Look, no one is going to mistake any of the “Friday The 13th” movies for cinema at its best. It started out as a rip off of “Halloween” with a little bit of “Psycho” thrown in, and it soon became this never ending franchise that just won’t die. We had two of the sequels with the word “final” in them, and that turned out to be a flat out lie. Just when it looks like the franchise has breathed its final breath, it is resurrected once again. Perhaps the world is overpopulated with horny teenagers that need to be dealt with in a very messy way. In the end, these films touch at our deepest fears and exploit them for all they are worth. We know its bad, but we can’t help ourselves, and we want to see what nasty crimes will be perpetrated next.
The “Friday The 13th” movies are essentially the equivalent of a fast food meal. You know, the ones that have an obscene amount of cholesterol in them. You know it’s bad for you, but you keep coming back for more. It’s not just tapping into our deepest desires, but into our willingness to be bad and to rebel against what our parents didn’t like. Film critics never stopped attacking these movies and bashing them to pieces, yet they made so much damn money on such low budgets. It represented horror being taken to the next level for the children of the 80’s. Our parents hated the movies, and they made us all the more curious about seeing them. We came to know who Jason was as we knew who Santa Claus. I remember when “Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter” (ha, ha, ha) came out when I was in the 2nd grade, and none us had ever looked more forward to a movie that none of us would be able to see (nor had we any business to). Yes, these slasher flicks bring back a lot of nostalgia for me.
With the reboot of the franchise, it allowed me the opportunity to revisit the very first one as it was playing on demand on the FearNet channel. It was free to watch, and it was constantly interrupted by promos for the new adventures of Jason Voorhees which got increasingly annoying as it stopped the movie dead in its tracks for a moment. Now I see why these movies were being presented for free. I mean, it’s either watching the movie trailer or a Mitsubishi commercial instead. Anyway, let’s get back to the flick at hand.
The original “Friday The 13th”, in retrospect, actually seems much better in retrospect. This is especially the case when you compare them to all the sequels (let alone all the endless knockoffs) that came right after it. There is a rawness and intensity to this rough exploitation flick that the recently released reboot could not capture in all its slickness and higher production values. What surprised me is that some of the murders that occur in this movie actually occur off screen. We have no idea that they have occurred until we see the carnage put on display right in front of our eyes. It’s pretty vicious what is perpetrated in the film, and this was back when an arrow through an eye was actually shocking. For the most part, this film and a couple of sequels felt very real and didn’t always feel stagey. You have to give the filmmakers credit because none of these movies made today can even touch that feeling of reality. We all know we’re watching a movie when we see one of the later sequels, but the original of the bunch was experienced more than it was watched.
I’m sure we all know now what Drew Barrymore should have known at the beginning of “Scream;” Jason was not actually the killer in this one. It was his mother, played in a ridiculously over the top performance by Betsy Palmer. Betsy’s character of Mrs. Voorhees is basically what Norman Bates’ mother would have looked like, had he not have killed her off. Those moments where she is clearly schizophrenic, and acting as if her son is actually telling her to kill people, is both chilling and hilarious at the same time. This is far from a convincing performance, but Betsy is so much fun to watch in her deranged state that it doesn’t really matter in a movie like this.
Jason, of course, makes a grand entrance towards the end of the movie that would rival the jump out of your seat moment from “Carrie.” From there on out, it’s Jason’s show and no one else’s. How many other characters do you know of that have held a grudge against others as long as Jason Voorhees has?
The cast of actors here are basically cast not so much for their acting talent, but because they resemble (as director Sean S. Cunningham put it) those kids who came out of a Pepsi commercial in those days. In many ways, this casting choice really helped give the movie a stronger feeling of reality as they could have been people we knew from our own hometowns. They are not models who have enhanced themselves with god knows how many plastic surgeries (those would appear in the sequels). The ladies look very sweet and fetching, and the men look down to earth and definitely look like they have spent some time at the gym.
This was also the movie that started the cliché that if you have premarital sex with your boyfriend of girlfriend, then you would die. The last person left standing was always the virgin, or the one too shy to ask a boy for a date. As a result, many people think that there is this highly conservative Christian value system in place that one must follow in order to survive an experience with a masked maniac. Some will say that John Carpenter started this with the original “Halloween,” but he makes it clear in the DVD commentary that he was not trying to spread some religious dogma. John basically said that the characters got killed because they weren’t paying attention. But ever since “Friday The 13th,” it’s been open season on those kids who don’t practice safe sex.
There is also the crazy old man (Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph) who warns everybody of how they “are all doomed.” Of course, it’s always some crazy guy that no one ever listens to. God forbid that it’s some seemingly normal person who people listen to. If President Barack Obama told you this, you would listen for sure. If it was George W. Bush, your annoyance over what he said would be justified, but that wouldn’t keep you from getting your slashed (in the end, your loss). Of course, if everyone were to believe this guy, then there would be no movie.
Of all the actors in this film (let alone the entire series), Kevin Bacon seems to be the one with the most successful career. This may not show off the best of his talents, but he does get to have one of the coolest death sequences when he gets a spear shoved right through his throat. We can all tell now that this was done with a fake body with Kevin’s head still poking out of it, but it still gets you just as bad as when the hand comes out from under the bed to grab him.
Kevin also gets to have one of the sweetest love making scenes any horror movie could ever hope to have. I mean it, his character and his girlfriend actually do make love. It’s not one of those humping and pumping moments that you can find in so many other movies where one person is doing all the work, and the other is having not enough pleasure. It makes their inevitable deaths actually kind of sad. Even if we wanted to see these two people get bumped off, we don’t entirely look forward to it.
Sooner or later, we were bound to see this movie because people couldn’t stop describing some of the more graphic moments in it. I remember my brother telling me about the scene where Kevin’s girlfriend does finally get it:
“You see her looking into the shower stalls and no one’s there. But while she is looking, you can see in the background the shadow of an ax being raised up. When she turns around, you can see the ax going into her face!”
My reply to this at the time was:
“Whoa! Cool!”
Sooner or later, I had to see it for myself. Now many of you out there may think that kids should not be exposed to this. They probably shouldn’t, but a lot of kids become wise beyond their years and have their ways of seeing what they shouldn’t see. Besides, with teachers reading to us from “The Black Cat” by Edgar Alan Poe, we are exposed to graphic material a lot sooner than you think. Seriously! That story by Poe had a moment where a husband ends up sinking an ax into his wife’s brain! They teach us about what Poe wrote in school! Moreover, the kids in my class totally dug it too! Aw, those were the days!
Then of course, you have the unforgettable Harry Manfredini music score which basically sounds like Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” score on speed. Never have woodwind instruments been as thoroughly pummeled as they have been in this movie’s soundtrack. This is not to mention the "chi chi chi, ha ha ha" (it’s actually "ki ki ki, ma ma ma") that is so clearly identified with this infinite franchise. When you hear it, you know that Jason is not far away with his rusty machete.
Sean S. Cunningham is no John Carpenter, and he is probably a better producer than he is a director. But he does keep the suspense quota of the movie up pretty high and does get some good scares in there. This one did not actually focus so much on the killings as much as it did the messy aftermath. While you did see some characters get it in some of the most painful places imaginable, there were a couple of others you kept wondering about until you see their bloodied corpses. The later sequels would get more creative with the kills as time went on.
There’s no doubt that there will be more of these movies, especially since they still make an obscene amount of money. In the end, maybe people see evil in the world as more of a reality than good. Or maybe they just see movies like these as an opportunity to face their fears in a healthy way. These days I prefer to believe the latter. Besides, watching how people react in the audience to these movies is so much damn fun!
*** out of ****
The “Friday The 13th” movies are essentially the equivalent of a fast food meal. You know, the ones that have an obscene amount of cholesterol in them. You know it’s bad for you, but you keep coming back for more. It’s not just tapping into our deepest desires, but into our willingness to be bad and to rebel against what our parents didn’t like. Film critics never stopped attacking these movies and bashing them to pieces, yet they made so much damn money on such low budgets. It represented horror being taken to the next level for the children of the 80’s. Our parents hated the movies, and they made us all the more curious about seeing them. We came to know who Jason was as we knew who Santa Claus. I remember when “Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter” (ha, ha, ha) came out when I was in the 2nd grade, and none us had ever looked more forward to a movie that none of us would be able to see (nor had we any business to). Yes, these slasher flicks bring back a lot of nostalgia for me.
With the reboot of the franchise, it allowed me the opportunity to revisit the very first one as it was playing on demand on the FearNet channel. It was free to watch, and it was constantly interrupted by promos for the new adventures of Jason Voorhees which got increasingly annoying as it stopped the movie dead in its tracks for a moment. Now I see why these movies were being presented for free. I mean, it’s either watching the movie trailer or a Mitsubishi commercial instead. Anyway, let’s get back to the flick at hand.
The original “Friday The 13th”, in retrospect, actually seems much better in retrospect. This is especially the case when you compare them to all the sequels (let alone all the endless knockoffs) that came right after it. There is a rawness and intensity to this rough exploitation flick that the recently released reboot could not capture in all its slickness and higher production values. What surprised me is that some of the murders that occur in this movie actually occur off screen. We have no idea that they have occurred until we see the carnage put on display right in front of our eyes. It’s pretty vicious what is perpetrated in the film, and this was back when an arrow through an eye was actually shocking. For the most part, this film and a couple of sequels felt very real and didn’t always feel stagey. You have to give the filmmakers credit because none of these movies made today can even touch that feeling of reality. We all know we’re watching a movie when we see one of the later sequels, but the original of the bunch was experienced more than it was watched.
I’m sure we all know now what Drew Barrymore should have known at the beginning of “Scream;” Jason was not actually the killer in this one. It was his mother, played in a ridiculously over the top performance by Betsy Palmer. Betsy’s character of Mrs. Voorhees is basically what Norman Bates’ mother would have looked like, had he not have killed her off. Those moments where she is clearly schizophrenic, and acting as if her son is actually telling her to kill people, is both chilling and hilarious at the same time. This is far from a convincing performance, but Betsy is so much fun to watch in her deranged state that it doesn’t really matter in a movie like this.
Jason, of course, makes a grand entrance towards the end of the movie that would rival the jump out of your seat moment from “Carrie.” From there on out, it’s Jason’s show and no one else’s. How many other characters do you know of that have held a grudge against others as long as Jason Voorhees has?
The cast of actors here are basically cast not so much for their acting talent, but because they resemble (as director Sean S. Cunningham put it) those kids who came out of a Pepsi commercial in those days. In many ways, this casting choice really helped give the movie a stronger feeling of reality as they could have been people we knew from our own hometowns. They are not models who have enhanced themselves with god knows how many plastic surgeries (those would appear in the sequels). The ladies look very sweet and fetching, and the men look down to earth and definitely look like they have spent some time at the gym.
This was also the movie that started the cliché that if you have premarital sex with your boyfriend of girlfriend, then you would die. The last person left standing was always the virgin, or the one too shy to ask a boy for a date. As a result, many people think that there is this highly conservative Christian value system in place that one must follow in order to survive an experience with a masked maniac. Some will say that John Carpenter started this with the original “Halloween,” but he makes it clear in the DVD commentary that he was not trying to spread some religious dogma. John basically said that the characters got killed because they weren’t paying attention. But ever since “Friday The 13th,” it’s been open season on those kids who don’t practice safe sex.
There is also the crazy old man (Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph) who warns everybody of how they “are all doomed.” Of course, it’s always some crazy guy that no one ever listens to. God forbid that it’s some seemingly normal person who people listen to. If President Barack Obama told you this, you would listen for sure. If it was George W. Bush, your annoyance over what he said would be justified, but that wouldn’t keep you from getting your slashed (in the end, your loss). Of course, if everyone were to believe this guy, then there would be no movie.
Of all the actors in this film (let alone the entire series), Kevin Bacon seems to be the one with the most successful career. This may not show off the best of his talents, but he does get to have one of the coolest death sequences when he gets a spear shoved right through his throat. We can all tell now that this was done with a fake body with Kevin’s head still poking out of it, but it still gets you just as bad as when the hand comes out from under the bed to grab him.
Kevin also gets to have one of the sweetest love making scenes any horror movie could ever hope to have. I mean it, his character and his girlfriend actually do make love. It’s not one of those humping and pumping moments that you can find in so many other movies where one person is doing all the work, and the other is having not enough pleasure. It makes their inevitable deaths actually kind of sad. Even if we wanted to see these two people get bumped off, we don’t entirely look forward to it.
Sooner or later, we were bound to see this movie because people couldn’t stop describing some of the more graphic moments in it. I remember my brother telling me about the scene where Kevin’s girlfriend does finally get it:
“You see her looking into the shower stalls and no one’s there. But while she is looking, you can see in the background the shadow of an ax being raised up. When she turns around, you can see the ax going into her face!”
My reply to this at the time was:
“Whoa! Cool!”
Sooner or later, I had to see it for myself. Now many of you out there may think that kids should not be exposed to this. They probably shouldn’t, but a lot of kids become wise beyond their years and have their ways of seeing what they shouldn’t see. Besides, with teachers reading to us from “The Black Cat” by Edgar Alan Poe, we are exposed to graphic material a lot sooner than you think. Seriously! That story by Poe had a moment where a husband ends up sinking an ax into his wife’s brain! They teach us about what Poe wrote in school! Moreover, the kids in my class totally dug it too! Aw, those were the days!
Then of course, you have the unforgettable Harry Manfredini music score which basically sounds like Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” score on speed. Never have woodwind instruments been as thoroughly pummeled as they have been in this movie’s soundtrack. This is not to mention the "chi chi chi, ha ha ha" (it’s actually "ki ki ki, ma ma ma") that is so clearly identified with this infinite franchise. When you hear it, you know that Jason is not far away with his rusty machete.
Sean S. Cunningham is no John Carpenter, and he is probably a better producer than he is a director. But he does keep the suspense quota of the movie up pretty high and does get some good scares in there. This one did not actually focus so much on the killings as much as it did the messy aftermath. While you did see some characters get it in some of the most painful places imaginable, there were a couple of others you kept wondering about until you see their bloodied corpses. The later sequels would get more creative with the kills as time went on.
There’s no doubt that there will be more of these movies, especially since they still make an obscene amount of money. In the end, maybe people see evil in the world as more of a reality than good. Or maybe they just see movies like these as an opportunity to face their fears in a healthy way. These days I prefer to believe the latter. Besides, watching how people react in the audience to these movies is so much damn fun!
*** out of ****
Awesome review as always!!