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Friday the 13th (1980)


Friday the 13th (1980)


2/10


Starring
Betsy Palmer
Adrienne King
Harry Crosby
Laurie Bartram


Directed by Sean S. Cunningham


Friday the 13th is a minimalist view of what Halloween (1978) was. Done by Cunningham, whose idea of a slasher movie is to copy Carpenters 1978’s Halloween, but live out everything good in it and just elaborate on the bad.

This is a total ripoff with so much body count and unneeded pauses so that horny teenagers could get their groove on, that lack of proper pacing makes the movie boring. If I was not having breakfast while watching this I do not think I would have been able to finish this without sleeping off.

The movie lacked good characterization, plot and does not bother to see if any form of depth in the characters is neccessary. The movie is ninety minutes long, but feels longer. The only two things going for this movie are one, the cinematography which you get to enjoy the way the camera sometimes comes from either the killers view. The second which I did not expect is the twist on who the villain was. Even the twist was ruined when the killer delved into one long reason of why they killed which was so bad, it felt like someone was using an air horn right by my ear. Dreadful monologue.


The plot follows a group of teenage camp counselors who are attempting to re-open an abandoned summer camp. The camp was popular for being a place of bad luck and even when the owner is not getting the support of the locals to reopen he did anyway.

While work is being done to finalize things for reopening the teenagers are being murdered one by one by an unknown killer.

The acting when the victims die (not all the victims death mind you) was not it for me either. The acting in general was good, but when some of them were killed, the acting seemed over played.

This movie ended up being such a huge, huge financial success, we are saying making more than a 100 times it’s production budget in the box office. This led to many sequels spanning decades. Even a reboot was attempted for this franchise.
I never got to see the first movie, which is this one until now, but I have seen other sequels and the reboot and none of them have been done well enough to have made me want to see this.
Right now, due to the covid-19 I am just filling in the blanks in my movie list, and this is one movie I wish I just left in the dark.

How this movie turned to a money maker and develop crossovers with A Nightmare On Elm Street is beyond me, but I guess to everyone their own love.

Jason Voorhess franchise is one I never got onboard to like or enjoy.

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