Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Writer: Victor Miller
Starring: Betsy Palmer and Adrienne King
Body Count: 10
Review: After the huge sucess of Halloween, every producer in Hollywood was looking for a way to copy the formula and make their own hit slasher film. Friday the 13th was the first out of the batch to become a runaway hit. Prom Night was probably the first film to follow in the wake of Halloween, but it was in no way as successful.
Friday the 13th, however, only cost $500,000 to make and grossed over $37 million. And while being an immitator of Halloween, Friday the 13th mananges to break new ground and actually create a whole new set of slasher movie standards.
The film opens with the slaying of two camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. They are caught making out in one of the cabins and murdered by an unseen killer. Throughout the rest of the film, all of the death scenes are filmed in such a way that the killer's identity remains a secret (this would become a staple of immitator slasher movies--keeping the killer's identity a secret until the right "surprise" moment). We only discover who the killer is at the very end of the film, which sets up the obligatory "chase scene." And just when everyone thinks that the film's story is over and the danger is done, a final "surprise" is thrown in to leave the audience in shock as the credits roll.
It's a formula that worked in 1980, and has worked (with varying degrees of success) ever since. Friday the 13th, like Halloween, spawned a million immitators and sequels (it reigns as king in the sequel department, having a total of nine films in the series--and a tenth on the way). None of them could capture the audience or box-office revenue that the original recieved.
Read the Friday the 13th script!
