Vendredi 13

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..."

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 (1980) kicked started the early 80's slasher film phenomenon that was ignited by Halloween (1978) but fueled intensely by this reworking of the Mario Bava classic "Twitch of the Death Nerve". Once Friday the 13th was released, there was no turning back. The slasher film was part of the American horror film genre and it would remain that way for years to come. A film that launched countless knock-offs, wannabes, sequels and a t.v. series?! Camp Crystal Lake and the Friday the 13th film franchise are a part of Americana. The film is merely a stage for the splatter effects of F/X maestro Tom Savini. They were later toned down for it's American release and were softened even further during it's video release.

The movie itself isn't that great. Technically it's boring. To get the most out of the film you have to watch it uncut. Friday the 13th was designed around Savini's gory set pieces. Watching them with out it is like drinking a mayonnaise soda. I encourage you to seek out the uncut version of this film. Recommended.

A (uncut)

D (American version)

Without a doubt, the work of Cunningham and Carpenter during 1978 & 1980 rocked the world of the horror genre. Friday the 13th is one of the films that to this day still has repercussions. It demonstrated the importance of setting the tone in horror movies, making the audience themselves feel as if they too were being stalked. Cunningham also was one of the few directors to introduce the idea of a possible female serial killer.

Without this film, Scream's Randy would have never uttered those famous words, 'There are certain rules to surviving a horror movie..' This film combined with Carpenter's Halloween, firmly etched the rules in stone. The creepy music, the infamous "ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha", the crude photography and the graphic depiction of the murders of the counsellors all blend together to give a classic piece of film history. It scared the hell out of multitudes of teenagers who, in many instances could see themselves in the victims of the stalker. These weren't bad people getting killed, these were just your typical average American kids, having a good time, getting picked off.

That is what makes this film so defining, that is why, for all its crude and harsh imagery, this is a classic. This is why alot of recent attempts at horror don't measure up. It's not the effects or the blood necessarily, it's the atmosphere and the familiarity that bring it home.It is more frightening to think, "That could be me"