Friday the 13th *** (1980, Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Laurie Bartram, Kevin Bacon) – Classic Movie Review 1815

Sean S Cunningham’s 1980 stalk-and-slasher film hit Friday the 13th established itself as a blockbuster, a firm horror favourite and a long-running franchise. Betsy Palmer stars as Mrs Pamela Voorhees. Watch out for Kevin Bacon as young stud Jack Burrel.

Director Sean S Cunningham’s hugely successful 1980 stalk-and-slasher film horror hit Friday the 13th may be purposely riding off the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), but it established itself as a blockbuster, a firm horror favourite and a long-running franchise on its own account.

It is kind of a bit low on budget and imagination, but is much higher on chills, gore, body count and, of course, sequels. The film cost $550,000 and earned $40million. There are nine sequels so far up to Jason X in 2001, then Freddy vs Jason (2003) and it was remade in 2009 as Friday the 13th.

Peter Brouwer plays Steve Christy, who tries to reopen a summer camp at Camp Crystal Lake, the site of a child’s drowning, where teenagers were murdered 20 years earlier. Naturally a new wave of killing starts, as a group of young counsellors getting ready to lead campers are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant.

It is successful mainly as an even more gruesome copy of Hallowe’en and for its bloody special effects by special makeup effects man Tom Savini from Dawn of the Dead (1978). Indeed the producers hired Savini especially because they admired his work on that movie.

Betsy Palmer (as Mrs Pamela Voorhees), Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor and Robbi Morgan star. [Spoiler alert] Watch out for Kevin Bacon as Jack Burrel, a young stud who gets killed after enjoying some nookie. Burrel, lying in bed with his throat impaled by an arrow, has the blood in his neck making little bubbles. It was just meant to seep out, but the tube with blood didn’t work and Savini ended up blowing into the tube to make it flow, causing the bubbling.

Ari Lehman, who made his film debut in Cunningham’s Manny’s Orphans (1978), plays the child Jason Voorhees. He quit acting after making his mark in movie history here and started a career in music, performing in a punk rock/ heavy metal band called First Jason. He spent only four days on the set. [Spoiler alert] He appears in Pamela Voorhees’s flashback and plays a crucial role in the film’s famous surprise final scene, Alice Hardy’s dream in which Jason suddenly emerges from the icy waters of Crystal Lake in a scene dreamt up by Savini.

It was filmed at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in New Jersey, which is still going, with a wall of memorabilia to celebrate its filming there. There’s a real-life summer camp called Camp Crystal near Starke, Florida.

Screenwriter Victor Miller named Jason after a school bully. He wrote the script in two weeks but never went to summer camp as a kid. Miller’s working title Long Night at Camp Blood but Cunningham came up with Friday the 13th.

Betsy Palmer worked on the film for 10 days out of the total 28 days of the shoot at $1000 a day. She died on Friday 29 May 2015 in Connecticut of natural causes, aged 88. The character actress enjoyed a six-decade career and appeared in dozens of other films, plays and TV shows.

[Spoiler alert] Camera crew member Willie Adams plays Barry the counsellor in the 1958 scene, and is the first of all the many murder victims in the Friday the 13th series. The body count this time is 11, including the snake!

The cast are Adrienne King as Alice Hardy, Harry Crosby as Bill, Jeannine Taylor as Marcie, Laurie Bartram as Brenda, Kevin Bacon as Jack Burrel, Mark Nelson as Ned, Robbi Morgan as Annie, Peter Brouwer as Steve Christy, Rex Everhart as the Truck Driver, Ronn Carroll as Sgt Tierney, Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph, Willie Adams as Barry the counsellor, Debra S Hayes as Claudette, Sally Anne Golden as Sandy, Betsy Palmer as Mrs Voorhees, and Ari Lehman as the child Jason Voorhees.

It is followed by Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), also with Adrienne King. She suffered an aggressive stalker, making her go into seclusion, but re-emerged doing voice acting and dubbing in the 1990s. King also worked as a winemaker and wine company coordinator in southern Oregon. She has sold her own line of Friday the 13th-themed wines, Crystal Lake Wines, as well as paintings.

Cunningham, who had worked with Wes Craven on The Last House on the Left (1972), wanted Friday the 13th to be ‘shocking, visually stunning and make you jump out of your seat’. He said he wanted it to be a ‘roller coaster ride, a real scary movie that at the same time would make audiences laugh.’

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1815

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