The Original Friday the 13th

• Produced and Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
• May 9, 1980 (US)

A group of camp counselors are murdered one at a time by an unknown killer while attempting to re-open a summer camp with a tragic past.

The original Friday the 13^th is a film that launched dozens of imitators. After this there came a small sub genre of horror taking place at summer camps or whose events just intercepted with a summer camp of some type. While spawned by the success of the original Halloween, its creativity and general originality in the slasher genre cemented a place of its own in the pantheon of horror film greats.

It presented on screen many of what we now consider clichés of horror. Horny teenagers. An isolated camp. A mysterious killer with music used when present. The difference here is that most of the characters are somewhat likable if not actually likable in comparison to later entries in the genre. You care whether they live or die. All of this occurs at a camp with some creepiness attached to it.

I found the music often very reminiscent of the Hitchcock classic Psycho. I would dare say whoever held the copyrights of the Psycho music at the time could’ve sued these people for copyright infringement. It did highlight how deranged our main threat was by connecting to the classic but came off as heavy-handed.

For years I had no idea what the reference to Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney).  I knew it was a horror reference but beyond that I was a little lost. Now I have my answer. I also see the origin (or at the minimum popularization) of another regular trope of the crazy elderly guy which eventually morphed into the crazy elderly guy that knows a lot more than people suspect. If it happened before this I’m not aware.

While not heavy on it, there were occasional character moments in here and overall the characters are better done than in many other horror films of the era. They’re not necessarily stock characters or the most dynamic individuals but there’s a little more depth to them than in other horror movies. And maybe that is because the acting is better than one would expect in a movie like this. The script is above average and maybe that’s also why this had staying power. This was and still is quality.

What makes this work largely is the reveal at the end that the killer is not some hulking brute as one would expect but the mom of a boy who drowned at the camp while the horny camp counselors were boinking. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Jason Voorhees does not even appear in the first film of the Friday the 13^th series as the killer yet he is what it’s known for. At best we get what could be a hallucination by the only survivor of the night but that hallucination appears to have actually happened.

You may ask why Friday the 13^th is significant in this other than the theme of bad luck for everybody. It doesn’t get a strong mention but Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) when we first see her reveals that it is her son’s birthday and he apparently drowned on it. Her whole thing is to prevent the camp from reopening because of what happened with her son and she sets about murdering the entire staff. So the camp previously opened earlier than it does now?

All things considered I am not exactly sure how you get a film series from this. This is my first time viewing and it is a very self-contained story with little room for a sequel. And maybe understanding that is what draws people in part back to these films. I’m curious how this series grows to get beyond the mother as the killer and embrace Jason Voorhees as the character for which these are best known. And maybe that somewhat ambiguous ending is what helped sell it to audiences enough to get them hooked for a second film that produced so many more.

The original Friday the 13^th is a classic film that deserves its status. It is very well done and head and shoulders above the majority of the imitators that would come along later. This is one of those things everyone should check out at least once!