Friday the 13th (film)

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Friday the 13th
Film poster
Directed by	Sean S. Cunningham
Produced by	Sean S. Cunningham
Written by	Victor Miller
Starring	Adrienne King Kevin Bacon Betsy Palmer
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Cinematography	Barry Abrams
Editing by	Bill Freda
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (North America) Warner Bros. (overseas)
Release date(s)	May 9, 1980
Running time	95 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$550,000
Followed by	Friday the 13th Part 2
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Friday the 13th is a 1980 slasher film directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller.

Although the film was poorly received by most, if not all, mainstream film critics, it went on to become one of the most popular slasher films in cinema history. The film's box office success led to a long series of sequels.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Production 3 Cast 4 Notes and trivia 5 Awards and nominations 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit] Plot summary

In a brief prologue set in 1958, two summer camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake sneak away from a camp fire sing-along to have sex. Before they can completely undress, an unseen assailant sneaks into the room and murders them both.

Following the opening credits, the setting moves to the town of Crystal Lake, 1979. A young woman named Annie enters a small diner and asks for directions to Camp Crystal Lake, much to the surprise of the restaurant's patrons and staff. A strange old man named Ralph (better known as "Crazy Ralph", the town drunk) reacts to the news of the camp's reopening by warning Annie that they are "all doomed". Enos, a truck driver from the diner, agrees to give Annie a lift halfway to the camp. During the drive, he warns her about the camp, informing her that a young boy drowned in Crystal Lake in 1957, one year before the double murders occurred. He also says that after the 1958 murders, the camp was closed and left unattended, with random fires occuring and the arsonist never being found. In 1962 Camp Crystal Lake make an attempt to reopen, which was stopped by a poisoned water supply. After Enos lets her out, Annie hitches another ride in a jeep. This second driver, whose face is never seen, ends up murdering Annie by slashing her throat with a large hunting knife.

At the camp, the other counselors (Ned, Jack, Bill, Marcie, Alice, and Brenda) are refurbishing the cabins and facilities along with the camp's owner, Steve Christy. As a violent storm closes in on the horizon, Steve leaves the campgrounds to get more supplies in town, and the same killer who murdered Annie begins to kill off the counselors in gruesome ways, luring them into isolated areas and then mutilating them with various weapons. Later that evening, Steve returns from town and is also murdered, apparently familiar with his attacker. Alice informs Bill that she saw the lights turn on at the archery range and that she thinks she heard Brenda screaming. Bill becomes suspicious and the two of them investigate, finding a bloody axe in Brenda's bed. They then discover the phones are dead and that the cars won't start. When the lights go out all over the camp, Bill goes to check on the power generator. Alice follows later, only to find his body pinned to a door with several arrows.

Now alone, Alice flees back to the main cabin and hides. After a few moments of silence, Brenda's corpse is hurled through the window. Alice hears a vehicle outside the cabin and, thinking it to be Steve, runs out to warn him. Instead she finds a middle-aged woman she has never seen before. She introduces herself as Mrs. Voorhees, an "old friend of the Christys", and Alice hysterically tries to tell her about the murders. Mrs. Voorhees expresses horror at the sight of Brenda's body, but her behavior is erratic, and she soon reveals herself to be the mother of the boy who drowned in the lake in 1957. Talking mostly to herself, it becomes clear that Mrs. Voorhees is the killer, and that the murders are her way of taking revenge for the death of her son, Jason. She blames his drowning on the fact that two counselors were distracted by having sex and were unaware of Jason's struggling in the lake. Mrs. Voorhees suddenly turns violent and pulls out a large knife, rushing at Alice.

A lengthy chase ensues, during which Alice flees her attacker and finds some of the bodies of the others in the process. After several violent confrontations, Alice finally manages to put Mrs. Voorhees down by striking her in the head with a cast-iron skillet. Believing her to be dead, Alice walks down to the lake's shore in a daze, but the insane woman lunges at her again with a machete. Alice disarms her, and in desperation, she decapitates Mrs. Voorhees with her own weapon.

[edit] Production

Friday the 13th was produced by Sean S. Cunningham, who had previously worked with filmmaker Wes Craven on the film The Last House on the Left. Cunningham was inspired by the success of John Carpenter's influential Halloween, and conceived Friday the 13th as an exploitation film that would cash-in on the success of Halloween and allow Cunningham to raise money for another film that he felt would be a major box-office hit, a sports film called "Here Come the Tigers". Ironically, Friday the 13th became a huge box-office hit, caused even more slasher films to be made, and spawned a seemingly unending franchise of sequels. "Here Come the Tigers" was a box-office flop.^[1]

The script was written by Victor Miller, who has gone on to write for several television soap operas, including Guiding Light, One Life to Live, and All My Children. Miller delighted in inventing a serial killer who turned out to be somebody's mother, a murderer whose only motivation was her love for her child. "...I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Voorhees was the mother I'd always wanted---a mother who would have killed for her kids." Miller was unhappy about the filmmakers decision to add Jason Voorhees to the film, making him leap out of the lake at the end to grab the heroine. "Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain."^[2]

The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was not in the original script, and was actually suggested by makeup designer Tom Savini. Savini said "The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen 'Carrie,' So we thought that we need a 'chair jumper' like that and I said, 'Let's bring in Jason.'".^[3]

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Betsy Palmer	Mrs. Voorhees
Adrienne King	Alice
Harry Crosby	Bill
Jeannine Taylor	Marcie
Robbie Morgan	Annie
Kevin Bacon	Jack
Laurie Bartram	Brenda
Mark Nelson	Ned
Peter Brouwer	Steve Christy
Rex Everhart	Enos (the Truck Driver)
Ronn Carroll	Sgt. Tierney
Ron Millkie	Officer Dorf
Walt Gorney	Crazy Ralph
Willie Adams	Barry
Debra S. Hayes	Claudette
Dorothy Kobs	Trudy
Sally Anne Golden	Sandy
Mary Rocco	Operator
Ken L. Parker	Doctor
Ari Lehman	Young Jason

[edit] Notes and trivia

• The film's original working title was A Long Night at Camp Blood.
• The scene with the snake was not in the script and was an idea from Tom Savini after an experience in his own cabin during filming. The snake in the scene was real, including its onscreen death.
• This film was #31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
• The film Scream had a scene where Drew Barrymore's character was being stalked by the killer in a cat and mouse game. The killer asks her "Who was the killer in Friday the 13th?" to which she replies "Jason Voorhees!". The killer respondes "Wrong answer! Mrs Vorhees was the original killer! Jason didn't show up until the sequel!"
• Betsy Palmer, known for her role in the war film Mister Roberts, had said she was disgusted with the film Friday the 13th after reading the script and considered it would be a trashy horror flick peppered with nudity. She agreed to play the part of Pamela Voorhees solely on the basis that she needed the paycheck to buy a car.
• Willie Adams was a crew member for the film. Although he spent most his time working behind the camera, he played the male counselor in the 1958 scene, and holds the unique distinction of being the first murder victim in the Friday the 13th film series.
• There are signs in the film that very little has changed in the camp since the 1958 murders. When Alice is standing by the large fireplace first seen in the opening scene (where the counselors were singing), there is graffiti scratched onto the stones from many years ago. One of the graffiti reads "I Like Ike", which was a catchy slogan used by supporters of Dwight Eisenhower, who was in office at the time of the opening scene of the film's timeline.
• In the first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, Bart says he is not scared of Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven", to which Lisa replies since it was written in the 19th Century, people may have had a different concept of horror than the people of the 20th Century. Bart agrees with that comment by adding "By today's horror movie standards, Friday the 13th Part 1 seems pretty tame."

[edit] Awards and nominations

• Golden Raspberry Awards

Nominated: Worst Picture

Nominated: Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Betsy Palmer)

• Mystfest

Nominated: Mystfest Award for Best Film

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Friday the 13th at the Internet Movie Database
• Friday the 13th at Rotten Tomatoes
• Friday the 13th at Box Office Mojo
• Film page at the Camp Crystal Lake web site
• Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future And You (includes anecdotes about working on Friday the 13th)