Friday the 13th (1980 film)

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Friday the 13th

Theatrical poster
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Produced by Sean S. Cunningham
Written by Victor Miller
Starring Betsy Palmer
Adrienne King
Harry Crosby
Laurie Bartram
Jeannine Taylor
Kevin Bacon
Mark Nelson
Robbi Morgan
Music by Harry Manfredini
Cinematography Barry Abrams
Editing by Bill Freda
Studio Georgetown Productions Inc.
Sean S. Cunningham Films
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
(USA 1980-2012)
Warner Bros.
(USA 2013-/UK 1980-)
Release date(s) 9 May 1980
Running time 95 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $550,000 (estimated)[1]
Box office $39,700,000

Friday the 13th is a 1980 American slasher film directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller. The film concerns a group of teenagers who are murdered one by one while attempting to re-open an abandoned campground, and stars Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram and Kevin Bacon in one of his earliest roles. It is considered one of the first "true" slasher movies.

Prompted by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween,[2] the film was made on an estimated budget of $550,000.[1] Released by Paramount Pictures in the United States (1980-2012) and Warner Bros. in the United States (2013-present) and internationally, the film received negative reviews from film critics, but grossed over $39.7 million at the box office in the United States,[3] to become one of the most profitable slasher films in cinema history. It was also the first movie of its kind to secure distribution in the USA by a major studio, Paramount Pictures.[4] The film's box office success led to a long series of sequels, a crossover with the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and a 2009 series reboot.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The film begins in 1958 with two counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, Barry (Willie Adams) and Claudette (Debra S. Hayes), who are murdered by an unseen assailant after they sneak away to a cabin to have sex.

Twenty-one years later on Friday, June 13, 1979, the camp is being re-opened by Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), the son of the camp's previous owners. Annie (Robbi Morgan), one of the new counselors, is hitchhiking to Crystal Lake but is warned by the town crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) that the camp is cursed. She is given a lift halfway by a friendly truck driver, Enos (Rex Everhart) who also warns her; telling her of the 1957 drowning of a boy and the 1958 murders. Enos drops Annie off at a crossroads by a cemetery, where she continues on her way to the camp by foot.

Meanwhile, several other counselors have been hired to help Steve Christy with the camp, including Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Jack (Kevin Bacon), Brenda (Laurie Bartram) and Ned (Mark Nelson). The counselors begin refurbishing and renovating the camp as Steve heads off to get supplies in town.

Meanwhile, Annie is still walking up the road when she soon hitches a ride with an unseen driver in a Jeep. As the driver then speeds past the camp entrance, Annie becomes concerned and utters the driver to stop. As the driver continues to go faster, Annie leaps from the moving vehicle, and despite hitting her leg on a big rock as a result, Annie starts fleeing into the woods. However she trips and falls and when she looks up, she sees her pursuer who pulls out a knife. Terrified, Annie backs away into a tree when the killer finally slits her throat.

Back at camp, Ned follows a figure wearing a black rain slicker and disappears into the cabin and is apparently murdered. Meanwhile, a thunderstorm forces Jack and Marcie to take refuge in a cabin and have sex, unaware that Ned's corpse rests on the upper bunk with his throat slashed. Marcie then leaves for the bathroom, while Jack stays and smokes when an unseen figure shoves an arrow through his throat from under the bed. In the bathroom, Marcie hears footsteps and thinks either Jack or Ned is playing a joke. When she searches the empty shower stalls, a hatchet is seen from behind her and when Marcie turns around and the hatchet strikes her in the head, and kills her.

Meanwhile, after leaving the local diner Steve's Jeep gets stuck in mud due to a rainstorm and he is escorted back to camp by a police officer. Upon arrival at the camp, Steve sees a light from an unseen figure who Steve recognizes, who then murders him off-screen.

After Alice, Bill and Brenda finish playing strip Monopoly, Brenda heads back to her cabin for the night when she hears a child's voice faintly crying for help. She is lured out to the archery range when the lights turn on suddenly and Brenda is murdered off-screen, but her scream is heard by Alice and Bill.

After discovering the power unexpectantly went out, the phone lines have been cut and Ned's truck won't start, Bill leaves to check the generator. Afterwards, Alice becomes worried when Bill does not return. While looking for him, she finds his corpse pinned to a door with arrows and flees back to her cabin. After Alice barricades herself in the cabin, Brenda's body is hurled through the window, forcing Alice to run back outside only to meet a middle-aged woman who identifies herself as Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer). As Alice begins to tell Mrs. Voorhees about the murders, Mrs. Voorhees tells Alice about her son Jason who had drowned in the lake at the camp years before. Blaming camp counselors who were not watching her son, Mrs. Voorhees charges at Alice with a hunting knife, and Alice realizes that Mrs. Voorhees is responsible for the killing spree.

A lengthy chase ensues in which Alice appears to subdue Mrs. Voorhees several times and finds the dead bodies of Steve and Annie in the process. The two women face off near the shore of the lake after a scuffle Alice chops Mrs. Voorhees head off in self-defense with a machete. Alice then climbs into a canoe and floats onto the lake.

The next morning, Alice wakes to find police officers on the shore. However, as Alice continues to float in the canoe, the decayed corpse of Jason (Ari Lehman), Mrs. Voorhees's son, leaps up from the surface and pulls Alice underwater. Alice awakes in the hospital screaming, the previous scene with Jason having been a nightmare. Alice asks about Jason, but when the officer explains that no child was found at the camp, Alice replies, "Then he's still there," as the last scene shows the lake supposedly at peace.

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

Friday the 13th did not even have a completed script when Sean S. Cunningham took out this advertisement inVariety magazine

Friday the 13th was produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, who had previously worked with filmmaker Wes Craven on the film The Last House on the Left. Cunningham, inspired by John Carpenter's Halloween, wanted Friday the 13th to be shocking, visually stunning and "[make] you jump out of your seat". Wanting to distance himself from The Last House on the Left, Cunningham wanted Friday the 13th to be more of a "roller-coaster ride".[2]

This film was intended to be "a real scary movie" and at the same time make the audience laugh. Friday the 13th began its life as nothing more than a title. Initially, A Long Night at Camp Blood was the working title during the writing process, but Cunningham believed in his "Friday the 13th" moniker, and quickly rushed out to place an advertisement in Variety. Worried that someone else owned the rights to the title and wanting to avoid potential lawsuits, Cunningham thought it would be best to find out immediately. He commissioned a New York advertising agency to develop his concept of the Friday the 13th logo, which consisted of big block letters bursting through a pane of glass.[5] In the end, Cunningham believed there were "no problems" with the title, but distributor George Mansour stated, "There was a movie before ours called Friday the 13th: The Orphan. It was moderately successful. But someone still threatened to sue. Either Phil Scuderi paid them off, but it was finally resolved."[6]

The film was shot in and around the townships of Blairstown and Hope, New Jersey in the fall (September) of 1979. The camp scenes were shot on a working Boy Scout camp, Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco. The camp is still standing and still works as a summer camp.[7][dead link]

[edit] Writing

The script was written by Victor Miller, who has gone on to write for several television soap operas, including Guiding Light, One Life to Live and All My Children. Miller delighted in inventing a serial killer who turned out to be somebody's mother, a murderer whose only motivation was her love for her child. "I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Voorhees was the mother I'd always wanted—a mother who would have killed for her kids." Miller was unhappy about the filmmakers' decision to make Jason Voorhees the killer in the sequels. "Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain."[8] The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was initially not used in the original script, and was actually suggested by makeup designer Tom Savini. Savini stated that "The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen Carrie, so we thought that we need a 'chair jumper' like that, and I said, 'let's bring in Jason'".[9][dead link]

[edit] Music

When Harry Manfredini began working on the musical score, the decision was made to only play music when the killer was actually present so as to not "manipulate the audience".[10][dead link] Manfredini pointed out the lack of music for certain scenes: "There's a scene where one of the girls [...] is setting up the archery area [...] One of the guys shoots an arrow into the target and just misses her. It's a huge scare, but if you notice, there's no music. That was a choice."[10] Manfredini also noted that when something was going to happen, the music would cut off so that the audience would relax a bit, and the scare would be that much more effective.

Since Mrs. Voorhees, the killer in the original Friday the 13th, appears onscreen only during the final scenes of the film, Manfredini had the job of creating a score that would represent the killer in her absence.[10] Manfredini borrows from the 1975 film Jaws, where the shark is likewise not seen for the majority of the film but the motif created by John Williams cued the audience to the shark's invisible menace.[11] Sean S. Cunningham sought a chorus, but the budget would not allow it. While listening to a Krzysztof Penderecki piece of music, which contained a chorus with "striking pronunciations", Manfredini was inspired to recreate a similar sound. He came up with the sound "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" from the final reel when Mrs. Voorhees arrives and is reciting "Kill her, mommy!" The "ki" comes from "kill", and the "ma" from "mommy". To achieve the unique sound he wanted for the film, Manfredini spoke the two words "harshly, distinctly and rhythmically into a microphone" and ran them into an echo reverberation machine.[10] Manfredini finished the original score after a couple of weeks, and then recorded the score in a friend's basement.[11] Victor Miller and assistant editor Jay Keuper have commented on how memorable the music is, with Keuper describing it as "iconographic". Manfredini says, "Everybody thinks it's cha, cha, cha. I'm like, 'Cha, cha, cha? What are you talking about?'"[12]

In 1982, Gramavision Records released a LP record of selected pieces of Harry Manfredini's scores from the first three Friday the 13th films.[13] On 13 January 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition 6-CD boxset containing Manfredini's scores from the first six films. It sold out in less than 24 hours.[14]

[edit] Release

[edit] Box office

Paramount bought Friday the 13th's distribution rights for $1.5 million, after seeing a screening of the film. They spent approximately $500,000 in advertisements for the film, and then an additional $500,000 when the film began performing well at the box office.[15] Friday the 13th opened theatrically on 9 May 1980 across the United States in 1,100 theaters. It took in $5,816,321 in its opening weekend, before finishing domestically with $39,754,601. The film finished as the eighteenth highest grossing film of 1980.[16] Friday the 13th was released internationally, which was unusual for an independent film with, at the time, no well-recognized or bankable actors; aside from well-known television and movie actress Betsy Palmer.[17] The film would take in approximately $20 million in international box office receipts.[18] Not factoring in international sales, or the cross-over film with A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger, the original Friday the 13th is the highest grossing film of the film series.[19] To provide context with the box office gross of films in 2009, the cost of making and promoting Friday the 13th—which includes the $550,000 budget and the $1 million in advertisement—is approximately $4.4 million. With regard to the domestic box office gross, the film would have made $117,917,391 in adjusted 2009 dollars.[20] In terms of recent box office performance, Friday the 13th would be the highest grossing horror film of 2008 using the adjusted figures.[21] On 13 July 2007, Friday the 13th was screened for the first time on Blairstown's Main Street in the very theater which appears shortly after the opening credits.[7] Overflowing crowds forced the Blairstown Theater Festival, the sponsoring organization, to add an extra screening at 11:00 PM. The event was covered by local media and New York City's Channel 11.[22][dead link] A 30th Anniversary Edition was released on 10 March 2010.[23]

[edit] Critical response

Friday the 13th has received mixed to negative reviews from critics, with RottenTomatoes reporting that 59% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 49 reviews.[24] Its most vocal detractor was Gene Siskel, who in his review called Cunningham "one of the most despicable creatures ever to infest the movie business".[25] He also published the address for Charles Bluhdorn, the chairman of the board of Gulf+Western, which owned Paramount, as well as Betsy Palmer's home city and encouraged fellow detractors to write to them and express their contempt for the film.[26] Siskel and Roger Ebert spent an entire episode of their TV show berating the film (and other slasher films of the time) because they felt it would make audiences root for the killer.[27] Leonard Maltin initially awarded the film one star, or 'BOMB', but later changed his mind and awarded the film a star and-a-half stating "...simply because it's slightly better than Part 2" and called it a "...gory, cardboard thriller".[28] Variety claimed the film was "low budget in the worst sense—with no apparent talent or intelligence to offset its technical inadequacies—Friday the 13th has nothing to exploit but its title. "[29] The ending sequence of the film was listed at No. 31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments,[30][dead link]and the film was voted No. 15 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scariest Moments.[31][dead link]

The film was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.[32]

English film critic Mark Kermode opined that the first Friday the 13th film's legacy is not that it's a good, well-made film (it's not, Kermode has argued) but that it successfully brought an aesthetic mostly confined to grindhouse cinema, at least up until that time, into mainstream cinema. "There was a novelty of seeing a film that scrappy and that nasty being distributed by a big studio in a mainstream cinema. You were watching a nasty, grimy movie but in plush seats, in kind of polite surroundings. That was what made it something special, something that hadn't been seen before", Kermode recalled.[citation needed]

[edit] Home media

On 3 February 2009, Paramount Home Entertainment released Friday the 13th on an unrated uncut home video version for the first time in the United States (all previous VHS and DVD releases were the rated theatrical version). It is available on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The uncut version of the film contains approximately 10 seconds of previously unreleased footage. In 2011, the uncut version of Friday the 13th was released in a 4-disc DVD collection with the first three sequels.[33]

[edit] Related works

[edit] Sequels

Further information: Friday the 13th franchise

As of 2009, Friday the 13th has spawned nine sequels, including a crossover film with A Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddy Krueger. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) introduced Jason Voorhees, the son of Mrs. Voorhees, as the primary antagonist, which would continue for the remaining sequels (with exception of the fifth movie) and related works. Most of the sequels were filmed on larger budgets than the original. In comparison, Friday the 13th had a budget of $550,000, while the first sequel was given a budget of $1.25 million.[1] At the time of its release, Freddy vs. Jason had the largest budget, at $25 million.[34] All of the sequels repeated the premise of the original, so the filmmakers made tweaks to provide freshness. Changes involved an addition to the title—as opposed to a number attached to the end—like "The Final Chapter" and "Jason Takes Manhattan", or filming the movie in 3-D, as Miner did for Friday the 13th Part III (1982).[35] One major addition that would affect the entire film series was the addition of Jason's hockey mask in the third film; this mask would become one of the most recognizable images in popular culture.[36][dead link] Cunningham did not direct any of the film's sequels, though he did act as producer on the later installments; he initially did not want Jason Voorhees to be resurrected for the sequel.[citation needed]

A reboot to Friday the 13th came to theaters in February 2009, with Freddy vs. Jason writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift hired to script the new film.[37] The film focused on Jason Voorhees, along with his trademark hockey mask.[38] The film was produced by Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller through Bay's production company Platinum Dunes, for New Line Cinema.[37] In November 2007, Marcus Nispel, director of the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was hired to direct.[39] The film had its United States release on 13 February 2009.[40][dead link]

[edit] Adaptations

In 1987, seven years after the release of the motion picture, Simon Hawke produced a novelization of Friday the 13th. One of the few additions to the book was Mrs. Voorhees begging the Christy family to take her back after the loss of her son; they agreed.[41]Another addition in the novel is more understanding in Mrs. Voorhees' actions. Hawke felt the character had attempted to move on when Jason died, but her psychosis got the best of her. When Steve Christy reopened the camp, Mrs. Voorhees saw it as a chance that what happened to her son could happen again. Her murders were against the counselors, because she saw them all as responsible for Jason's death.[42]

A number of scenes from the film were recreated in Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale, a two-issue comic book prequel released by WildStorm in 2007.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Bracke 2006, pp. 314–315.
  2. ^ a b Grove 2005, pp. 11–12.
  3. ^ Grove 2005, p. 60.
  4. ^ McCarty, John (July 1984). Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen. St. Martin's Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-312-75257-1.
  5. ^ Grove 2005, pp. 15–16.
  6. ^ Bracke 2006, p. 17.
  7. ^ a b "Blairstown Theater Festival". Blairstown Theater. http://blairstowntheaterfestival.com/friday_the_13th_connection.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-02.[dead link]
  8. ^ Miller, Victor. "Frequently Asked Questions". victormiller.com. http://www.victormiller.com/faq.php. Retrieved 11 July 2012. "I have a major problem with all of them because they made Jason the villain. I still believe that the best part of my screenplay was the fact that a mother figure was the serial killer—working from a horribly twisted desire to avenge the senseless death of her son, Jason. Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain."
  9. ^ "Interview with Tom Savini". New York: NY Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/story/462246p-388901c.html. Retrieved 11 December 2006.[dead link]
  10. ^ a b c d "Slasherama interview with Harry Manfredini". Slasherama. http://www.slasherama.com/features/harry.HTML. Retrieved 2007-10-28.[dead link]
  11. ^ a b Bracke 2006, p. 39.
  12. ^ Miller, Victor; Keuper, Jay; Manfredini, Harry (1980). "Return to Crystal Lake: Making of Friday the 13th" Friday the 13th DVD (DVD – region 2). United States: Warner Bros..
  13. ^ Bracke 2006, p. 94.
  14. ^ "LA LA LAND RECORDS, Friday the 13th". lalalandrecords.com. http://lalalandrecords.com/F13.html. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  15. ^ Grove 2005, p. 59.
  16. ^ "1980". boxofficemojo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1980&p=.htm. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  17. ^ Rockoff 2002, p. 18.
  18. ^ "Friday the 13th - Box Office Data, DVD Sales, Movie News, Cast Information". the-numbers.com. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1980/0FF1.php. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  19. ^ "Friday the 13th Moviesat the Box Office". boxofficemojo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=fridaythe13th.htm. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  20. ^ "Tom's Inflation Calculator". halfhill.com. http://www.halfhill.com/inflation1.html. Retrieved 19 February 2009.
  21. ^ "2008 Yearly Box Office Results". boxofficemojo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2008&p=.htm. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  22. ^ "Blairstown Theater screensFriday the 13th". The CW 11. http://video.cw11.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?clipid1=1586158&at1. Retrieved 2008-06-21.[dead link]
  23. ^ "Fantastic Friday the 13th Anniversary Item Coming". dreadcentral.com. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/35616/fantastic-friday-13th-anniversary-item-coming.
  24. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/friday_the_13th_part_1/
  25. ^ Bracke 2006, p. 45.
  26. ^ Siskel, Gene (12 May 1980). "'Friday the 13th': More bad luck". Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Ill): p. A3.
  27. ^ Hewitt, Chris; Smith, Adam. "Freddy V Jason". Empire (March 2009).
  28. ^ Maltin, Leonard (2000). Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. Signet Books. p. 491. ISBN 0-451-19837-9.
  29. ^ "Friday the 13th". Variety. 31 December 1979. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117791118?refcatid=31. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  30. ^ shtml "BravoTV:The 100 Scariest Movie Moments". Bravo. http://www.bravotv.com/The_100_Scariest_Movie_Moments/index. shtml.[dead link]
  31. ^ "100 Greatest Scariest Moments". Channel4. http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/S/scary/results_20-11_2.html.[dead link]
  32. ^ "www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/thrills400.pdf". afi.com. http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/thrills400.pdf. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  33. ^ "Buy Movies at Movies Unlimited - The Movie Collector's Site". moviesunlimited.com. http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=D83927. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  34. ^ "Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)". boxofficemojo.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=freddyvsjason.htm. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  35. ^ Bracke 2006, p. 73–74.
  36. ^ Gary Kemble (2006-01-13). "Movie Minutiae: the Friday the 13th series (1980-?)". ABC. http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/200601/s1546063.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-21.[dead link]
  37. ^ a b Kit, Borys (2 October 2007). "Duo pumps new blood into 'Friday the 13th'". hollywoodreporter.com. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071011092956/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ia426500233e132c71ea0487278b5bbb3. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  38. ^ "Platinum Confirmations: Near Dark, Friday the 13th Remakes". The Hollywood Reporter. 3 October 2007. http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/10058. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  39. ^ Kit, Borys (14 November 2007). "Nispel scores a date with next 'Friday'". hollywoodreporter.com. Archived from the original on 2 May 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080502144858/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib4d95be28520da0db0f10edad41c0123. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  40. ^ "Young Jason Cast in Friday the 13th remake". FearNet. 2008-05-15. http://www.fearnet.com/MCNewsDetailPage.aspx?catid=30&mid=14390. Retrieved 2008-05-28.[dead link]
  41. ^ Hawke 1987, pp. 164–168.
  42. ^ Grove 2005, p. 50.

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

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