie onwards.

- Is this the only horror franchise where the signature killer was not actually the main villain of their first movie?

- Betsy Palmer originally thought the movie was a 'piece of shit' but has seemingly softened towards it in later years.

- There have been rumours of the movie being inspired by the real life Lake Bodom murders in Finland back in 1960.

- Chronology: July 1957 for the flashbacks and June 1980 for the present day stuff.

Friday The 13th's a modest start to a horror franchise that will take  many crazy turns before coming to a halt. The story's a simple but effective one, with solid performances from the leads and the right amount of gore and scares.

Rating: 7 out of 10