Friday the 13thThis splatter flick, along with John Carpenter'sHalloween, helped spawn the great horror-movie movement of the '80s, not to mentioneightsequels, many of which had nothing to do with the films that preceded  them. It also gave birth to Jason Voorhees, one of the three biggest  horror-movie psychos of the modern era (the other two beingHalloween's Michael Myers andA Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger). Forever duplicated, the originalFriday the 13thpopularized a number of themes and techniques that today are now  clichés: the increasingly gory murders, the remote forest location, the  anonymous and nubile cast, the murderer as cult hero, and, of course,  the moral that if you have sex, you will die, very painfully. Still, if  you have to see aFriday the 13thmovie, this is the one to check  out. A group of eager (and horny) teenagers decide to reopen Camp  Crystal Lake, which 20 years earlier was closed after the shocking and  mysterious murders of two amorous camp counselors. You can take it from  there, as the teens get picked off one by one, during a dark and stormy  night; of course, their car won't start and there's no phone. The ending  stole shamelessly from Brian De Palma'sCarrie, but it still  provides a slight if campy shock. Look for a young Kevin Bacon as the  requisite stud--you can tell that's what he is because when the cast  appears in swimsuits, he's wearing a Speedo--who's the beneficiary of  the film's best murder sequence, an arrowhead to the throat. Right after  having sex, of course.--Mark EnglehartFriday the 13th, Part 2As bad asFriday the 13th, Part 2is, it's a work of art in comparison to the rest of theFriday the 13thflicks that came afterward. This installment officially introduced us  to Jason Voorhees as the killer (if you remember Drew Barrymore's fatal  phone quiz inScream, you know that the killer in the firstFriday the 13thwas actually Jason's mother), and made the slicing and dicing even more  generic. Survivor Alice is dispatched within the first 10 minutes, and  we're left with plucky Ginny (Amy Steel, doing a fairly decent Jamie Lee  Curtis impression) to do battle with the monstrous Jason. Ginny's part  of a another group of horny teenagers (less intelligent as well as less  attractive than their predecessors) who try to resurrect Camp Crystal  Lake five years after the initial murders--a pretty mean feat,  considering this movie was made only a year after the first one. Being a  smarty-pants child-psychology major, Ginny tries to outwit the dim  Jason, and at one point dons the bloody and moldy sweater of Jason's  late mother (which is more disgusting than any of the killings  beforehand) in an attempt to confuse the masked killer. Jason may not be  the brightest bulb on the tree, but the only one who's going to pull  the wool--or in this case, the burlap--over his eyes is Jason himself,  who wears a sack with one eyehole throughout the movie to hide his  deformed features (he finally found his way to a sporting-goods store  and his trademark hockey mask appears in the third installment of the  series). Directed by Steve Miner, who also helmed the nextFriday the 13thfilm (in 3-D no less) as well as the more reputableHouse,Forever Young, andHalloween: H20.--Mark EnglehartFriday the 13th, Part 3The tender, tragic saga of Jason Vorhees, the world's unhappiest camper,  continues when yet another batch of hormonally advanced teens decide to  ignore past history and spend some time at the woodsy, pine-scented  slaughterhouse known as Camp Crystal Lake. It may be a bit of a stretch  to describe any of the entries in this interminable series as "good,"  but this creatively grotesque installment manages to come surprisingly  close with a welcome sense of humor and some quick glimmers of real  menace (courtesy of director Steve Miner, who would later go on to helm  the far more accomplishedHalloween: H20). Originally presented  in 3-D, which explains the never-ending slew of objects (knives,  pitchforks, yo-yos, cats, eyeballs, etc.) that are repeatedly thrust in  the viewer's general direction.--Andrew WrightFriday the 13th, The Final ChapterAmateur butcher and enthusiastic hockey fan Jason Vorhees is back in  business, and business is good. Can a plucky young boy stop the madness  before Camp Crystal Lake's population report takes yet another  machete-aided dip? The stalk-and-slash formula was pretty narcoleptic by  this point, but this otherwise humdrum entry is distinguished by some  unusual casting choices (Crispin Glover as a stud in training? Corey  Feldman as a genius?) and the splattery return of makeup master Tom  Savini. The fact that this installment was titledThe Final Chaptermay seem to contradict the existence of the numerous sequels that  followed, but it's not as if logic was ever this series' strong point to  begin with.--Andrew WrightFriday the 13th, Part VIIA philosophical quandary: when we truly get a glimpse behind the mask,  do we like what we see? This eternal question is directly addressed in  chapter 7 of the famedFriday the 13thgross-out series. Here,  indestructible killing machine Jason meets his match in the form of a  telekinetic teenage girl. Yes, it's "Carrie Goes Camping," although the  young lady with special powers might have picked a better vacation spot  than Crystal Lake, which has an awful track record for young blondes in  tight jeans. This installment is exactly no better or worse than the  previous Jason-o-ramas, with the added bonus of a climax in which the  imperturbable Mr. Voorhees actually duels someone with supernatural  gifts to rival his own. Yes, he does lose his hockey mask (the heroine  mind-wills it to pop off), and the results ain't pretty--but then,  neither is theFriday the 13thfranchise.--Robert HortonFriday the 13th, Part VIIIStart spreadin' the news... Jason Voorhees, the cleaver-hoisting man in  the hockey mask, has finally left Crystal Lake behind and taken his  vagabond shoes to the Big Apple. Actually, Jason spends most of his time  on a cruise ship bound for Manhattan, carving up the unluckiest high  school graduation party ever. You'd think the change of scenery might  breathe new life, or death, into the series, but chapter 8 is standard  stalk 'em and slash 'em fare, albeit with a nautical slant. The title  hints at a comic tone, but except for the one-joke idea that Jason fits  right into the menacing urban scene, forget it. (The comedy would wait  until the surprisingly entertainingJason X.) This one does have a  pretty leading lady, Jensen Daggett, whose visions of the young drowned  Jason are occasionally creepy. The grown-up Jason, like "these  little-town blues," is melting away.--Robert Horton