Crystal Lake’s history of murder doesn’t deter counselors from setting up a summer camp in the woodsy area. Superstitious locals warn against it, but the fresh-faced young people – Jack (Bacon), Alice (King), Bill (Crosby), Marcie (Taylor) and Ned (Nelson) – pay little heed to the old-timers. Then they find themselves stalked by a brutal killer. As they’re slashed, shot and stabbed, the counselors struggle to stay alive against a merciless opponent.
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Ah, another classic horror flick has hit streaming, thanks to the spooky month of October – Friday the 13th. While this made a big splash back in the day – and helped the slasher flick genre started by Halloween (and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) to kick into high gear – would it still be worth watching? Or have the imitators managed to outdo it by now?
Friday the 13th – aside from helping kick off the popularity of the slasher flick – also helped introduced the trope of dumb teens in horror films (where to hide from a killer in a campground, with a big forest around you? Lock yourself in the closet. Duh.). Sadly, despite a brief appearance by Kevin Bacon (why those shorts, Kevin?), most of the cast seem to have a hard time acting their way out of a paper bag – but since they are the now-stereotypical “cannon fodder” in a slasher flick, it’s not as bad as it sounds. All they really have to be good at is dying, and most of them manage that scene just fine.
Unlike later films in the series, the original Friday the 13th doesn’t linger on the death sequences. While later ones overdo it (lingering longer and getting more gruesome as the series continues), this first film – probably in part thanks to its lower budget – just give quick shots of a few of the deaths. To their credit, they do some interesting camera work and physical effects to make them still look decent now, but they are a lot briefer than viewers might expect after watching later sequels. And the climactic meandering “fight” is so awful it makes Steven Seagal’s post-lawman flicks look like high art.
The story is actually a bit better than what later sequels bring. In this first one, there actually is a motivation behind the killings. There isn’t yet an unstoppable killing machine, but just a normal person who’s gone round the bend, so to speak. Considering how most of the sequels are so lacking in the plot department that this barebones setup feels refreshing. Even the hockey mask – so much an iconic part of the series – doesn’t even show up at all in this first film.
With an actual plot, viewers will probably get something more out of this first film than later installments. But, lacking some of the elements that have endured over the years (namely, the unstoppable killing machine in the hockey mask), brief death sequences (with only one being memorable at all), even the dumb teen trope seems to fall a little short. The unstoppable killing machine is the star of the show, and without him, it’s hard to really get a fright going here – especially when the villain reveals themselves, and keeps losing silly-looking fights with their prey. Sure, it’s got more plot, but it’s not the Friday the 13th most are familiar with – and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
