Friday the 13th: Part I
The original Friday the 13th was an obvious response to John Carpenter’s Halloween, which two years earlier became one of the most profitable independent films of all time. Halloween is credited by many as giving rise to the modern slasher flick through its use of the 1st-person camera angle, ridiculous scenarios, and female heroines. All of these components are present in Friday the 13th, except at amateur level and always involving graphic death scenes, a contrast to the minimal amount of blood and gore in the original Halloween.
The violent death scenes were actually a central point of what was, for about 90% of the film, a pretty boring plot. The deaths weren’t scary or mildly realistic, but at the very least, it was clear that the director didn’t want them to be humorous. This provided some reprieve from trying not to laugh at a younger but eerily similar-looking Kevin Bacon, the abundance of half-naked women, and a horrible array of misfitting, mismatched 1980s clothing.
Friday the 13th really has two different endings, neither of which I will spoil here. One of them is derived entirely from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho but with just enough of a twist to make it acceptable. The other ending comes about 1 minute before the movie ends, and despite it being used an obvious tool to prompt a sequel, it is actually the only genuinely scary part of the entire movie.
More than anything, I kept watching because I have never understood why Jason wore a hockey mask or how one could logically fit a hockey mask into one film, let alone all 11 sequels. Where does he keeping these hockey masks, I wondered. Very surprisingly, there are absolutely no hockey masks or references to masks or the sport of hockey in the entire movie. Only after looking at the one-sheet (above) did I realize that the hockey mask wasn’t used to market the series until much later. Interesting, no?
Ultimately, I really enjoyed the original Friday the 13th. It was cheesy, corny, and campy–it also took place at a camp–but its final act offered enough weirdness to keep me interested. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. But I’ll be back with some thoughts on Friday the 13th: Part II.
February 21, 2009
movies