In 2021, there are literally several new horror based shows being made as if there was a sweatshop out there somewhere. Sometimes they find their audience and become a hit (The Walking Dead), but often they kind of fizzle out.
Well, back in the 1980's you either had to rent a horror movie, search tv listings for some older horror show that was long off the air (The Night Stalker or Dark Shadows, and they were very hard to find), or anthology shows (Freddie's Nightmares, Tales From the Darkside) that often shifted around, resulting in never finding much of an audience. There wasn't much in the way of a weekly horror based series that followed a story line from week to week. Enter Friday the 13th: The Series.
Friday the 13th the Series is well worth investing your time in. It was what horror fans were looking for at the time. I watched it on Friday nights during prime time. It was almost like a soap opera, following the adventures of a trio of antique store owners and their quest to obtain cursed objects.
However, you do need to be warned about something.
If you watch it right from the beginning, it's obvious the low budget works against it. Some of the acting is quite atrocious, for example. Stick with it and by mid season 1 it improves noticeably, although Chris Wiggins is solid throughout. John D. Lemay makes his mark right from the start, but he stumbles a few times in the first season. Louise Robey is laughable at first, but improves immensely as time goes on. Steven Monarque? Well, fans never warmed up to him. I thought he was all right considering the shoes he had to fill. He certainly stumbled, but he did the best he could with what he had to work with.
Most of the bad performances, come from the villains but you do get some standouts (Colin Fox and Denis Forest, for example, and they each played a different villain three times). But interestingly enough, the campy and overacting villains often add to the enjoyment of the series. Check out the episode Scarecrow in the first season for a terrific example of this. The performer playing the villain is so hammy it's actually a decent performance, if you can believe that.
The special effects are spotty, but enjoyable considering the low budget they had to work with. And for the time it came out, it was very controversial with the level of violence (and to a lesser extent, sexuality) it often presented.
In all, Friday the 13th the Series was a valiant attempt at bringing horror to the masses. Did it miss the mark? Yes and no. It never rose above cult status, but I think everyone involved have something to be proud of with this show.
