LogFAQs > #979837811

27. Friday the 13th (1980 / 296 points)
Directed by: Sean S. Cunningham / Written by: Victor Miller
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Why Its Significant - Friday the 13th took the blueprint laid out by Halloween, upped the body count, and reveled in the anxieties of a generation raised on warnings about premarital sex and drug use. The film established the now-cliched formula of picking off characters indulging in these vices, and, while Halloween dabbled in the killer's perspective, Friday the 13th pioneered its use. Innovative shots placed the audience directly in the eyes of the killer, blurring the line between viewer and villain and intensifying the moments leading up to the kills, as well as providing HUGE pay-off on the twist (one that can surprisingly still catch many a modern first-time viewer off-guard if all you know is Jason!) It was a smash success as an indie film, made for a mere $550,000 but going on to gross nearly $60 million. In fact, it was the first independent film to be acquired by a major motion picture studio and there wasnt any doubt that the film would be a success or had untapped potential - in fact, it was embroiled in a huge bidding war between three studios! The film's expected financial success of course launched a juggernaut franchise, spawning nine sequels, a crossover film with Freddy Krueger, remake, TV series, comics, games, music, countless merchandise and references the media world over. And thats ALL without even properly & fully introducing the franchise's iconic villain Jason. Friday the 13th is undoubtedly one of the most influential horror films ever released.

The Rankers
Fortybelowsummer - 7
Seginustemple - 15
Karo - 16
Jcgamer107 - 19
Johnbobb - 22
Inviso - 23
Snake - 25
Bitto - 27
Evilordexdeath - 28
Mythiot - 28
Plasmabeam - 28
Rockus - 28
Lightning - 30

Fortybelowsummer - This was the first horror movie I saw as a kid so its immensely important to me. I dont think its an exaggeration to say that it was a life altering event that, along with discovering Stephen King, made me a horror fan. That being said, its not exactly a great movie. A number of the sequels are better, mainly because, yknow Jason is actually the killer in them. The dialogue and acting are quite bad and theres no real plot as it segues from one kill to the next. But does that really matter with a movie like this? Not really, and if youre down with some boobs and blood (courtesy of the GOAT Tom Savini) then youre in for a good time. Spawning 11 other movies, a tv series, games, and mountains of merchandise, its certainly the standard bearer for the slasher genre and an all-time classic.

Seginustemple - I can't believe it took me this long to finally see this, and what a pleasant surprise that Jason isn't the killer in this one nor is the hockey mask thing even in the movie. It completely caught me off-guard that it's Mrs. Voorhees in a reverse-Psycho scenario. I have seen Scream, but forgot about that famous bit of trivia from the opening scene. They even provide a plausible motive for killing all these people specifically while they're getting it on - it's about the neglect of their counselerly duties! Besides that it was just good to have a basic, straightfoward slasher in the mix. Nothing fancy, plain and to the point.

Karo - A mysterious killer massacres summer camp counselors in this slasher classic. It is pretty by the numbers for these kinds of movies, a bunch of hot people take their clothes off and arbitrarily wander off alone until they get stabbed.

I do like how they only show the killer from a first person perspective until the very end, rather than sensationalizing their appearance. It makes it seem like this monster could be any person, instead of some cartoonish freak. Anyway, it is the actions of a killer that make them scary, not any stupid mask they wear.

Still, it is full of incredible stupidity like this idiot girl who knocks out the killer THREE times and then just keeps wandering away so they can wake up and continue chasing her. Please just impale yourself on something already before you can further pollute the human genome.

It is a serviceable movie that gets the job done, though not really one that is deserving of its pop culture status or having like a dozen fucking sequels, it is simply 'okay'.

Jcgamer107 - 4/10

Johnbobb - If nothing else, Friday the 13th is just proof of how good Harry Manfredini was at making an absolutely terrifying horror score. I've never really understood why he didn't end up becoming a recognizable name like so many of the other horror composers of the 80s did. I think Friday the 13th succeeds in basically everything is sets out to do; it's unsettling and thrilling and mysterious in a way that, had it not ended up being one of the biggest horror franchises of all time, would now be viewed as a cult favorite.

Inviso - I feel like I must have seen this before, yet I cannot remember having seen a good chunk of it before this watchthrough. Maybe its just a film so ubiquitous (or Ive seen other Friday the 13th films), so I only thought Id seen this before. But ultimately, this isnt exactly a film I enjoyed watching; its VERY boring. The characters all feel interchangeable, with the singular personality trait of slightly flirtatious, and the end result is a LOT of establishing shots of nature, and the woods, and the lake, while the cast are performing mundane tasks like swimming or hitchhiking or playing Monopoly. Its just very slow, and the problem is that this almost feels like a documentary rather than a movie.

What I mean by that is that the story isnt told in a way that makes for an exciting film. The events are shown as if this is a very realistic instance of a serial killer attacking a summer camp. You open on some camp counselors getting murdered while having sex, then the next scene is a girl hitchhiking, where shes told about how the camp is cursed. Cut to a different group of kids driving to the camp, where they meet the guy in charge, who winds up leaving soon thereafter. Cut back to the hitchhiker girl, where she gets murdered first, and it just feels completely out-of-place, because she never meets or interacts with anyone else in the cast, and shes only ever referenced as being a good cookso shes JUST there to up the kill count.

Thats what I mean though, when I talk about documentary style. It feels like the movie is telling events as they happened, chronologically, regardless of whether they benefit the film as a whole. Theres a point where a girl goes off alone to use the bathroom, and shell eventually get stalked and killed with an axe to the face, but rather than maintain that single scene to really amp up the tension, the movie keeps cutting back to a superfluous Monopoly game. Its just really weird,

what the film chooses to emphasize. Hell, AFTER everyone is dead except for Alice, she finds her first body and freaks out, and we then get a scene of all the precautions shes taking to barricade the building shes in. Tying a rope to he doorknob, locking windows, closing blinds, shoving things in front of the door. This is all leading to a single moment where another body gets launched through a windowand then the killer justlets that happen. For some reason, the killer chooses to psychologically torture Alice and Alice alone.