There was a time when I never would have even considered watching a slasher movie like Friday the 13th. I am not sure what exactly changed about me. I don’t care much for gore or jumpscares, and slasher movies don’t seem to be much more than that on the surface anyway. Besides, it’s Friday the 13th. That’s the series where masked killer Jason Voorhees just lumbers around a summer camp, brutally dispatching teenagers in the messiest way possible until he temporarily dies again.
But this is the first movie, and it’s part of the cultural consciousness enough for me to know Jason isn’t the killer in this one, and there’s nothing particularly supernatural going on. And I am trying to fill in my gaps. Why not?
After a brief cold open when a pair of camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake break away from the crowd to, in their own words, mess around only to die at the hands of unseen killer, we cut to the present (you know, 1980) as the Camp is being reopened and a new group of teenagers is coming in to finish setting the place up before the campers arrive in two weeks. There are some ominous warnings from all kinds of locals, but no one is really worried about anything until the bodies start to pile up, all the work of a killer the audience doesn’t see until late in the movie due to off-screen deaths or POV shots through the murderer’s eyes. Eventually, there’s one girl left, Alice, and she faces off against the deranged Mrs. Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), a woman who clearly lost her mind when her young son Jason drowned at the camp because the counselors who were supposed to be watching him went off to have sex.
And, really, that’s all there is to this movie in terms of plot. Much has been made of how Jason, when he took over the series as the killer, had a special hatred for anyone having sex or doing drugs, but there’s none of that coming from his mother. She’ll kill anyone just trying to open the camp back up. Indeed, her first victim after the opening credits is the closest the movie comes to a virginal character, and that’s mostly because she’s the idealistic one looking forward to preparing meals for a bunch of inner-city children (she doesn’t like the term “kids”). And while the teens, left to their own devices, do engage in some sex and substance abuse, Alice isn’t exactly abstaining from such activities. Heck, one victim dies when she hears what sounds like a small child calling for help outside in a storm. Not exactly the worst of people.
Then again, truth be told, these are a rather bland bunch of people. There’s an obnoxious wannabe comedian who probably would get a #MeToo charge today, and one that is noteworthy simply because he’s played by a young Kevin Bacon, but I couldn’t tell you what made most of these kids tick or indeed what their individual names were in most cases. The cast of Alien they are not, but to be fair, the script is hardly on the same level as Alien anyway. I never felt particularly anxious despite the movie’s best efforts, and the one really effective jumpscare (Jason jumping out of the lake to grab Alice in a dream sequence late in the movie) was one I actually knew about, so, yeah, not that effective on me personally.
That said, there are some good things about the movie. Palmer reportedly didn’t care for it at all and only agreed to make the movie because she needed the money to buy a new car, but she doesn’t phone it in and is easily one of the more distinct characters in the movie. The make-up effects from Tom Savini are really good, and the score works, particularly when it sounds like a tribute (or rip-off) of Psycho‘s own great score. But all things being equal, this is a by-the-numbers horror movie, and it didn’t do a whole lot for me in the grand scheme of things.
Grade: C
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