Friday the 13th (1980) – Film Review

Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Cast: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor
Certificate: 18

By Sarah Morgan

Slasher films are ten a penny these days. It’s a genre that keeps churning out movies that can be good, bad and downright ugly.

Where they began is a moot point. Some might say that the 1971 British thriller Fright, starring Susan George, was the first. It certainly seems to have introduced the idea of a babysitter under threat, one that was taken up so brilliantly by John Carpenter with 1978’s Halloween.

That was such a massive hit that others attempted to jump on the bandwagon, including Sean S Cunningham, who’d cut his teeth in the horror genre by producing Wes Craven’s controversial 1972 release The Last House on the Left.

“Unseen assailant”

Cunningham went on to direct 1980’s Friday the 13th, from a script by Victor Miller, who unashamedly admits the debt he owes to Carpenter’s earlier work. But rather than opting to have one babysitter at the centre of his story, Miller ups the ante by having several of them – the teens he bumps off at regular intervals have been employed as summer camp leaders.

They arrive before the season begins; the group is expected to help with renovations at Camp Crystal Lake, which has been unused for decades following a series of tragedies. As they begin their work, their hormones start to get the better of them, and while coupling up, an unseen assailant kills them using various rather grisly methods.

Adrienne King heads the cast as Alice, the most sensible of the gang, with Harry Crosby (son of Bing), Jeannine Taylor and a young Kevin Bacon also appearing alongside Betsy Palmer as Mrs Voorhees, a local resident who lost her young son Jason years earlier…

“Slickly directed”

If you’re expecting to see a glimpse of the hockey-masked villain, then you may be disappointed. Jason Voorhees’ disguise has become a horror icon, but it’s something that came along later in the franchise. What you will get, however, is a slickly directed movie that may not send you screaming in terror from the room, but does use various notable tropes to make its audience jump.

The film itself will no doubt be of particular interest to those currently watching Sky’s prequel TV series Crystal Lake.

The new 4k restoration looks sharp and better than the original film ever did, while the two-disc set is packed with special features, including a making-of documentary and an interview with Cunningham.