Friday the 13th (1980)

** This blog may contain spoilers, reader discretion is advised. However this movie has been out for almost 30 years, so my statue on that is, you had time to see it; don't lie!! ** 

"They were warned...they are doomed...and on Friday the 13th, nothing will save them."

Happy Friday the 13th!! Today we are going to EXPLORE the movie that made you afraid of the woods. I hope you all enjoy. Once again this blog will contain spoilers, however this movie has been out for almost 30 years so you had plenty of time to see it. Also it's been in pop culture for a really long time now. Everyone who knows Jason Voorhees is. So without further ado, here's my thoughts on Friday the 13th (1980).

Friday the 13th (1980) was a low budget horror movie with a mysterious killer at Camp Crystal Lake directed by Sean S. Cunningham (The Last House on the Left).  It begins with a murder of two teens in 1958 and then flashes forward to 1980 with a new group of camp counselors who are trying to get the camp ready for the summer. The group of counselors include, Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Brenda (Laurie Bertram), Ned (Mark Nelson), Marci (Jeannine Taylor), Annie (Robbi Morgan), and Jack (Kevin Bacon). Each character has their own traits. Alice is rational, Bill is the "leader", Marci is a party girl, Ned is the comic relief, Brenda is the health nut and Jack is the rugged(?) guy. This was probably Kevin Bacon's first major role before his success in Footloose.

Now of course, each character is murdered one by one until there is a "Final Girl", Alice. She finds out, (SPOILER ALERT) that the killer is indeed Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) aka Jason's mother. Mrs. Voorhees explains that her son, Jason, drowned in the lake like in the 50s. She blamed the counselors for being more involved with themselves rather than watching the kids. It was almost like she had grieving mother syndrome. Now that I think about she reminds me of La Lorna. Let me explain. La Lorna was a woman who went crazy, drowned her children in the river and now it's said that her ghost haunts river banks looking for her children. Regardless each time the camp would try to reopen, she would start murdering the counselors, who had nothing to do with Jason's drowning mind you.

Anyway,  it follows one of the camp counselors, Annie (Robbi Morgan), as she attempts to make the journey to Crystal Lake. The other counselors are already there prepping and setting up for the summer season. This is a false lead. It makes you think, oh this will be our protagonist. This will be around final girl. Nope, you're wrong. Now the local townspeople warn Annie not to go to, what they refer it was, Camp Blood (1), due to the murders that occur there every time they try to reopen the camp. She thinks the town is crazy; like the town crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney). Now, when I first saw this movie, I thought Ralph would have had a more of a roll instead of being a background character. It would have made sense if he was a counselors who survived the murders in the 50s or something like that instead of just being the town drunk. Whoa I just had a thought, what if Ralph was Jason's father!!!!???? It would explain so much!! It would explain why he doesn't want anyone going to Crystal Lake and why he kept telling everyone they are doomed. He knew. Insane!!

Moving on. After Annie got a ride from another stranger and she stated that she was going to Crystal Lake, the tone rapidly changed. Annie eventually escapes, and starts running away. She is chased down and gets a knife to the throat. One down.

I mean what else can I say about this movie? It's about a bunch of counselors that get murdered until one is left who fights her hardest to stay alive. What I do have to say is that this movie made it so no one would want go in the woods ever again. He found a way to make camping scary, which I really liked. Also what banks it is the special effects.

(1) FACT: This was supposed to be the title of the movie, before it was changed to Friday the 13th. 

Now there were three effects in the film that really impressed me. These effects were done flawlessly by legend Tom Savini (Night of the Living Dead, From Dusk til Dawn). He is one of my favorite special effects artists, because of his use of practical effects.

Now there are Jack's death, Mrs. Voorhees death, and finally the ending scene with zombie Jason. There are other minor effects like one girl gets an axe in her face. Another gets slit in the throat. All in all, the effects were amazing.

REGARDLESS, the first special effect involves Jack's death. The reason being is that it's so sudden and unexpected. He's just laying in bed and all of a sudden a hand comes up, spear comes through the bed stabbing him in the heck. Insane. The second special effect is probably when Alice decapitates Mrs. Voorhees. It happens in slow motion, and she cuts her head CLEAN off with the machete. DAMN.

Finally, we have the calm scene turned deadly. Alice gets on the boat, wakes up in the morning, there is gentle music playing, the police show up and then ZOMBIE Jason jumps out of the water. He pulls her under the lake with him. It's very brief, but the make effects are incredible. Also it's an amazing jump scene that leaves you feeling uneasy. Well almost.

This brings me to the ending. The movie should have ended when Jason pops up and pulls her under the water. Instead they had her waking up in the hospital as a sole survivor. In all seriousness, no one should have survived this movie. All the characters should have met their demise. It would have given the audience a very uneasy feeling and leaving with a whole bunch of questions. Also I believe they should have created a sort of "Black Christmas" vibe it; meaning they should have left the murderer a mystery and had zero survivors. I don't know thats the one thing I don't like about this movie. They had the perfect ending, but just ruined it with her waking up in the hospital. If they didn't have alice in the hospital, and ended the movie at the Lake, they would still have a hook for a sequel. It was just extra stuff that shouldn't have been filmed. Period.


I don't know. I know they wanted to create another horror icon like Michael Myers and try to make something different; which they did. If it wasn't for Friday the 13th, we wouldn't have movies like Sleep Away Camp, Cabin in the Woods or any of those other horror films. Now one final thing I have about this movie is that I wish they would have made Mrs. Voorhees a more predominate character rather than just sticking her at the end, because it would have been more a shocker. She just shows up at the end and you're just expected to know who she is. Like my biggest thing is why does she even come by and explain the who situation to Alice? She could have killed her, escaped and then we would have been left with "who's the killer?" In my opinion, leaving the audience feeling uneasy is better than having an awkward character come in at the end.

But I digress.

This movie, however, was a financial success when it was first released on May 9th, 1980. It made $59.8 million at the box office on a $550,000 budget. This is incredible for a low budge film. As with anything, it did have it's fare share of critics; which was divided. Now this is to be expected, especially in the horror genre. Some praise it for it's cinematography, score and performances; which I agree with. I mean there are some things here and there that kind of drive me crazy, but overall the movie was good. However, on the other side, there were critics who judged it for it's graphic violence. Compared to other films, I didn't find it all that graphic, but whatever. Due to the success of this film, it spawned 9 sequels, one cross over with A Nightmare on Elm Street and a remake in 2009.

Buzz around the rumorsphere is that they are trying to remake this movie again possibly for the 30th anniversary; which I believe is due to the massive success Halloween had with their 40th anniversary remake/sequel. Who knows. I am beginning to notice that a lot of movies that came out in the 80s and 90s are starting to resurface with their own remakes/sequels. I mean if they got the right actors, setting, writer and director, I think they could make it happen. If they can make Michael Myers and Pennywise scary again, I'm sure someone out there can make Jason scary again.

IMDB: 6.5/10 || Rotten Tomatoes: 62%

Anyway, I hope you all check out this film; which I'm almost 100% sure it's going to be playing on the SyFy channel all day. Now I do play on doing ONE blog for all the sequels possibly on the next Friday the 13th; which will be in March 2020. I am trying to movie blog a lot more, but with work its a challenge. So hopefully I can get some more done over my break!!

Coming soon: A Nightmare on Elm Street Series. Yes it's true!! I almost have all of these blogs finished. I just need to do the New Nightmare and the 2010 remake!!


Now I hope all have a happy Friday the 13th!!



Sleep Tight, 
A Nightmare on Elm Street.