It’s Friday the 13th sometime in ‘The Present’ (circa 1980), and a group of counselors are preparing Camp Crystal Lake to receive its first group of campers in over 22 years. Apparently the local folks don’t think it’s such a good idea to resurrect the memories of the killing spree that left two summer counselors dead in 1958 after a young boy, Jason Voorhees, drowned the year prior. These locals make this much known to Annie (Robbi Morgan), a girl on her way to join the new Camp Crystal Lake team as their hired cook. Annie hitchhikes her way there, but never makes it after the ride that picks her up turns out to be a disturbed maniac (which we can’t see) that slashes her throat. Annie becomes the first victim in what will become, throughout this Friday the 13th, a slaughter of innocent men and women that wanted nothing better than to spend their remaining free time before the arrival of the campers getting drunk, high and laid.

Despite ripping 70’s horror mainstays "Halloween" and "Carrie" left and right with its point-of-view shots and fake scares (including one at the very end that can be seen coming a mile away), producer/director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller managed to ring quite a few scares and shocks out of their take on the ‘maniac on the loose’ horror clichés. Despite the limited budget it had at the time of its production (1979), "Friday the 13th" makes characters out of the darkness and isolated forests/woods surrounding New Jersey’s Camp Crystal Lake (the movie was actually shot in Connecticut). The anonymity of its no-name cast of actors, except for a still-undiscovered Kevin Bacon (as Speedo-wearing stud Jack), affords the director a comfortable and methodical elimination pace without having to worry about the audience sympathizing or choosing favorites amongst these ‘dead men (and women) walking.’ Anyone that can and should die (i.e. those promiscuous-enough to have premarital sex) does indeed get dispatched. Their deaths are disturbing more because of their detached simplicity and raw lack of dignity (an ax to the face, pierced with arrows, etc.) than from any elaborate attempt by anyone involved to do something other than churn out another teenage slasher flick.

This movie hates its characters, shows sympathy for the plight of the killer (revenge for having a son killed decades earlier) and it doesn’t even bother showing us how some of these teens get killed; four deaths happen off-camera, and we only watch the aftermath of what took place. The killer’s methods of destruction might not be as gory, graphic or creative as those that followed in the sequels (or the more elaborate killings in horror flicks of the era like "Halloween II" and "My Bloody Valentine"), but "Friday the 13th" still disturbs because it’s the only one of the series that seems believable. If a bunch of horny teenagers were isolated in a cabin in the middle of nowhere without communication, transportation and not a care in the world besides getting laid, wouldn’t they make the perfect prey for a local maniac that knows his/her way around the forest? I’m not a hardcore fan of the "Friday the 13th" movies, but this is the one that has given me a healthy respect for people that go hiking and camp in the woods late at night. I wish I had their balls of steel (figuratively speaking of course), but I’d rather not run into the local town’s version of ‘Crazy Ralph’ (Walt Gomey) and hear the words ‘You’re doomed.’

Unfortunately all the atmosphere and darkness in the world (which this movie seems to have; it’s extremely dark and barely-lit during nighttime shots) can’t hide the horrible performances these motley crew of actors deliver. I know watching "Friday the 13th" expecting to see good actors is like tuning into a George W. Bush speech hoping to spot signs of intelligent life, but come on! Adrianne King’s Alice is a weak surrogate character for the audience to relate to as the only survivor left from the massacre, and Betsy Palmer’s Mrs. Voorhees (Jason’s mother) telegraphs her evil ways in a manner that’s more irritating than intimidating. How this character was able to do the things that are attributed to her in this photoplay is beyond the loony bin, but no more preposterous than the atrocious dialogue uttered by the likes of Jeannine Taylor (Marcie), Laurie Bartran (Brenda) and striptease Monopoly player extraordinaire Harry Crosby (Bill). Either director Sean S. Cunningham owed a lot of favors to a lot of friends and associates or he just turned the camera on the locals or crew members; YIPES!

Even Kevin Bacon, future star of movies and TV commercials (‘VISA, it’s everywhere Kevin Bacon has been’ :-P), is reduced here to looking good (he does), having sex (I think this is what white people call humping each other in the dark), getting high and being stabbed by an arrow entering about six degrees below this vocal chords. This allows the real star of the movie (and likely recipient of most of the production’s budget), make-up/stuntman Tom Savini (a legendary horror make-up designer who also appeared in Robert Rodriguez’s "From Dusk ‘Till Dawn"), to let his natural and rather-disturbing aftermath shots carry "Friday the 13th" toward both cinematic infamy as well as immortality. Hard to believe such a simple and innocuous little horror flick could go on to become one of the longest-running movie series in the history of the medium.

BODY COUNT: ten (five men & five women, four of them off-camera). ANIMALS KILLED: one (a snake is cut in half). MOST GRUESOME DEATH: while laying in bed and getting high on a joint, Jack (Kevin Bacon) gets an arrow plunged through the mattress and his neck; I guess this means he drowned in his own blood? Hello, medical students? Need your help on this one.

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