In 1958, two camp counsellors were murdered at Camp Crystal Lake. The murders led to the camp shutting down.
This status quo has endured for 21 years, but finally Camp Crystal Lake is re-opening.
As a new group of cap counsellors get the camp ready, someone else is making preparations - to make sure the grand re-opening never takes place…
Slashers occupy a weird place in my movie-watching.
I did not grow up watching horror movies, but because I was not allowed to watch them they became this unseen, exciting thing - including slashers.
So instead of watching them, I became interested in slashers through reading books about horror.
I have an interest in subgenres with a familiar format, and slashers are one of those categories that is deceptively simple to understand.
While the genre is more malleable than critics will allow, what I liked about them was the set ingredients - the fun of watching them was in the filmmakers’ approach to them.
Over time, I did check out a couple of different examples, but never found a movie that won movie over.
This last October, I was feeling festive and wanted to watch more slasher movies after Halloween Ends came out. I was also keen to find a follow-up franchise after my Fast & Furious catch-up in 2021.
I settled on the Friday the 13th franchise.
I was interested in how the series assembled itself, figuring out what it was over multiple films.
I thought that would be more interesting than going for one of the other big slasher series, which tend to start with a great film and then are followed by sequels of varying quality/interest.
I tried watching this movie years ago but I gave up - I thought it was technically sloppy (I remember turning it off on the dirty edit of Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) getting an axe to the head).
Before this viewing, I had only watched Parts 2 and 4 all the way through - and that was a while back.
With the passage of time, and a stronger baseline in terms of expectations, on this viewing Friday the 13th went down easy.
The title sequence is probably the first signifier for what this movie is and wants to be.
If you have not seen the movie before, a title card zooms at the camera until it shatters the glass.
It feels out of place with the movie but weirdly nails the cheap thrills the movie is supposed to evoke - there is no attempt at subtlety or nuance.
Whatever reading you throw at it, this movie is the product of pure commerce - but nails its objectives: good-looking young people, sex and gore.
All movies aimed at a big audience have a commercial imperative, but there is something refreshing about how unpretentious this movie is.
There are things about the movie which do not work.
First things first, the movie is poorly paced and the killer POV shots are handheld rather than steadicam, which undermine some of the tension.
The cast are fine but Betsy Palmer’s arrival in the third act gives the movie a much-needed boost of energy (and some meaty subtext about the gender position of the POV camera).
One of the movie’s enduring selling-points, Tom Savini’s practical makeup effects, retain their punch.
The locations are beautiful, and while the film is technically workmanlike, it does a good job of capturing the atmosphere of a summer camp.The first couple of movies together create this vibe.
It probably helps that the movie plays out as a murder mystery, with the killer kept offscreen for most of the running time. And to its credit, after all the gore-y murders, there is a mounting sense of dread as Adrienne King’s final girl Alice realises she is alone.
As a movie on its own terms, Friday the 13th is fairly pedestrian - but its success played a big role in the rise of the slasher genre.
As a precursor to the Jason Vorhees saga, it retains a unique flavour that later sequels would lose as the format became more solidified.
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