Friday the 13th

When Friday The 13th came out it was loathed by pretty much all the critics. They laid into it with viciousness and histrionic inaccuracy. How was the film in their heads so substantially different from the one on screen? The director Sean S Cunningham doesn't know how to film anything, the soundtrack is terrible sub-Hitchcock, and none of the actors can act in this worthless bloodbath. One prominent critic, Gene Siskel doxed the female actor, Betsy Palmer, so that his audience could harass her for being in the film. That is more horrific than anything in this film. The onscreen killing of a live snake [1] does however come close. 45 years later some critics, looking back with rose coloured nostalgia, see it as a classic. The truth about Friday The 13th is that it is relatively well made but mediocre.

It is 1980. By this time the basic plot that Friday The 13th uses is well worn. Cunningham follows it by the numbers. The film starts with a flashback to 1958. It's night time, two teenagers working at Camp Crystal Lake are murdered while getting a little frisky with each other in a barn. Now in the present there is an introductory killing. Annie (Robbi Morgan) hitchhikes her way to a summer job renovating the camp. Almost at her destination, the locals give her dire but vague warnings. One of them gives her a lift partway there in his truck. She gets out, sticks up her thumb again and catches the last ride she will ever take. At the camp there are several more victims. They will be whittled down to a final girl, Alice (Adrienne King)

Cunningham's direction is competent and declarative. Nothing is confusing or ambiguous. He makes good use of the calm, reflective lake water. When it comes to the actors he keeps their performances calm and on the naturalistic side. He knows when to ramp up the tension, when to scare and when to let things relax.

On the special effects side, the violence and gore was a little tame by the standards of the day. Ignoring all the films that preceded it - slasher, giallo, wuxia or jidaigeki with its arterial spray - the chestbuster from Alien had already splattered our screens. They're not laughable or amateurish but they're not as extreme as the hype. The films sound design and score are good. The composer, Harry Manfredini, using his voice as a pulsitive instrument is innovative and effective. But overall the music isn't a patch on Carl Zittrer's for Black Christmas or Goblin's for Suspiria.

Friday The 13th is a well made but fairly unremarkable film. What about it could so incense the white male American critic? Could it be the copious amounts of male flesh on display? At Camp Crystal Lake proper, the first thing on display is a scantily clad man Steve (Peter Brouwer). Bare chested, denim shorts, moustache and a red bandanna round his neck he hacks at a dead tree stump with a felling axe. Later Ned (Mark Nelson) is prancing around in budgie smugglers and a fake feathered headdress, pretending to be a 'red indian'. When Officer Dorf (Ron Millkie) turns up, that's half the line-up for the Village People. Jack (Kevin Bacon) is murdered while lying naked on a bed.

Or is it the fact that the monster, the murderer is a woman? A middle aged woman at that. This upends the conventions of this kind of film. The woman is not the weak victim but the capable predator. She is not the sexually dysfunctional man gaining gratification from the killing. She is the grieving mother driven mad by the drowning of her son Jason. By killing the teenagers and stopping the camp from reopening, she is saving the children. The crimes of the teenagers, sex and dope, are not the moral offence to American values but the neglect of a duty of care, the neglect that let Jason drown. Siskel did single out Betsy Palmer for her roll as Mrs. Voorhees, slashing at her throat with his critical knife.

From time immemorial critics have critics have vented their ire at innovative or disruptive art. Read what they had to say about The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner, the first serial killer novel. Those works survived the criticism. But Friday The 13th wasn't particularly innovative or disruptive. With the female killer it was late in the game. In Italy even nuns had got in on the act. Why is this middle-of-the-road film still talked about today? Is it because of the critics that tried to bury it?

[1] Near the beginning of the film, an animal is killed on screen. The snake, a harmless, much-loved pet, is hacked to death in front of its owner. He, not knowing what was planned, had to be physically restrained by members of the crew.

Reviewed on: 27 Oct 2026