H'ween Horrorthon: 'Friday the 13th' (1980)

"Goin' to Camp Blood, ain't cha? You'll never come back again! It's got a death curse!"

—Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph.

Hello, one and all.

First and foremost, I hate camping! Did it once; never wanted to do it ever again! Not sure what the allure was, but somehow the thought of living or staying in the outdoors, even for a week, was the most heinously shitty idea ever invented. And now that that's off my chest, on to my latest entry. This was the first slasher movie to follow the footsteps of the masterpiece that became the blueprint for ALL splatter movies: Halloween, from 1978.

Friday the 13th was released in the spring of 1980 and followed a very interesting pattern of placing horrific events on a set day of the calendar (i.e. holidays or events). It seems the fear of the number 13 is indeed a real one. It's called "Triskaidekaphobia"—and is enough to cause paralyzing fear and anxiety to many people. Many elevators jump from floor 12 to floor 14, all based on this urban myth of 13 being an extremely unlucky number.

The film was an instant smash, although one, like myself, would be hard-pressed to understand what the entertainment value would be in seeing people butchered and hacked to pieces by a killer. It's my understanding that writer Victor Miller and director Sean S. Cunningham wanted to take the basic idea behind Halloween and elaborate it further. Instead of setting it a suburban hamlet where a killer is stalking horny, weeded-up teenagers on Halloween night, Cunningham found the perfect setting. The setting? Where else? A summer camp being run by a group of college kids who are just begging to be hacked off, one by one.

The 1980 Poster

They're a motley crue of mostly (dumber than dirt) college-aged kids who are setting the cabins up, doing as little work as possible, either skinny dipping or fornicating, and getting high on marijuana. It seems that this film also followed the time-honored tradition of what happens to lust-driven, promiscuous teens who let their guard down. They are eventually punished severely. By knife, by machete, by axe, bye, bye, bye...*NSYNC song cue!*

The plot is pretty self-explanatory. Nubile and horny kids (mostly unknown actors: Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, and Robbi Morgan; a hitchhiker who buys it way too early in the film) get a summer camp ready. They're systematically being killed off one by one. It's always set to the strangely confusing sound effect: "Ch-ch-ch...ka, ka, ka...ch-ch-ch...ka, ka, ka..." It's supposed to sound scary, but actually sounds a bit goofy, especially when you start doing it about a zillion times over and over! One of the victims is none other than Kevin (yep, "Mr. Six Degrees of...") Bacon who would be the ONLY cast member to move on to bigger and waaaay better things! Footloose, JFK, Flatliners, and A Few Good Men to name a short, but important few. His dispatching is certainly the most memorable, as an arrow makes its way through his thorax as he's enjoying a much needed ganja break! Now, the burning question...was the killer indeed Jason Voorhees, a young boy who drowned but whose body was never found? No...

***SPOILER ALERT*** (see image below!)

The "Real" Killer!

It was Mommy all along! We all know by now that serial killer Jason Voorhees isn't the killer in the inception film—he ends up showing up in the 1981 sequel. The iconic hockey mask wouldn't be donned until the ill-advised 1982 sequel in 3-D. It's Pamela Voorhees, played by the late Betsy Palmer (who herself admitted she never thought in a million years that this cheapie horror film would become the powerhouse horror franchise it became), with a killer grudge against the counselors who, while doing the nasty, allow her deformed son to drown in a nearby lake. But, as the final victim admits, she's convinced that Jason is still very much alive...and will strike again. And yes—he's never stopped since!

Okay, my two cents. Of all the Friday the 13th films, I still feel this one's the best. Is it a masterpiece? No. But, it sets out to do what it wants to do and that is to scare you legitimately and make you über-petrified of ever going camping ever again. Needless to say that of all the sequels, clones, reboots, and repeat offenders, this is the only one I validate. Take it from me...I, too, am a Messenger From God!

Fun Little Fact: It's been reported that very strange sound effect I mentioned is actually a breathy, altered phrasing of "Kill her, mommy." Ooohh, I'm a-scurred!

Awww....

Next Up: Rear Window—with a vampire!