[7.1/10] Sometimes you just come to something too late to fully appreciate it. *Friday the 13th* didn’t necessarily start the slasher genre, but it certainly codified it. So coming to the horror movie after seeing films like *Scream*, which deconstructed and rebuilt the slasher movie tropes (and, incidentally, spoiled this movie for me), or *Cabin in the Woods*, which remixed them in trippy meta fashion, it’s hard for the 1980 originator to rise above “enjoyable but rote” for a viewer raised on its inheritors.

When you know what the rules are, how the sinful must be punished in a slasher film, how the crazy old guy must give warnings that will never be heeded, right down to who the woman behind the knife is, it’s just hard to be emotionally invested. That’s no fault of the movie. If anything, it’s a sign that *Friday the 13th* did its job too well, that it become too embedded in our pop cultural DNA that something once innovative retroactively becomes playing it straight, which makes it hard to quicken the pulse of jaded scary movie watchers like me.

The interesting thing is that while, by that standard, *Friday the 13th* feels a bit quaint, it never reaches the levels of cheesiness or hokiness that, for instance, its future franchise combatant Freddy Krueger does in *Nightmare on Elm Street*. As silly as some scenarios like a game of “strip monopoly” are, and as shopworn as the slasher beats seem to the modern eye, the film never gets cartoony, which makes it easier to appreciate on a craft level even it doesn’t quite move or scare you.

Part of that comes from the tone and style of the film, which is an interesting blend of stylistic flourishes but also a cinema verite feel. As banal as some of the interactions between the steadily mowed-down counselors are, there’s definitely a sense of director Sean S. Cunningham just pointing his camera at a pack of teenagers at a summer camp and watching them go. Portions of the dialogue get hammy, but everything from horsing around by the lake to a collective flip out over a snake in a cabin feel true to the way unsupervised young adults act around one another.

And that ties into the movie’s theme, such as it is, with Mrs. Voorhees as an instrument of karmic punishment for the way such adolescent indiscretions can lead to neglect or, in this extreme case, tragedy. It’s hard to take the psychotic revenge tale told in the film too seriously given its outsized bent, but there is a sense that *Friday the 13th* is, like much of great horror, reflecting the anxieties of its teenage audience back at them. The notion that the carefree and exhibitionist vibe of youth is not, in fact, weightless, and that the ignored authority figures are right and a day is going to come when you’ll face consequences for your actions builds some social subtext into the undercarriage of the film’s scares that give them a bit more weight than they might have otherwise.

But much of that is a small layer of extra meaning given to the various kill and chase sequences that make up the main focus of the film. And these are where the film feels like a well-done blend of tones, as the realness of the kids’ interactions gives way to any number of stylistic flourishes meant to heighten the horror and suspense of each gory scene. Images like a close-up of a hand grasping flesh, or a cadaver strung up in horrifying detail evince an intention to use the movie’s cinematography to convey the film’s pleasure and pain motifs in an artistic way.

The peak of this is the way *Friday the 13th* uses point-of-view shots to obscure who the killer is until the big reveal. While the “ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah” is so hardwired into the horror genre that it’s hard to take it seriously, and while *Halloween* used the same trick earlier and better, putting the viewer behind the killer’s eyes serves both to allow us to see the killer’s deeds without knowing her identity, and to make us distantly complicity in the grisly acts put up on the screen.

The twist itself -- that Mrs. Vorhees is out for revenge on the sorts of teenagers who let her beloved son die nearly 25 years prior -- is neat enough. The fake out and explanation is a little *Twilight Zone* in its tidiness, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Knowing the twist lessened its impact, but there’s still something laudable about how Mrs. Voorhees shows up to the camp and seems to be the savior, only to turn around and unveil that she is, in fact, the cause of all this murder and mayhem. Her schizophrenic orders from “Jason” himself come off more corny than scary, and she has the “thought I killed you already” fake out that a modern viewer is inured to, but she makes for a solid antagonist to anchor the last act of the film.

That’s the worst you can say about *Friday the 13th*. In 2017, its tricks have become old hat, and it’s incapable of spooking or scaring a horror fan coming to it so late in the game. But it’s still a solid, well-made picture, with just enough thematic material to make it interesting, and enough cinematic touches to make it an interesting study in how to use images and editing to create satisfying horror set pieces.

It may not carry the same oomph it once did, with thousands of (mostly pale) imitators sapping the power of its tropes and beats, but it’s still hard not to admire the film in an academic sense if nothing else. *Friday the 13th* is a sturdily-built little horror machine, one that manages to feel both real and outsized in turn, and delivers its kills and twists with aplomb, even if they can’t quite keep you on the edge of your seat anymore.

I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to movies that are outdated but in the case of _Friday the 13th_ I can't even begin to describe how utterly awful it is. It was the start of a bad franchise that just went (IMO) down the toilet almost from the get-go. I have to give props to the original for at least being original (hint: it wasn't Jason) but apart from that, there's almost nothing good to say about this movie. The acting was completely horrendous, the repetitive _"Kill kill ill ill ill ill Die die die ie ie ie ie ie...Jas'n jay jay jay jay..."_ over and over and over and over ad nauseum was just too much. I remember being in high school and hearing all my friends talk about _Friday the 13th_ and how horrifying it was (growing up in a very conservative home, I did not attend movies and this was long before computers and streaming video); several years after, I stumbled blindly into the age of VCRs and videotapes, and managed to watch this one (along with II and III, which had already been released by that time) and was semi-spooked by it. But the "violence" and…well, what I **thought** I remembered as being "gory" is hardly worth a second glance by today's standards. So much of it was just ... it was just BAD. That's all I can say. I can't even give this one my standard _"It's a bit dated by today's standards but still worth watching..."_ mark; this one just isn't worth watching. Not by ANY standards. It's not even "so outdated that it's fun to watch"; it's just BAD all the way around. This is NOT the first time I watched this one (or the others) but it's the first time I've had Trakt to record my thoughts about it, so here we are. Just don't bother with this one, or ANY of these…because they just get worse from here. Danger, Will Robinson... Just avoid this one at all costs. It's just BAD.

Certainly not the first slasher movie, but arguably the most influential.

This original film stands alongside _Part V: A New Beginning_ as the only two movies in a 12 film long franchise where they play the killer as a mystery, I think that premise would wear thin had they tried it every go around, but here it is executed, if not masterfully, at least to the film's benefit. _Friday the 13th_ is a movie I'll watch at least once a year, ever since I first saw it in the early 2000s. Maybe it's not the best movie ever, or even the best slasher movie ever, Hell, maybe it's not even the best Friday the 13th movie ever, but the fact that I'm not sick of it yet has to count for something.

_Final rating:★★★½ - I really liked it. Would strongly recommend you give it your time._

Horror films, and more specifically slasher films, have never been a high priority for me. In fact, until this week, I don't think I had seen a single slasher film. So, in recognition of the iconic reputation held by some of the classics of the genre, I am now setting out to remedy this gap in my film history. This film was the second in my journey, following _Halloween (1978)_. Unfortunately, two movies in, I'm already starting to remember why these movies weren't a high priority.

To put it simply, this movie just doesn't have much to it. Most of the characters are lacking in meaningful development, and even in the cases where an attempt is made, the characterization doesn't end up mattering, with no connection to the plot, narratively or thematically. At the end of the day, the characters only purpose seems to be to die, which doesn't make for all that compelling of a film.

As with _Halloween (1978)_, this movie undoubtedly inspired any number of tropes/clichés, and while credit should be given for introducing such elements, at the end of the day, they don't hold up. The final segment of the film is the worst offender, [spoiler]with the "final girl" walking away from an incapacitated (but still very much alive) villain, not once, but **three** times. That whole sequence was unbelievably hard to swallow[/spoiler].

As the only other slasher I have seen, I can't help but to compare and contrast this film to _Halloween (1978)_. This film's soundtrack was not as effective for me. The villain didn't have as much of a presence throughout, which took away from the tension. On the plus side, I think the acting on display in this film was slightly better over all. The kills were also a bit more visceral (although still pretty tame to a modern audience).

Finally, as with _Halloween (1978)_, I was pleasantly surprised that I was unspoiled as to the plot of such an iconic movie, totally unaware of [spoiler]the origin story of Jason Voorhees and the fact that he wasn't the killer[/spoiler]. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Kevin Bacon, who I had no idea was in this. Mr. Bacon's less than graceful dive into the lake was probably the most unintentionally hilarious scene in the movie for me.

Seems only fitting to watch this today and still holds up really well and Betsy Palmer was really creepy. Have to think a newer generation of teens or those in their early 20s probably would find this mild compared with other horror movies, but I kind of like the simplicity of the story and kills.