Friday the 13th

Dir: Sean S. Cunningham

1980

***

The original Friday the 13th is undoubtedly a horror classic but the truth is it doesn't really deserve to be. Sean S. Cunningham likes to think of himself as a master of horror but this film is really just a rip off of John Carpenter's Halloween, the king of the slasher, that came out two years previously. It could be said that the last scene is also a rip off of Brian De Palma's 1976 hit Carrie and the big twist at the end is straight out of Hitchcock's Psycho. It's a tried and tested formula, Sean S. Cunningham simply simplified it, made it trashy and brought horror to a pop-corn loving audience who were too young to see it legally in the first place. In this sense, it could be said that thanks to Friday the 13th, Cunningham has been more prolific in the horror genre than all the other directors put together. It's not the first slasher but I understand what people mean when they refer to it as the first 'true' slasher. It abides by all the rules of horror and its relentlessness makes it rather dependable for horror lovers. Tom Savini's special effects and gory make up are first class and it's largely thanks to him that Friday the 13th will always be one of the greats, even though it's really not that great. It's hard to believe that it spawned nine sequels, one cross over film and a couple of remakes but then to be fair, the franchise didn't really start until Part III in my opinion.