Friday the 13th (1980)

***Friday the 13th*** is an American slasher film directed and produced by Sean S. Cunningham, written by Victor Miller, and starring Betsy Palmer as Pamela Voorhees. The cinematography was done by Barry Abrams and the film's score was composed by Harry Manfredini. It's notable for being the first film in one of the most popular horror film franchises in recent years.

## Plot

In 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, a group of campers was suddenly murdered by Jason's mother Pamela Voorhees who was an unseen assailant killer. Twenty-one years later, A group of counselors is brutally killed one by one at a summer camp held at Camp Crystal Lake, when the entrepreneur Steve Christy reopens the site, which was shut for years.

## Why It Rocks

1. This is the film that started the Friday the 13th film series and it explains the origin of horror icon Jason Voorhees.
2. It was one of the first slasher films to really popularize the genre and put it into mainstream pop culture.
3. The idea of an unknown killer attempting to murder the camp counselors in Camp Crystal Lake is interesting.
4. The posters look cool and creepy.
5. Pretty good direction by Sean S. Cunningham.
6. The cinematography looks good.
7. One of the creepiest settings in all of the slasher films, a campground; this has also become a popular setting in horror films.
8. The scene in Pamela's memory that shows Young Jason Voorhees drowning is sad.
9. Lots of unique and gruesome deaths.
10. Great soundtrack that was composed by Harry Manfredini.
11. While most of acting is cheesy and isn't all that good, Betsy Palmer puts on a pretty good performance. Surprising, when you consider that Betsy only did the film for the paycheck and thought the film itself was shit.
12. Great practical special effects for the time including the death scenes.
13. Despite being a dream, the scene that shows Jason's rotting body attacking Alice Hardy is still scary.
14. **KI KI KI MA MA MA**

## Bad Qualities

1. While the special effects were great for the time, they haven't aged all that well. You can see in the famous 'arrow through the neck' scene that the neck is clearly fake.
2. While having Jason's mother as the killer in the first film was a good idea, she would've had a bigger impact if she was revealed earlier on and interacted with the characters more.
3. The movie is known for copying Halloween (1978).
4. **Ass Pull**: Throughout the film, it's implied that the killer is someone with lots of muscle and with a male-like build, but in reality it's a character with a much weaker build and is someone we haven't seen nor heard of up to this point.
5. **Padding**:
	* The overly long scene where Alice makes and drinks a cup of coffee.
	* The sequence of Alice finding a snake in the cabin and the teens all banding together to kill it does very little but pad the run time. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't in the script and was a random suggestion by Tom Savini.
	* Marcie and Jack's talking in the thunder storm seems like a flimsy attempt at a 'character moment' with Marcie talking about an ominous dream that was supposed to foreshadow that something bad is going to happen. But since Annie and Ned have already been killed, this does nothing more but just pad the film out.
6. **Missed Opprotunity**: Many have pointed out that the film would've better if the scene where zombie Jason Voorhees rises out of the lake to grab Alice was in fact the ending since it would've worked as the perfect sequel hook and twist. Unforunately, this is ruined by revealing that that scene was a dream. It also rips off the ending of *Carrie (1976)* and doesn't even make sense in the context of the film, since, unlike *Carrie*, nothing explicitly supernatural happens or is suggested to have happened (ignoring the sequels where Jason really is undead).

## Reception

The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, and audiences alike, and it has a 64% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 5.58/10. The consensus reads: "Rather quaint by today's standards, Friday the 13th still has its share of bloody surprises and a '70s-holdover aesthetic to slightly compel." But on Metacritic, it had a 22/100 based on 11 votes with "Generally unfavorable reviews".

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