Friday the 13th (1980)

[baumer]

Review it

[75Live]

The first Friday. As most people know, now due to Scream for the younger generation, Jason wasn't the killer in this movie.

You follow the camp counselors to Camp Crystal Lake where they are trying to fix it up to reopen it for business. The facts of the camp come out that it was closed due to many murders and the death of a child. The child drowned due to the counselors at the time not paying attention. Yes, this child was Jason Voorhees.

As the movie goes on and they are repairing the place, one by one you can see them getting stalked by an unknown person and then murdered, usually pretty brutally.

When only one counselor remains, Alice, we meet up with an "older" lady, Pamela Voorhees, who tells the tale that it is her child that drowned so she is the one that is making sure the camp never opens again.

During the last struggle after Pamela stalks her victim for a while, she gets decapitated.

Alice relaxes in a canoe at the end in a very serine scene with the happy music playing, the cops are there, and the camera fades back to show the credits...but, it's all a trick and we see a rotting child jump out of the lake and pull her in.

After Alice wakes up in a hospital bed, she asks the police about the boy that pulled her in and the cops state there was no boy. So Jason is still down there.

Due to the stranded nature of the location, the intimacy you get is what helps drive the suspense. The music works well to help with the scariness. You know there is no one around to help and with the forest setting, you never know where the killer could be.

Plus, looking back it is funny to see Kevin Bacon in the flick and getting killed off.

A-

[ddddeeee]

Lots of fun.

[TheMovieman]

Classic horror film with great thrills and a fun twist ending

 

***¾/*****, (B+, 7.7/10, 3/4)

[baumer]

I like the original, but not as much as 2,3,4,5.  Still, it has great atmosphere and the chopping of Mrs. Voorhees' head is classic.  

 

8/10

[Maxmoser3]

Not a perfect movie but it was still good and the gore and body count and the music by Harry Manferdini was what made the movie and I also liked the uncut version as well of this movie. So overall a solid B. "Kill her mommy kill her"

[RobinHood26]

I like it but it really could have been much much more. 

 

B- (80)

Edited March 10, 2015 by Jay Hollywood

[Blankments]

The most interesting aspect of Friday the 13th is the cinematography. Looking very cheap, at points it resembles the visceral style of modern found-footage films. The first-person kills are by far the best part of the film, which is why the first act is miles better than the other two. The biggest problem is that every character is forgettable. The audience has no reason to care if the counselors live or die, so there's absolutely no tension in the entire film. It's only in the third act when we actually get motivation from the killer does the film become at least exciting. Friday the 13th is considered an iconic horror film, but yet, it completely lacks in the terror the genre requires. C-

[Water Bottle]

It does it's job and while I was surprised Jason wasn't the killer in this movie (I guess he becomes the killer in later movies despite being dead in this one lol) I did like that the slasher was a woman. For some reason, it's not something you really expect. Too many of the characters blended in together so it became a bit hard to care who lived or died. I wouldn't say the movie was scary but it was enjoyable. Which is a weird thing to say about a movie where people are getting murdered but hey horror is a weird genre for a reason.

 

B

[baumer]

Jason is the killer starting in 2.

 

Dont hold your breath for an explanation.

[baumer]

I just finished reading On Location in Blairstown...The Making of Friday the 13th.  I liked Friday the 13th immensely before, but now with a lot of info about how it was made, it just makes it that much better.  The reason, imo, that this one and the Final Chapter are so good is because Tom Savini worked on both of them.  

 

Here's some point form interesting tidbits about the movie:

 

Sean Cunningham was under immense pressure to get this film made and constantly fought with his Boston investors.  They had initially promised him $500,000 for the film and ultimately they did deliver but at times during production, they were late with payments and things like food was one of the things that had to be cut down.  They went from a hot table to sandwiches with ham and cheese.

 

Steve Miner and Sean Cunningham produced the film.

 

Tom Savini was paid $15,000 for the make up effects.  This had to cover his staff and all of his props.  He said he barely made any money on the film but when they asked him back for the Final Chapter, he asked for an exorbitant amount of money and got it.  

 

Friday the 13th was ripped to shreds by film critics and pretty much everyone in the film community, except the horror community.  When it became a massive hit, people were shocked.  

 

Sean Cunningham was so disillusioned with his investors (they invested on his last film and they made money off it and Cunningham didn't see any of the profits) that he demanded, and was granted, 25% of any Friday the 13th related profits for eternity.  Steve Miner also signed a deal that gave him a life long cut of the profits, much less than Cunninghams, but once the film became a smash, both men were millionaires over night. This means that Cunningham and Miner have a stake in all the revenues for everything F13th related.  Theatrical, HV, posters, action figures and everything else.  

 

Tom Savini had one chance to make Kevin Bacon's death work.  Bacon had to sit under the bed with his head propped up through a hole in the mattress, for six hours.  Savini and his team made a mould of his neck and chest.  they then had a tube filled with movie blood sticking up through the mould.  When it came time to film, Savini was responsible for stabbing the spear through Bacon's fake chest.  His assistant was responsible for pressing the button so that the blood would flow through the tube and out of the fake chest.  When ACTION was yelled, it all went well, until the blood had to come out.  It didn't work and if this shot wasn't done properly, it would take them another few days to do it all over again and they didn't have the money for this kind of thing.  The assistant just decided to blow into the tube and it worked.  The blood was supposed to come out in small squirts, but with the blowing in the tube, you got more of a geyser of blood that spewed all over Bacon's mouth.  The effect was amazing and it all worked out because of some quick thinking.

 

Betsy Palmer, who played Mrs. Voorhees, hated the script, calling it a piece of shit that no one would see.  She only did it because she needed a new Mercedes.  She was paid 10 grand for 10 days work and once filming was through, she thought the film would never even make it to the theatre.  When it became a big hit, she would make more money doing conventions and signings that she had in most of her career up to that point.

 

One of the actors was Harry Crosby, Bing Crosby's son.

 

When Kevin Bacon was sought out for the role of Jack, his agent was told that he would have the best part because he gets to have sex with the girl.  hen the agent told Cunningham Bacon would take the role, he said, "Kevin sees that he will get to have sex in the movie.  Kevin likes sex, so he will take the role."

 

To film the stinger at the end, where Jason pops out of the lake and grabs Alice, this was done in late October, when it was about 45 degrees outside.  The young actor who played Jason, was not wearing a wet suit and was submerged in freezing water for hours at a time.  It turned out to be the most difficult shot in the movie much to Cunningham's chagrin.

 

Adrienne King, who plays Alice, was paid $758.00 a week.

 

When Cunninghams friend and mentor, Wes Craven saw a rough cut of the film he said it was okay.  He said it needed some work.  This was before all the sound effects were finished and iconic Harry Manfredini score was not added yet.  When he saw the finished product, he was stunned and told Sean that he had a big hit on his hands. 

 

Friday the 13th benefited from critics like Gene Siskel giving it 0 stars and calling it misogynistic.  This just got people more interested in seeing it.  When people sat in the theatre and Jason jumps out of the water at the end, some movie goers actually fainted.  This kind of horror had never been seen before.  

 

Friday the 13th made 39 million for Paramount and another 40 million overseas, in its FIRST YEAR.  It continued to play at drive ins world wide for about a decade and the money kept coming in.

 

Of all the people who worked on the film, career wise, Only Tom Savini's career took off after f13th.  Bacon obviously had a huge career but not because of F13th.  But Savini's work was legendary and he was next approached by the new kids in town, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, to work on their new horror film called The Burning.  

 

I'll do some more if anyone actually reads this.