Friday the 13th (1980)
“Channel
4s 100 Scariest Moments” #15
Friday the 13th
(1980)
This film makes WAY too many “best ever” lists. Though it has proved
hugely popular and influential that doesn’t change the fact that it’s
unmitigated garbage. Character-and-content free, it stole from its betters and
failed to demonstrate it had a single original visual or narrative idea in its
pointy-little-head. No better than adequate technically, certainly not
distinctive stylistically, it never-the-less launched a franchise that ruined
much of the out-put of the Horror genre for at least a generation.
It’s a central film in the development of the Slasher film, the emptiest
of all Horror sub-Genres. It didn’t invent it, the two films that created the sub-Genre’s
conceits were far better movies, the flawlessly crafted and darkly ironic "Texas Chainsaw Massacare" and “Black
Christmas” (both 1974), and the surprisingly well-written and elegantly shot “Halloween”
(1978). These were all shockingly violent, but surprisingly bloodless. “Friday the
13th” merely recycled those two and cemented all the shared plot-points
into dreary clichés and added gallons of the red stuff. It also lifted violent
scenes the from shallow, but still innovative, “Bay of Blood” (1971). And it
had a dream sequence that, according to Screenwriter Victor Miller, was, "as
close as I could steal from ‘Carrie’ [1976] without being arrested."
The “Carrie” swipe was the film’s final jump-scare, and most cite it as
the best scene in the movie, but it failed to communicate that the main Character
was dreaming, so it really didn’t make a whole lotta sense because a
decapitated Character suddenly reappears with head reattached. As Mike Hughes noted, it "copies everything, that is, except the quality.”
It is not surprising that it was produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, whose background
was the Sex-and-Violence driven Exploitation films that slithered through America’s
Grindhouse circuit, his most famous prior film being “The Last House of the
Left” (1972). Here, Cunningham was directly inspired by the surprise success of
“Halloween” and called Miller saying, “‘Halloween’ is
making a lot of money at the box office. Why don't we rip it off?"
They threw the production together quickly, taking
out a full-page ad in “Variety”
proclaiming that “Friday
the 13th” would be "the most terrifying film ever
made" before they had a script, the money to make it with, or even the
rights to the title. Casting began immediately afterwards, still before they
had a script, and the whole project was completed for about $550,000.
It then became the first
independent film ever to secure major studio distribution for its USA release
and was, in fact, the subject of a bidding war. It grossed a shocking $39.7
million domestically. This contrasted with two other, far superior-and-respectable
Horror films from 1980, “The Shining” and “The Changeling,” both which seemed
to flounder in the box-office. Though “The Shining” did, eventually, do
excellent business and ultimately brought in a bigger net, it couldn’t claim
the same return-on-investment – “Friday…” grossed better than 72 times the initial
investment, while the much more expensive “The Shining” only grossed 2 ½ times.
By the end of the year, about ten other Slashers had hit the theatres, almost
all mechanically derivative of “Black Christmas” and “Halloween” and this one,
and the numbers would remain pretty consistent for most of the rest of the
decade. “Friday…” became a franchise that is now twelve
painfully-repetitive films long, has penetrated other media, and there are dark
threats of more to come.
And for the life of me, I have no idea why it was appealing to anyone.
So, what’s the story about?
Well, just before Crystal Lake Summer Camp reopens, the Camp Councilors
gather together to get their orientation, flirt with each other, and stand
around stupidly and get murdered -- and trust me, that’s a very detailed plot
outline.
In the 95-minute film there are ten graphic killings (eleven if you count
the dream sequence, twelve if you include an accidental drowning of a child) so
basically its one killing less-than-every-ten-minutes; this rush for body-count
is made even more ludicrously extreme by the fact that most of the killings
were proceeded by a stalking sequence (which encourages audience identification
with the Killer, not the Victim), so the entire film has a conveyor-belt feel. Believe
it or not, the trailer actually promises at least one addition death, which
never happened.
It goes without saying it is wholly lacking in characterization, mood, or
pacing. The motive for the killings is not revealed until the last twenty
minutes, and the solution to the mystery should’ve been more sickeningly
exploitive than the Sex and Violence that proceeded it, but at least it achieved
something akin to High-Camp, which is yet another thing the rest of the movie
desperately lacked in.
Wrote Kim Newman, “As the bodies pile up
amongst this testy crowd of horny teens, there remains a vacant hole were
someone scary should be.”
The film was universally panned, with some critics being kind enough to
point out the cast was likable (the film has some fame for being Kevin Bacon’s
first movie-role even though it was actually his fifth), the cinematography (Barry Abrams) and editing (Bill Freda) were decent, and
there were fans of both the music (Harry Manfredini) and make-up
effects (Tom Savini), but even those kind reviewers were quick to point out all
these plusses were wasted efforts within the wholly empty enterprise.
Gene Siskel was probably the films’ harshest critic, “It
has been suggested to me that a great way to keep people from seeing a truly
awful movie is to tell them the ending. I like that idea a lot, and I know it
is a powerful (and controversial) weapon. So, you're going to have to trust me
to use it wisely… and sparingly." He then gave away the ending, and closed
with "Now there, I hope I've ruined ‘Friday the 13th,’ which is the latest film by one of
the most despicable creatures ever to infest the movie business, Sean S.
Cunningham." Siskel had held Cunningham in contempt since “The Last
House…” if not earlier, and a few years later he and his
rival/partner/enemy/friend Roger Ebert spent an entire episode of their TV
show berating “Friday…” and similar Slasher fare.
Cunningham’s
response (which came decades later) is revealing, "The person who calls ‘Friday the 13th’
a 'film' is pretentious. This is the movie business we're involved in. And
there is a difference." I refuse to honor him for his honesty about his cynicism
and must add that even Cunningham doesn’t seem to like the film, "The
movie has no emotional impact on me at all. The characters were thin at
best."
Scott
Meslow, scratching his head about the series popularity, concluded that
everything contemptable about the film is exactly the roots of its appeal, “‘Friday
the 13th’ accidentally created the no-frills,
platonic ideal of the slasher movie … Films are great — but sometimes,
audiences just want a movie.”
I’ve only seen the first two and tenth films
from beginning to end, but the others are unavoidable if you are a compulsive TV
channel-surfer like me. I’ve seen significant chunks of the eighth and eleventh
installments, but beyond that, everything else I have to say is based on reading
other critics. It is important to remember that not seeing all the films
doesn’t matter because ALL THESE FILMS ARE ALL THE SAME! There were attempts to
find variation, or create a mythology, but all for naught.
This series is now associated with the Monster
Jason Voorhees as the main Villain, but this didn’t
happen until second film, Jason didn’t don his iconic hockey mask until the
third, didn’t become a superhuman Zombie until the sixth. The fourth had
promised that it would end the series definitively (we now know that was a lie).
The fifth tried to substitute a new Villain. Twice (minimum) there were attempts
to set him up against an equally powerful Hero. There were attempts to change
the setting (Times Square, a luxury liner, hell, and even outer space). In
desperation, there was even a crossover with another Horror-film franchise
(with Villain Freddy Kruger of “Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) which was created
by West Craven who directed “The Last House…”). In even greater desperation,
there was a reboot. The twelve films had eleven directors and seventeen
writers, and not a single one was any more distinctive than any of the others.
There are internet websites that keep
body-count tallies: excluding dream sequences, virtual reality, and the unborn
children of pregnant Victims, but including the repeat murders from the reboot,
there have so-far been 203 killings, 151 committed by Jason personally. And
there were comics, games, and a TV series –
To be honest, the TV series (first aired in
1987) wasn’t bad, but it also had no connection to the movies. I’m not sure why
it gets included in the franchise.
The tag line for the fifth film was “If Jason
still haunts you, you are never alone.”
And to avoid
that, Simeon Stylites sat for 37-years atop a pillar in near Aleppo.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S8YFTcEDME
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