Portly Adolescence

Rating: A-

Kicking off a new feature where I go through one of the Friday the 13th films each Friday. 

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham and released in 1980, Friday the 13th was one of the first “holiday” slasher films to capitalize on the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween. Hence, the name of the film which takes place on Friday the 13th, even though it has little to do with it. While the critics hated the gory flick, it grossed close to $40 million at the box office despite a lowly $550,000 budget. Thus kick starting a seemingly endless number of sequels and spawning tons of other kids-at-camp slasher films like Sleepaway Camp and the Burning. 

At the start of the film, a couple 1950s camp counselors are killed off after having sex. Flash forward to 1979 and the camp is being reopened as a camp for inner city youth despite the protests of the townspeople, including a local old coot called “Crazy Ralph.” They probably didn’t have enough budget for kids, so the movie takes place before the camp opens with the counselors getting picked off one by one, including Kevin Bacon who gets one of the best death scenes in the film (the fairly iconic arrow through the throat from under a bunk bed). 

Compared to Halloween, Friday the 13th is quite a bit less sophisticated. It seems like they were hoping to shoot for a mix of horror film and sex comedy, though it’s not as violent or filled with sex as later entries. The movie takes influence from Italian Giallo films with a mostly unseen killer whose eyes we see a lot of through. In particular, Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood seems to be a big influence. The “killer vision” would definitely be a major carryover in the slasher genre. 

For some who haven’t seen the series before, it may come as a surprise that Jason isn’t the killer here, but his mother. At the time, it was a brilliant strategy to have actress Betsy Palmer show up as Jason’s mother, trying to avenge the death of her son who drowned while camp counselors having sex. She was well known at the time for her TV, game show, and film roles as a kind, warm figure and no one would have suspected her.

Instead, her arrival late in the film would have likely put audiences at ease (similar to a certain actor showing up late in Interstellar). It’s unfortunate that we don’t have the same experience today. Reportedly, Palmer hated the script but did the movie to buy a new car. Later she ended up embracing her role as a delightfully deranged killer. 

One of the biggest advantages watching this film on subsequent viewings is it plays with the idea of how far a parent would go to protect their child. While Mrs. Voorhees attacks teenagers after having sex, it’s mostly about their neglect for her son. Subsequent films would translate that into a bizarre sense of morality where anyone doing “bad things” deserves punishment.

But here, it’s really more about hacking up teenagers and even the “final girl” isn’t really the main character like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. She’s simply the only left or all that pure (it’s implied she’s having an affair with the camp owner and participates in a game of strip monopoly). We don’t really care about any of these characters, though that doesn’t stop the intense end chase/fight with Mrs. Voorhees and final girl Alice from being really exciting and scary. 

Friday the 13th is a fairly trashy rip off of Halloween, but it’s pretty fun and was a little inventive at the time. Definitely worth seeing if you’re interested in the start of the slasher genre. On to the next one where Jason wears a bag over his head! 

One last fun fact is the legendary Tom Savini did the make-up effects for the film. He had just received some popularity working with George Romero on Martin and Dawn of the Dead and the arrow scene and the decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees would make him the go-to effects guru for most of the slasher era. 

-James P.

Mrs. Voorhees Body Count: 9