Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th title

Tag Line : Friday's will never be the same again.

Friday the 13th One of the first of the "next generation" of slasher pics to emerge following the success of Halloween, was this offering by Director Sean Cunningham and producer Steve Miner.

Set at a lakeside summer camp, called "Camp Crystal Lake", the film charts the mishaps of a group of teenage counsellors who are making preparations for the camp's grand re-opening, but end up falling prey to an unseen killer.

The summer camp has been closed for years following a bad string of event's, that all started when 12-year-old "Jason Vorhees" accidentally drowned in the lake one night. A flood of catastrophe's would follow, including 2 of the counsellors being brutally murdered the following year, and other attempts to re-open the camp being met with mysterious fires, as well as the lake water becoming mysteriously polluted.

It has almost been as if someone has been deliberately trying to keep the camp shut. As the body of young Jason was never actually found, many of the locals believe the camps misfortunes to be the work of the undead youth, who has returned from the depths to seek revenge.

Not withstanding, the camps current owner Steve Christy and his girlfriend Alice (Adrienne King) are determined to put these problems behind them and re-open the camp once more. Unfortunately they pick the wrong weekend to do it, the anniversary of Jason's death, and someone is lurking in the shadows to stop the camp re-opening, at any cost.

A bloodbath ensues, as the poor unfortunate teens are picked of one-by-one and disposed of in the most gruesome fashion. One particularly memorable death scene is that of Jack (a young Kevin Bacon) who's impaled right the way through the neck with an arrow whilst by somebody lurking underneath his bunk.

In the end, poor old Alice is the only one left, but having uncovered the killers identity and successfully defeated them we're left with the possibility that Jason may not have drowned all those years ago after all....

Although somewhat derived from John Carpenters "Halloween", Friday the 13th went on to become a true classic in it's own right, which was mostly down to depiction of the murders. Whereas the killings in Halloween did not rely on sudden outbursts of blood and gore to scare the audience, these killings where extremely bloody, and considered quite shocking for it's day.

The film can be viewed in one of two ways. As a stand alone horror movie it's great, with all the typical trademarks you would expect from a good slasher film, plus it did have the advantage of this level of gore and violence not being done before. However, as viewed as the first in a string of seemingly endless sequels ( the saga has so far run to 9 films, and a 10th is in production ) it tends to lose its impact on reflection.

Overall marks : 8/10

Other Information.

Alternate tag lines "They were warned...They are doomed...And on Friday the 13th, nothing will save them.", "You'll wish it were only a nightmare...", "A 24 hour nightmare of terror.", "You may only see it once, but that will be enough".
The film was cut in the US to achieve an "R" rating. This shortens the scenes where the female counsellor's throat is slashed, Kevin Bacon gets an arrow through his neck, another girl gets an axe in the head, and Mrs Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) is beheaded.
Production members Sean Cunningham and Steve Miner had previously worked together on the exploitation shocker "The Last House on the Left", which was directed by Wes Craven.
The UK cinema release was of the full uncut version, as was the original UK video that came out in the early 80's. However, following the introduction of the "Video Recordings Act" in 1984, Warner decided to replace this with the cut US version.
The music for this film was by Harry Manfredini, who also scored virtually all the sequels. The Make up and cosmetic effects where by Tom Savini, who actually made a name for himself on this movie. But unfortunately he turned down the chance to work on part 2 to do the cosmetic effects on "The Burning", which was a copycat of Friday the 13th.
The R2 DVD released by Warner Bros in the UK and Europe and the R3 DVD they released in Hong Kong in 2003, were of the original full uncut version (the current UK video is still of the cut version though).
When they came to do the 'arrow through the neck' scene with Kevin Bacon, originally the blood was only supposed to trickle out, however the plunger on the pump broke and the effects guy, Tom Savini, had to quickly blow down the hose to get the blood to come out, which resulted in the spurting and bubbling effect seen in the film.
The US DVD released by Paramount in 1999 is supposedly the R rated version, however the throat slashing of the first counsellor was longer, and the subsequent killings were all shorter then previous R rated print. It seems that paramount had an uncut print, which they tried to cut down to match the old R rated version, but got the cuts wrong. The version released in the US Box set in 2004 was the proper R rated cut version.
Pamela Vorhees claims during the film that "Jason was my only child", but in part 9 we find out that Jason had a younger sister, so she must have also had a daughter at some point. Of course, she could have been given up for adoption after birth, leaving her with only her son Jason or, Jason's sister could have been from the same father but from a different mother.
The full uncut version of Friday the 13th was also available on Japanese laserdisc in 1990. The re-issued Greek video, available on the Warner label (not the CIC/Paramount version), is apparently also the full uncut version and has also been available on Hong Kong Video CD, again on the Warner Bros label.
The part of "Jason", played by 12 year old Ari Lehman, had the biggest shock impact of the whole film as he pops up at the end, despite the fact he was only seen for a few seconds. Lehman went onto become a musician and has his own rock/reggae band called "Ari Ben Moses" in which he does keyboards/vocals.
Friday the 13th spawned a "spin off" TV show during the late 80's entitled "Friday the 13th the series". This owed nothing to any of the film's and was about a mysterious antique shop, who's products where all possessed and subsequently caused a lot of misfortune for the buyers. A lot of it was rather like those old Twilight Zone stories, the only connection to the films being that is was by the same production crew. The series was shown in the UK on terrestrial TV back in the early nineties, and is still occasionally shown on the Sci-Fi channel. The pilot episode was released onto video under the title "Friday the 13th the Legacy", and subsequent episodes under the title "Fridays Curse" but these are long out of print.
There have been many rumours of a much gorier version available in Japan. In actuality the Japanese version, released on Laserdisc, was the same as the uncut European version.