31 Days of Horror: Friday the 13th

October 13, 2008: Friday the 13th
Here it is one of my most favorite horror movies of all-time – Friday the 13th. This movie was released in 1980, thus making way for the 80’s slasher films.
I like this movie, because for me every time I watch it, it’s still as smart and fun as it was the first time you lay your eyes on it.
The movie centers on Camp Crystal Lake, which we all know now is the famous stomping grounds of the killer Jason Voorhees (you know the hockey mask wearing and machete wielding killer).
Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) is the owner of the camp and is looking to reopen it, despite a series of strange and unexplained deaths that plagued the camp 20 years earlier.
He’s being helped by a new group of camp counselors that are “Babes in the Woods” as Christy puts it.
With the counselors settling in, someone lurks in the woods surrounding the camp. They are spying on the care free campers and plotting a revenge on those who have woken the camp from its years of slumber.
I can’t really say anything else, because then it would ruin the movie for you. I will say this, that Jason only makes a small cameo in this movie and he doesn’t start his murderous rampage until “Friday the 13th part 2” and his hockey mask doesn’t make it’s way onto his face until “Friday the 13th part 3”.
This movie is really a who done it kind of film, where everyone becomes a suspect and it’s not until the end we find out who is behind the grisly murders and what it their motivation to carry them out.
This movie set the style and tone for all slasher films to come. It really is a classic and one that defined the genre back in 1980.
The movie was followed by 10 sequels and a spin-off entitled “Freddy vs. Jason”, where Freddy Krueger finally meets up with Jason Voorhees and they duke it out.
The ten sequels that followed this movie, really started to become less and less believable as they went on, but I love them all and I recommend them to everyone because they’re just all fun to watch.
I can’t really say enough about this film or this series of horror films, because for me it’s one of my favorite series in the horror genre. If you haven’t seen Friday the 13th go out and pick up a copy, you most likely can find it and it for very cheap.