Friday the 13th raving review!

Friday the 13th was released May 9th 1980.

It was directed by Sean S. Cunningham, who also produced it with Steve Miner. It was written by Victor Miller. The Effect were done by Tom Savini and the music was by Harry Manfridini.

The original title was A Long Night at Camp Blood.

A LONG PREAMBLE!

Sean Cunningham had worked with Wes Craven on 1972’s Last House on the Left.

The Last House on the Left is a gritty, proto-slasher, exploitation film. Craven said on violence in the movie, “I am going to make a film where I don’t cut away. I won’t make it look operatic and balletic... ()... They’re going to get shot and scream and crawl...()... because that’s what violence is. It’s horrendously messy and it has a perverted sexual side to it...” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

In essence horror is graphic reality. It’s offensive. It’s a shocking truth.

Craven went on to say that exploitation films “are made by disenfranchised people... they tend to be younger...()... often they have very little to lose by telling the truth...” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

After the experience of making Last House on the House Craven went on to make many more gritty horror films like The Hills Have Eyes. Meanwhile, Cunningham took a lighter route.

“Instead of making an endurance test of a film like Last House, Cunningham now wanted to make a roller-coaster ride, and wanted audiences to enjoy being scared instead of being repulsed and disturbed.” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

Cunningham is a producer... he’s a salesman, a marketer.Ok so to explain the idea Cunningham had for Friday the 13th, we need to talk

about Halloween (1978).

This independent movie directed by John Carpenter of a budget of about $325,000 ended up grossing about $70 million world wide making it the most successful independent film at that time. It is considered the first modern slasher and it’s the film that started the “mad slasher boom of 80’s” according to David Konow in his book Reel Terror.

Cunningham saw Halloween got the idea for Friday the 13th... basically. And enlisted Victor Miller to write the film.

“One day, Miller got a call from Cunningham: “Halloween is making a lot of money at the box office. Why don’t we rip it off?”” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

““from a financial standpoint, which was the most important factor at the time of making Friday, the success of Halloween was the main inspiration.” He also felt Halloween was a great title that, even if the movie wasn’t good, would still bring people to the theaters, and was obviously hoping the same for Friday the 13th.” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

In essence so many of these holiday horror movies sell based on the title. As someone who has watched a lot of holiday horror movies with crappy substance but a great title I can report that this does work.

Miller was forced to see Halloween by Cunningham because he wasn’t really familiar with horror, his takeaways were: “And I saw the most important things with Halloween were you had to have a prior evil that happens before the movie begins, you had to have a location or a set of circumstances that prohibited the adult world from coming to the rescue of the sexually active adolescents. I needed a group of absolutely wonderful Pepsi Generation kids to come in, about to have the most wonderful time of their lives, as long as it included getting laid, and there’s a force working behind the scenes you couldn’t see until the very end. Then it was a question of establishing them, taking them out one by one, and justifying why nobody knows what’s going on. ...()... The other hard thing is justifying going in there, as in, don’t go in there!” And, of course, after seeing Halloween so many times, the you-have-sex-you-die edict also became part of the road map.” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

So Miller and Cunningham went with “The premise ..[of].. a remote location and putting a lot of young people in jeopardy.” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

This is pivotal to horror movie history.

From the 1920-1960’s horror was monsters, ghosts... it wasn’t a place, and if it was it was a haunted castle.

The 60’s saw the loss of the Production (Hays’ Code) and rise of serial killers (coined 1974)... thus we got slashers (Psycho).

We really didn’t see ‘camp’ horror, the terror is going to the woods... which became its own subgenre, until the 70’s. Although, we have seen it in comedies like 1979’s Meatballs.

People going into the woods films were mostly coming from Italy. And it was in films like Cannibal Holocaust (or some zombie films) where a cast of white people travel overseas and meet darker skinned people who are cannibals or zombies.

Then in the earlier 70s you get these hardcore exploitation films like I Spit on Your Grave, Deliverance, Last House on the Left, (Tourist Trap?) which happen in the woods. In those films though it’s driving a few miles to go camping in the woods IN the US. Then getting stalked and killed by your fellow citizens.

Further, there had been movies for teenagers, and even horror movies about teenagers, like Carrie, but Halloween was really the first big movie to have a group of high school friends being killed off. Which, Friday the 13th continued and popularized.

It’s like what they say in marketing: sex sells. Or in this case sexy sells.

Cunningham went forward with Miller writing the script. He brought in Steve Miner as a producer. They scraped together about $500,000 to make the movie and cast in New York.

“The camp scenes were shot on a working Boy Scout camp, Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco which is located in Hardwick. ...()... in Warren County, New Jersey in September 1979.” - Wikipedia.

What is truly important about Friday the 13th is that with the success of Halloween, major studios want to pick up the distribution rights. There was even a bidding war. Paramount won and dropped somewhere from $500,000 to $1M in marketing for the film. - Wiki

It was the first independent slasher film to be acquired by a major motion picture studio. - Wiki

“Friday the 13th opened theatrically on May 9, 1980 across the United States, ultimately expanding its release to 1,127 theaters. It earned $5,816,321 in its opening weekend, before finishing domestically with $39,754,601, with a total of 14,778,700 admissions. It was the 18th highest-grossing film that year...()... The worldwide gross for the film was $59,754,601.” - Wikipedia.

Friday the 13th is not the best slasher of the 80’s... but it’s one of the best remembered because it was one of the widest distributed. It’s the one people saw.

The last thing I want to talk about up front is the R-rating. BOY! People (critics) took issue with the R-rating and that really came back to bite this franchise in the gore.

“In plotting the murders, Miller recalled the killings didn’t have to be gory, but inventive, more personal. Where Halloween was restrained, scaring the audience without blood, Friday the 13th delighted in letting the blood and heads fly. “The effectiveness of the film did not come from subtlety,” said Cunningham” quoted from - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

The main bone of contention for critics appeared to be that a major studio,

Paramount, had “lowered” itself to release this violent, independent picture onto thousands of screens across America. ...()... Most vocal in their condemnation of the film were American review double-act Siskel and Ebert. More controversially, they also encouraged movie fans to voice their disapproval by writing to Betsy Palmer, ... - The Teenage Slasher Movie Book (Kerswell, 2018).

Kerswell goes on to describe how other directors used Friday the 13th as a template for what they can get away with. So going forward the MPAA became very harsh with their rating of future installments of this franchise especially.

Now we can talk about the movie!

THE MOVIE PLOT - Major Spoilers!

Opens on a full moon in the woods with people singing around a fire in a cabin - Camp Crystal Lake 1958

POV shot going through FOX cabin with sleeping kids with Manfidini’s score.

Two camp counselors [Barry + Claudette] sneak away to kiss. POV shot and M-score. They’re killed! Barry first, then Claudette runs around trying to defend herself in slow motion. She’s killed off screen as we cut to the Title in 3-D! which shatters glass.

Kill Count #1-2. Sex = on screen death.

“Hitchcock Principles: do something horrible in the first reel, leave the audience dreading...” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

It’s the first kill or original sin. It establishes audience expectation, lets them know bad things are going to happen... then give the writers chance to let the audience get know know and like the main characters before they start killing them off later in the film.

We open on Friday, June 13th, The Present. Which is in 1980.

It’s a 22 year jump forward.

A girl, Annie, is walking through town (Crystal Lake) with a backpack. She stops in a diner to ask how far away Camp Crystal Lake is to the surprise/shock of the locals. It’s about 20 miles from there.

One asks: “Camp Blood, they’re opening that place again?”

Enos gives Annie a lift about half way.

Crazy Ralph stops them! “You’re going to Camp Blood, ain’t you? You’ll never come back again. It’s got a death curse!”

Enos calls him “a real prophet of doom...” OMG the Harbinger of Doom is born. Steve Christy owns Camp Crystal Lake.Annie is going to be a cook - for 50 kids and 10 staff.

Enos warns Annie that Camp Crystal Lake is jinxed. He tells her about the two kids murdered in ‘58, boy drowning in ‘57, a bunch of fires, in 1962 they were going to open up but the water was bad.

“Christy will wind up just like his folks, crazy and broke. He’s been up there a year fixing that place. He must have dropped 25,000.” So the Christy’s have owned Camp Crystal Lake going back decades. Now Steve has inherited it and is trying to open it again after 18 years (apx). Also note that CCL was established in 1935.

Annie gets out to hike or hitch the rest of the way.

Three youths in a truck (Marcie, Jack, and Ned) Jack is played by a young Kevin Bacon. They are pervy, laughing, having a nice ride to Camp Crystal Lake.

They meet up with Steve Christy who is chopping wood in an outfit....

Alice is already there... and may have an romantic entanglement with Steve.

Bill is cleaning out the boathouse.

The meeting is rushed as they clearly have a lot of work to do in two weeks, before the children get there.

Steve is looking at and commenting on Alice’s artwork. He also says she’s very pretty... he’s flirting. They totally have a thing going. She might leave early but promises to give him a week.

Alice runs through the woods to Bill. The camera is clearly watching her, the score plays, it’s very predatory if not voyeuristic. This is from Cunningham’s work on Last House on the Left which employed a more documentary style of film-making to feel more real and elevate the graphic violence.

“Cunningham wanted the look and feel of Last House, primitive and crude: “I’ve always felt that a big part of the attraction of these films is that the people watching them probably think they could direct them themselves.”” - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

Jack, Ned, Brenda are talking to Steve. They’re waiting on Annie, who is the only one to have not shown up yet. He wants to get everything done before the rain comes tonight.

Steve, Alice, Annie, Bill, Brenda, Jack, Marcie, Ned, = 8 people. Thus we have a finite cast or a predetermined body count.

Marcie makes a joke about snakes, tragic foreshadowing.

Brenda is setting up the archery stuff and is nearly hit by an arrow when Ned plays a bad trick, great shot through. I believe it was Tom Savini who actually did it and man he has great aim! What an unnecessarily dangerous stunt.

Annie hitches a ride from someone in a dark green Jeep. The driver misses the turn.. And sinister music begins to play. Annie wants to stop and the unseen driver speeds up, so she drives out of the Jeep and makes a run for it into the woods. The unseen killer chases Annie through the woods. The killer slits her throat... which we see in all the gory detail.

Kill Count = #3. No sex - on screen death.

Brenda, Ned, Jack, Marcie, Alice, and Bill go swimming.

Ned is playing around too much. Is it his fault all these horror movies have a prankster friend? Is Ned the og asshole?

Alice finds a snake in her room and Bill kills it; they are joined by the rest of the would-be counselors. I’ll spare you a trip to doesthesnakedie.com, they really killed the snake. The American Humane society does not approve.

A police officer (officer Dorf) shows up while Marvie and Brenda are talking about food and Ned is fooling around. The cops is... well he’s an American original as Annie would say, and older man who hates the youth of today (today being 1979).

The Officer is looking for Ralph. I think this sets him up as a potential threat.

So why this scene is important is it’s intention is to establish that the counselors aren’t going to get help from him. We see this in a lot of horror movies. It’s to isolate the would-be victims. Horror depends on isolation, which is why camping or the woods is a ripe location for a horror film. Especially today with cell phones existing, it’s a location where it can still take time to get to someone to help them.

Alice gets a jump scare of Ralph coming out of a food-closet. Marcie and Ned run in. Bill tells Ralph to “get out of here”.

“I have a message from God, you’re doomed if you stay here. This place is cursed. Cursed. It’s got a death curse. God sent me. I got to warn you. You’re doomed if you stay. Go. Go!” Then he leaves.

But we see Ralph is on a bike... and we know the killer has a Jeep... so he’s not the killer. This is not a who-done-it.

Jack and Marcie are chillin by the lake, kissing. They’re being watched... by Ned who seems lonely. Ned is walking along and sees someone in a cabin. He goes to check it out, asking, “hello, can I help you?” And he’s never seen again.

Kill Count = #4. No sex = off screen death.

Jack talks about the weather. Marcie complains about Ned. Marcie tells Jack about

a dream she has about raining blood.

The storm rolls in. They go to a cabin to have the sex. She’s in panties and a shirt, he’s shirtless in jeans. We cut away, when we cut back they’re undressed and moaning.

We see Ned’s dead body above them! His throat was slit too! After... she goes to pee.

Jack notices drops of blood on his head after he puts his shirt back on and starts smoking. ARROW THROUGH THE THROAT. Best kill!

Kill Count #5. Sex = on screen death.

We follow the unknown killer with the score into another cabin where Marcie is going to the bathroom. Marcie in the bathroom does a Kathrine Hepburn impression in her shirt and panties... for reasons? She hears sounds and thinks it’s Jack or Ned. She looks around. We see the shadow of the ax raise above, hit a light, then bury in Marcie’s face.

Kill Count #6. Sex = on screen death.

This is done with the ax, hitting the light, to show the weight of the real a before cutting to the fake one that does the movie-kill.

Important to note they are the only two of the six counselors who had sex... I need to stop and talk about sex equal death. I won’t go too in depth but Miller got this idea from Halloween and I want to read what Carpenter himself said about it.

“It wasn’t my intention to make a moral point. The other girls were busy with their boyfriends... (distracted). Laurie had the perception because she’s (not distracted). She’s lonely, she’s looking out the window.” quotes Carpenter from - Reel Terror (Konow, 2012).

So really... it was Friday the 13th that cemented, if not created that trope, not Halloween. Notably because in Friday the 13th they make this an explicit reason behind the killer’s motivations which we’ll see later in the film.

Alice, Bill, and Brenda are in another cabin by a fire as Bill plays guitar. They play strip monopoly. They smoke grass and drink beer.

“Alice draws first blood.” - Bill’s boot.Brenda leaves to run through the rain. Alice and Bill are left alone.

Steve’s at the diner drinking coffee and talking to Sandy. He has six counselors he needs to get back to. He’s clearly a Crystal Lake native. He also has a Jeep... gasp! Though his Jeep appears to not want to start.

A cop (sergeant Tierney) is there, a different nicer one. They talk. He gives Steve a ride.

Brenda is brushing her teeth and gets the sense someone is there. The music gives us the sense of that too.

We see Brenda through a window of her cabin.

Brenda hears what sounds like a boy crying out “help me” from a distance. She goes outside to look in the rain. She’s lured to the archery field... it came full circle.

We don’t see her die but we hear her scream.

Kill Count #7. No sex = off screen death.

Alice is alone by the fire playing the guitar. She thinks she heard a scream that sounded like Brenda and the lights on at the archery range.

Bill comes back in from the rain and they go to look for Brenda. They can’t find Brenda, Jack or Marcie.

They do find a bloody ax in a bed... tucked in... huh. They go to look for Jack but can’t find them.Shit no one cares about Ned... poor Ned.

They check the bathrooms. She thinks they should call someone. She’s worried. They go to the office but it’s locked. She breaks a window to get in. The phone is dead. The pay phone doesn’t work.

Bill thinks they’ll be laughing about this tomorrow.

Cop and Steve note there is a full moon and it’s Friday the 13th. Steve says he’s “making science out of coincidence.” in regards to people acting strange on the full moon.

Oh Crazy Ralph is at home with his wife... huh.

The cop needs to go to a head on collision so he drops Steve off. The rain has let up so he’s walking.

At the Camp Crystal Lake sign he runs into someone he seems to know and is killed off screen.

Kill Count #8. No sex = off screen death.

Killer cuts power.

Bill goes to check the generator... it’s like fishing. Alice stays in the office and sleeps. Never split up kids. Learn from Scooby-Doo.

Bill tries to get the generator working... kind of a long scene for nothing to happen.

Alice wakes up with a start! Jump scare...

Alice makes coffee... I think. Then she goes to have a look around and we get a scene ripped straight from Halloween. It’s the Final Girl finding all her friend’s dead bodies.

Bill was arrow’d to the door. And the screaming begins... as Alice runs through the woods to another cabin where she locks the door. She’s very resourceful.

I’m confused on whether the door opens in or out... because she ties it closed as if it out (it does) then barricades it as if it opens in (it does not)...

She closes all the blinds and arms herself.

The one window she doesn’t close the blinds for... the killer throws Brenda’s dead body through... Alice freaks out.

She sees the Jeep lights and thinks it’s Steve but oh no the killer has the same Jeep!

“Who are you?”

“Well, I’m Mrs. Voorhees,” about 1hr 15min in, “an old friend of the Christy’s” played by Betsy Palmer. A nice older woman in a grey knit turtleneck. Someone you can trust. And Alice does, running into her arms sobbing.

“I used to work for the Christy’s.” (bwaaaam).Alice is trying to tell her they’re all dead, but Mrs. Voorhees goes to look. EXPOSITION!

She sees Brenda’s body. Gasp! “Oh my lord! So young. So pretty. What monster could have done this? Oh God this place! Steve should have never have opened this place again! There’s been too much trouble here. Did you know that a young boy drowned, the year before those two others were killed? The counselors weren’t paying any attention, they were making love with that young boy drowned. His name was Jason. I was working that day that it happened. Preparing meals. Here. I was the cook. Jason should have been watched, every minute. He was... he wasn’t a very good swimmer...”

Alice wants to wait for Mr. Christy.

Mrs. Voorhees hallucinates that she hears Jason calling for him. Wait, can Jason talk because in her mind he sure can... huh.

“You see Jason was my son. And, today is his birthday.”

“Where’s Mr. Christy?”

“Oh I couldn’t let them open this place again could I? Not after what happened.”

Alice is suspicious...

“My sweet innocent Jason. My only child. Jason.” She becomes enraged. “You let him drown! You never paid any attention! Look what you did to him!”

She pulls out a knife on Alice. Alice hits her with a fire-poker then runs out the cabin. She tries the Jeep but finds a dead Annie so decides to run into the woods where she’s met with a dead Steve hanging from a tree (umm how?).

Mrs. Voorhees talks in Jason’s voice I think. “Killer her Mommy. Killer her. Don’t let her get away Mommy. Don’t let her live.” Then she promises ‘Jason’, “I won’t. Jason. I won’t.” It’s very Norma/Norman Bates from Psycho.

Alice gets a gun but can’t get to the bullets. Mrs. Voorhees is still talking like Jason. Mrs. Voorhees just manhandles Alice, literally slapping her and throwing her around.

Alice gets a good hit or two and runs out of this building through the woods, again... she hide and waits for Mrs. Voorhees to run past her.

Poor Mrs. Voorhees is in a full on psychotic episode thanks to the full moon aligning with her son’s unlucky birthday.

Alice hides in another building... in a closet or pantry. This cat and mouse game goes on a little too long for my liking.

Mrs. Voorhees comes through the door like Jack Torrance from The Shining which was released two weeks after this.

Alice hits Mrs. Voorhees in the head with a frying pan, which is a great weapon she should have kept it. Horror movie rule, always drop the weapon.

She then goes to sit in a boat, Mrs. Voorhees gets a third wind and comes after her. They fight! Like rolling on the ground, hitting each other, biting each other, fight. Alice gets to a machete and cuts off Mrs. Voorhees head. Not a bad effect at all.

Alice gets back in the boat and pushes off. She’s drifting on the lake, I assume for safety, when we cut back to her it’s daylight and she’s traumatized.

The police arrive... way too late. They’re calling out to her but we don’t hear them over the dramatic-triumphant music playing.

JUMP SCARE! child Jason jumps out from the water and grabs her!

TWIST! She’s in the hospital asking about the little boy hysterically.

“Is anyone else alive? Are they all dead?”

“The boy... is he dead too? The boy Jason, the one who attacked me. The one who pulled me underneath the water.”

She’s told by the cop that they didn’t find any boy.“Then he’s still there.” ... looks off to the distance (almost at the camera) as an

image of the lake is overlaid.

“The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was initially not used in the original script; in Miller's final draft, the film ended with Alice merely floating on the lake. Jason's appearance was actually suggested by makeup designer Tom Savini. Savini stated that "The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen Carrie, so we thought that we need a 'chair jumper' like that, and I said, 'let's bring in Jason'"”. - Wikipedia...

CONCLUSION!

Friday the 13th includes themes of motherhood, good for her, revenge, sex equal death. Ultimately it, like most horror movies, is a cautionary tale.

Having the killer not only be a woman but a mother was pretty shocking.

“Miller delighted in inventing a serial killer who turned out to be somebody's mother, a murderer whose only motivation was her love for her child. "I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Voorhees was the mother I'd always wanted—a mother who would have killed for her kids."” - Wikipedia.

Friday the 13th is a profoundly important film to the horror genre in the 1980’s. What Halloween started, Friday the 13th catapulted into the mainstream.