USA 1980 Directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Kevin Bacon.

Camp Crystal Lake has been deserted ever since it happened a few deaths there for twenty years ago. Despite several warnings has some counselors decided to improve the place again. Everyone reach the camp with the exception of the cook. Soon are more persons missing. Someone in the wood doesn´t want the camp to be opened, and stops at nothing to keep it closed.

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Here are we to deal with a real slasher classic. "Halloween" came out two years earlier, but "Friday the 13th" was more threatening and brutal, and set the standard for many horror films in the eighties. Don´t misunderstand me now. I think "Halloween" is better, but the question is whether not "Friday the 13th" has influenced more movies. Eight follow-ups has been made, and more are in progress. But no one has been able to surpass the original. Jason Voorhees is not the killer in the first one, but otherwise is everything just the same as ever. No one can say that the plot in the "Friday the 13th" movies are original. The first seven parts are all about some youths who has fun in the woods at Camp Crystal Lake, and has sex with each other. Then comes the murderer (Jason as of part 2) and kills them one after another. It doesn´t happens much more. But it isn´t necessary to have a good story in a horror film. The key to success is an uncanny atmosphere. Many thinks that the special effects are the most important thing. "Friday the 13th" has both of these elements so it will last and be over. The series has therefore many devoted fans, and Jason has become a cult figure of great proportions.

Kevin Bacon does one of his first film roles here. He also takes part in the best special effect I´ve ever seen. Kevin is lying in a bed and looks at his cig that he´s smoking. All of a sudden comes the murderers hand up underneath the bed and catch hold of Kevin´s forehead, at the same time as an arrow runs right through the bed and into his neck. When the arrow has gone through the throat, fills the hole up with dark blood, which in the next second starts pulsate wildly. This shock effect is so cruel and brutal that one are taken aback. The special effects are signed no less a person than Tom Savini, the king of splatter. One thing that I´m noticed when I saw "Friday the 13th", was that it doesn´t uses any loud sound effects to be scary. It was very nice to be spared listen to that, because it put to a wrong use today by "Scream" and other films in its wake.

Kent Palmgren

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