Movie Review: Friday the 13th (1980)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Some fun moments

Cons: Boring for a horror movie

The Bottom Line:

Scary night at camp

Doesn’t stand the test of time

Genre fans only

Hope You Enjoyed Your Last Night at Camp

Growing up in the 1980’s, you couldn’t help but hear about some of the larger slasher franchises in the theater at the time.  And, as an adult with a fascination with slashers, I’ve watched all the movies in what I consider the Big Three from the 80’s – Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Of those three, two of the opening movies still hold up, but the first movie in the Friday the 13^th franchise is the weakest.

After an initial scene in 1958, we jump to the “present day” of 1980, when the movie came out.  After being closed for many years, someone is reopening Camp Crystal Lake.  While it’s still a few days before the campers arrive, the counselors have arrived, and they are trying to put the finishing touches on getting it ready to reopen.  That is when they aren’t playing around.  But someone is watching them, and they are getting warnings about danger.  Still, they are perfectly safe, right?  Right?

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned any characters by name or given more of the plot than that.  I mean, this is a slasher, so we know that someone is going to start killing the counselors one by one.  What makes a movie in this genre work is how much we care about the characters before that starts happening.  And that’s where the movie fails.  We don’t really get to know the characters, so we don’t care.  Honestly, I think the problem is there are too many of them, and they are mostly in group scenes.  As a result, there is no way for them to stand out before they start dying.

Then there’s the suspense.  While we know that most of the characters are going to die, we still enjoy the moments leading up to that, especially if we know they are in danger before they do.  This movie doesn’t have nearly enough of those moments.  There’s hardly any suspense before they die.

The movie was very much inspired by Halloween, and it is easy to see that and make companions.  The problem is, Halloween did it better.  While they both have slow starts with most of the carnage coming in the second half, Halloween actually does build characters and have some moments of suspense early on, while this one doesn’t play up the suspense as well as it should and leaves us with cardboard characters.

That’s not a knock on the cast.  They are all as good as the material.  I had forgotten how well they do until I rewatched it.  No, there isn’t an outstanding performance here, but it’s not terribly acted.  Interesting to note is that this movie is an early appearance of Kevin Bacon.

I will admit, I have only watched this movie on TV, and I know that at least a couple of scenes have been cut.  That might change my opinion of the movie.

And keep in mind this is an R rated film before you watch it.

And that’s not to say that the movie doesn’t have its moments.  The scene with the counselors playing around in the lake is fun, and the final confrontation is great.  It’s just that the rest of the movie is pretty forgettable.

If you are a big fan of slashers who hasn’t seen this movie yet, you’ll still want to see it.  However, if you are only a casual fan of the genre, you can easily skip the original Friday the 13^th.