Friday the 13th (1980)

The original Friday the 13th movie is regarded as a horror movie classic. It blended mystery, suspense, and helped kickstart the slasher craze that was popular in the 80's and 90's and is still somewhat popular today. The movie helped kickstart the popular Friday the 13th series of that has spawned 12 movies as of today. Though he was not the primary killer in the movie, the original movie helped jumpstart the horror icon Jason Vorhees. The 1980s movie is not the best film ever made, but it is an easy watch and it is much better than it has any right to be. It has its flaws, but none more so than the choice of ending the director decided to go with.

The film ends in a shocking twist that the mother of Jason Vorhees is behind the brutal murders of all the camp counselors in the movie. The sweet, docile, sweet looking older woman can be capable of such brutality. It is a twist that I am sure no one saw coming at the time, and it is a twist that is still talked about to this day. Not to mention the other twist towards the last couple of scenes as well where a zombie childlike Jason Vorhees attacks a fragile young camp counselor. Emerging from Crystal Lake and dragging Alice (the main protagonist of the movie) down with him to the depths of Crystal Lake. The movie would have ended perfectly on this scene. Leaving the audience to wonder if this last scene was real? Perhaps it was a dream? It was also a very well implemented jump scare as well. The rest of the movie was very straight forward. It all felt like maybe it actually could happen. The scene where the young Jason pops out of the water weirdly felt out of place in the movie, but still worked tremendously well. It was a perfect ending to a cult classic movie. Or, it would have been if that was indeed the ending to the movie. For some reason the choice was made to add some clarity to the bizarre scene that the audience had just witnessed. The question of "what just happened?" was answered immediately. That sense of wonder was clarified. After Alice is attacked it is shown that she wakes up in a hospital with a doctor and officer answering all of the questions that the audience was left asking. While the attacks on the camp grounds were indeed real, the attack on the lake was all "just a dream." The old it was all just a dream gag rears it ugly head in this film. After the amazing jump scare that left audiences rattled wondering what they had just seen was snuffed out by the addition of the hospital scene. The film would have worked perfectly had it ended on that scene. Can you imagine how the audience would have felt if the movie ended with a young zombie looking Jason Vorhees dragging the protagonist of the movie down to the depths of Crystal Lake with him? The unnerve the audience would have felt. But instead, we get left with this weird hammy ending answering all of the questions that were left unanswered in the film. It answered questions that did not need to be answered. It snuffed that sense of wonder that many were left with after the jump scare had taken place. Those extra 2 minutes that were added to the end of the movie may not have ruined the movie itself, but it definitely bogged down a fantastic ending.

There is a reason many do not talk about the actual ending to Friday the 13th (1980), and many just interpret the jump scare scene towards the end of the movie as the actual canonical ending to the movie.

Film