Film Review--Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th
directed by Sean C. Cunningham
written by Victor Miller
starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Peter Brouwer

Ah, this most famous of slasher flicks still manages to create a well-crafted and thoroughly engrossing slaughter fest by employing exquisite music, editing, and limited character development. The audience doesn’t care about most of these people. Joy is made pronounced by the various methods of death featured in this film.

It’s a standard that has been aped by thousands since its first release in 1980. It’s an exceedingly simple story. Unwitting councilors gather at Camp Crystal Lake where terrible things have happened nearly a quarter of a century ago. A young boy drowns and the next year two councillors in heat are butchered by a knife-wielding maniac. Fast forward to modern times and the stage is set for some grisly death action.

The film does not disappoint. It routinely jacks up the tension and nothing that occurs is obvious. It’s greatest asset is its music by Harry Manfredini. It’s reminiscent of Bernard Herrman’s score from “Psycho” without sounding at all derivative. It wholly adds to the intensity of the scenes when the killer is suspected to be at large. It often sounds like knives slashing but can also be hauntingly beautiful particularly late in the film. It’s a gorgeous and threatening soundtrack which intensifies the horror being depicted on screen.

Basically, the only legitimate reason to view this type of film is to revel in the body count and to note the new and invigorating methods used to dispatch the victims. In this film the range is limited to blades, arrows, and axes. Admittedly, those killed are not missed and their loose living seems to warrant their quick demises. Indeed, it’s always the sexually active kids in these films who get offed first. If you are fucking or trying to fuck you will die and one can always support the killer in this puritanical obliteration of teen agers who submit to the edicts of their hormones and try to have it off. Sex is the enemy here and every remnant of its existence must be destroyed. All that is left is the one girl who remains chaste and she alone is forced to fight off the monster in order to survive.

The atmosphere here is maintained throughout. Even twenty eight years after it’s release, this film still manages to create chills in an audience who imagine’s itself inured to every aspect of teen age death cinema. We have seen it all and nothing that will ever be released again can ever quite satiate our thirst for blood. No matter how graphic and relentless the Saw Franchise becomes, no matter how intricate its methodical desecration of flesh untrammeled there will never be another scene that will truly shock us. Yet here we have a film that continues to haunt due to the simplicity of its plea. It’s all in the editing and score. A maniacal killer on a rampage means nothing to us now. The faceless killer with no set plan other than elimination no longer possesses the novelty or the mystery that once must have given audiences quite a healthy shock. So, what can we possibly do to afford a return to that time when such a thing spoke to us in a primal, cathartic sense?


What does a collection of young, healthy bodies mean to us as a people? Innocence is sacrificed for the sake of amusement and we relish each execution because they bring us closer to an understanding of ourselves. We want the poor councillors to reach a heartless, grisly end and celebrate the methods that are used in their unholy deaths. What is behind this? Do we hold the same values against all victims of unceremonious violation? I can’t imagine the same enthusiasm for the senseless murder during the many holocausts that have plagued mankind. Can not the average viewer identify at least somewhat with those who are hacked to pieces for our amusement?

Still, it all comes down to presentation. This film tries to offer us a well-healed portrait of the victims but it doesn’t work in the end. We are introduced to them but never really get a grasp on their personalities. They remain as faceless as the killer and their deaths subsequently hold no weight. Therefore, we exult when they are finally reduced to ash. This film satisfies a queer longing we all harbor to kill indiscriminately and without remorse. To combine the sexual furor of the knife entering flesh with the ultimate termination of life is a carnal rule. None of these victims suffer. They are merely props for our untoward desires and we celebrate each falling with a discreet appreciation for the facilitator of these deeds. We make heroes of our violators.

Jeannine Taylor provides one of the seminal coital orgasmic faces ever to grace the primacy of celluloid. It’s all the best that she dies soon after.

Overall, this film continues to forge a legitimate impact upon those who apprehend it nakedly. Taken as it is it is a classic in visceral horror and generates enough shocks to ensure its legacy. It’s not particularly difficult to comprehend its appeal after all these years. There really hasn’t been anything quite like it since its release. The music alone is worthy of perpetual investigation because it does everything to set up the scenes of terror scattered throughout the film. The deaths are immaterial as none of the slaughtered possess anything beyond a modicum of personality. Subsequently the consensual argument is that they wholly deserve to die for simply being ciphers without any redeeming characteristics. It’s a joy to witness the end of so many hapless creatures. They all deserve to be treated like so much meat.