Okay So, Lemme Tell You About... Friday the 13th (1980)
IMDB | ReelGood) | Does The Dog Die? | Wikipedia
Look. It's October. It's Friday the 13th the actual date. There's an eclipse tomorrow morning. The vibes for making this newsletter are immaculate so here I am, sooner than I expected, making it. Alright, here we go.
IMDB Summary: A group of camp counselors trying to reopen a summer camp called Crystal Lake, which has a grim past, are stalked by a mysterious killer.
My Summary: A bunch of camp counselors don't read up enough before accepting their jobs, leaving them to a grim fate at the hands of a mysterious killer. Couldn't be me.
This one's a classic and this time I do get why. There's a lot of tropes that shaped my idea of what and who a slasher is, who and what a Final Girl is, the Rules of Horror Movies, and my pop culture understanding. It even makes a lot of the mechanics behind the multiplayer game make more sense for me. The opening notes this time around are way more ramble-y, as I didn't take as much time to clean them up as I would have. Ssssssorry...?
Spoilers begin here! Check the ReelGood link above now if you want to watch the movie first!
So we start off, after the brutal murder of two horny teen counselors, with what I assumed to be our Final Girl, Annie, hiking her way cheerfully through the silent suburban town until she finds the diner where EVERYONE looks at her like "for real? there?" yet no one tries to stop her. Not even the obvious Herald character, Ralph. It's an interesting distinction from modern slasher-inspired horror where the Herald tries to get everyone or at least the Final Girl to turn away before they get hurt or worse. That ends up being fulfilled by Enos, who's a more helpful but not quite friendly townie than a Herald, though he ends up filling that function.
Ya know, as soon as everyone started saying "hmmm, weird that the cook isn't here yet", I shoulda known that Annie wasn't the Final Girl. I wasn't expecting a bait and switch so early but it works. It conveys to the viewer that no one will be safe, not from the wrath of Crystal Lake's killer. And it sets up Alice as the only viable other Final Girl, even though she technically partakes (but not fully) in the Strip Monopoly game (which is so not a thing, you can't be sexy while wanting to murder everyone at the board).
It's WILD, in retrospect, that everyone working at this camp accepted their jobs with no research (to be fair, they can't exactly just google it), kept going after being warned of the nickname of Camp Blood by the townies, and said nothing when the owner of the camp simply put them straight to work with no other explanations. Like, none of this felt off at all? None of it? Is this just whiteness working?
Ah, there's the Herald character being all weird and herald-y and doom-saying. His out-of-place whimsy (wearing a hat and vest, riding a step-through cruiser-style bike, his wide-eyed stare) very much makes him stand out and feel like a warning. I really like the trope of a Herald. Someone purpose made to not be believed even as they give a very real warning.
Themes
Sex, impropriety, and its punishment is core to this movie, both in terms of theme and narrative. Debauchery in this environment is a dereliction of duty and that means an inherent danger to the children under their care. I mean, what if some psycho killer came out of the woods? (Is this part of where that came from?)
On this dereliction of their duties, whether they have charges to care for yet or not, they are judged harshly. We see their infractions, seemingly so that we can also judge them as the killer does. Contemporary audiences likely only identified this as sinful and taboo and other such things. However, modern audience would recognize it as a breaking of the rules and an infraction that only has one end in these kinds of movies.
The same goes for (presumably underaged) drinking and smoking weed. Both impair judgement and thus must have justice meted out swiftly. Quickly after having sex and taking a drag, Jack feels a drop of blood from his friends corpse above him as a hand slaps over his forehead and an arrow stabs up from under the bed and between his collar bones. As for his lover, she takes an axe to the head thinking he's pranking her.
The long consideration of each potential victim adds to the feeling of judgment that I don't remember being in the one sequel I saw (please don't ask which one). In those, Jason is fully confident that his wrath is deserved because it's what his mother taught him. But in this first one, there's a patience not seen later; an implication that Mrs. Voorhees wants to make damn sure they wouldn't have saved her son.
The overarching theme, of course, is an inability to fully grieve and let go of the past. Jason's death is, obviously, a tragedy. But, like, imagine if Mrs. Voorhees had actually been allowed to grieve instead of having to work through the summer next to the neglectful counselors? Maybe she could have done some healing. Gone to therapy. Literally anything. If memory serves, the later sequels show that none of the townspeople did much to help at all. Mrs. Voorhees' terrifying tenaciousness is an outward symbol of just how little she was able to let go or process, the rage building until it seemed she couldn't die save by extreme means.
Narrative
Interesting that we start on an implication of innocence with the camp counselors singing a spiritual at the opening and can dimly hear them as the killer moves among the sleeping campers. Then the breaking of the innocence follows immediately, breaking the rules of slasher movies but much more specifically, Jason's mother. And we're straight into the first two deaths (only one on camera, oddly enough, with the second implied) and our opening credits.
The framing of the shots, such as making sure that something around the edges always has some light, even when outdoors in pitch blackness, does a lot a keep up the reminder that there are no other people around for miles. The shot of Steve approaching the camp sign and bright flashlight is massive and lonely, the only real color his yellow raincoat as he jogs up with a bit of green from the leaves.
Alice, when she finally has to take action, is still a damsel about it, which is interesting. She's one of the most markedly femme Final Girls I've seen without it being full on subversion and she sobs the whole way through trying to barricade herself in until the danger is close. Once it's thrust at her again, the weeping begins again and she trusts and clings to the first person who might save her.
Other Notes
Again, we have the slight disjointedness of 80s filmmaking. It feels like several stories are starting, stopping, and sometimes finishing but not always. While this does a much better job at coherent linear storytelling than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), there are still seeing loose ends and under-developed characterizations that ended up becoming hallmarks of slasher movies.
Whoa boy, the sheer amount of cultural appropriation and shittiness to Native peoples sure is 80s of them, huh? And local shit cop Dorf is just lovely (this is a lie, he sucks). The music is also very 80s but at least not in a bad way I guess.
Why does no one put their damn clothes back on tho? They're really out here just running out shoeless into the rain with just their underwear? Truly? Really?
You know when there's a jump scare and you know there is but you predicted the wrong fuckin' one and you get jump scared anyways? And not even that much different but different enough? Yeah, that was me. I was jump scared at the end.
What I Learned
I don't think I'm in the headspace to have learned anything significant today unfortunately. It was good to identify where a chunk of my preconceived notions about horror movies came from, especially because I'd never seen this Friday the 13th before. That implies just how deep the cultural impact goes and how far its spread. So I guess that in itself is a good thing to learn? Yeah, that feels like a good thing to have learned.
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