Freitag, der 13.

Friday the 13th must be one of the biggest mysteries in cinema. Although it's a long way from being a good movie, its success and influence is unnameable ( and even unbelievable ). Don't get me wrong...I'm not at all saying that Friday the 13th is a terrible film or not even worth a watch but - let's face it - the plot idea is pretty dumb, the acting and directing are far below average and they haven't fully used the options of setting and location they had. The make-up effects ( by the master Tom Savini himself ) are excellent, but that alone isn't really enough to create a legendary horror movie in my opinion. Some of the later sequels ( Episode 6 : Jason Lives is the perfect example ) and even a few of the numberless rip-offs are superior to the production.

I suppose the story is pretty much known by everyone know and I even think the identity of the "mysterious killer" of this episode isn't that much of a mystery anymore. Anyway, in case you don't know it, I won't spoil the fun so see for yourself. Although my thoughts on it aren't that high, I do think it's must-see stuff for horror fans. Without any shame, I even admit that Friday the 13th and ALL its sequels are a guilty pleasure of mine. I'll never reckon them as good - or even decent - efforts in the genre, but I'm always up for a little bit of brainless gore slashing. And that's what these series are made for...pure entertainment !! So, in a way, they succeeded after all. They never try to give a thoughtful message to the viewer or something. There are just dumb-looking teenagers being slaughtered...the more the merrier.

Favorite "rewind"-scene : A young and horny Kevin Bacon being brutally killed in one of his first memorable roles.

In 1980, two years after "Halloween" scared the hell out of everybody, "Friday the 13th" was released to theaters. This was a clever knockoff of the John Carpenter horror classic, only this one was more violent and gruesome. That aspect turned critics off big time. But moviegoers couldn't resist. They flocked to see this movie and made it a big hit. I never saw this film on the big screen because I was only 9 years old when it came out. After I saw it on cable a few years later, it scared the hell out of me! It doesn't scare me that much today, but it's a far more effective horror/thriller than the last five movies in the series (parts 5 through 9). They should have stopped making these "Friday the 13th" movies after the fourth film, which was subtitled "The Final Chapter". And you know what's even scarier, they're making part 10. "Friday the 13th" was the beginning of the sick slasher genre that played out during the early 1980s. The first films in both the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" series' were easily the best. "Halloween" was a great horror film. "Friday the 13th" isn't up there with "Halloween", but it's a well-crafted gorefest.

*** (out of four)

I'll concede right off that it's very hard to be objective in reviewing this movie. The truth is I've never seen it until today, but it's spawned so many sequels and become such a part of popular culture (for better or worse) that it's stamped into your mind whether you've seen it or not. Trying to be objective I'd say - it's not bad. It's not as good as what I would consider to be the classic of the slasher movies (1978's Halloween) but it has some moments of pretty good suspense and somewhat surprisingly to me I found that it wasn't a "gore-fest." There's violence and blood but the murders, while they're portrayed, tend to be shown quickly and the movie moves on fairly quickly. The setting is used pretty well to create atmosphere - the movie is set in a remote camp about to be re-opened after being closed for over 20 years following the murders of two counsellors in 1958. Those murders kick off the movie. There's some decent camera-work, as the camera serves as the eyes of the killer, and at times that effect is used when the camera isn't being used as the eyes of the killer, so there's a bit of uncertainty for the viewer. It is a bit of a chuckle that this movie uses as its setting the classically bad opening of terrible novels ("it was a dark and stormy night.")

The performances were OK, if a little bit forced and artificial at times. Adrienne King did a good job near the end of the movie as the terrified Alice. Kevin Bacon had a role in this as Jack, but it wasn't the lead role, and aside from him no one from the movie rose to any significant stature in Hollywood and there was certainly no Jamie Lee Curtis (see Halloween) among the female leads, although there were many shots of young and cute women in various stages of undress!

Strange to say, but in some ways knowing the basic outline of how the series progresses adds to the suspense at the end of the movie as to the identity of the killer, and does get you wondering how the heck this is going to lead to sequels - or at least to the sequels it led to, although Alice's last line ("then he's still out there") clearly establishes that those responsible for the movie were already looking ahead to the sequels. Not having been really interested in the series before this, I will confess that, having seen the first instalment, I now have a certain curiosity to see how the second instalment is constructed. 7/10

Friday the 13th is a classic masterpiece, it uses a clever sort of storytelling to hide the identity of the killer as well as who the main character is to the end. For a slasher movie, it's not as bloody as a modern slasher, but it still delivers brutal kills. The music and sound effects are all great. The suspense-building is great as you can kinda figure out when someone's is going to get murdered. And without spoiling anything, the acting of the killer is truly terrifying! Some acting is kind of cheesy but that doesn't change mutch. It has a great atmosphere and after rewatching it, Friday the 13th from 1980 is now one of my favourite horror movies of all time! Overall it's a must see movie with a score of 9/10 from me!

This is one of those films that really got to me in my childhood years. I'll never ever forget that final scene when Adrienne King is attacked by Jason in the canoe - a classic shock, far more frightening than the excessive violence and gore seen in every "Friday"-clone thereafter.

Since horror is an emotion rather than simply a filmic genre, these films can't be reviewed with the same guidelines as others. It's all about the atmosphere, the build-up and ultimate destruction of everything we've been told is right and normal. "Friday the 13th" does well on all those points. In fact it stands out as the best slasher-movie in history, competing only with "Halloween" from two years before.

The violence is grim and graphic indeed. Throat-slashings and decapitations galore and very little is left to the imagination. Strongest being the scene where well-known actor Kevin Bacon is impaled by an arrow through the neck, in one of the goriest moments in the history of the R-rating.

If you're looking for a classic chiller, this first "Friday" is the one to see. But stay clear of the sequels. Already by it's second installment this series of films started to imitate not only itself, but also it's imitations. And that's never a good sign. Not in any genre.

"Chh, chh, chh... hah, hah, hah..."