03/08/10 - Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th (1980, 95 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/

Eight days into the month, I finally check out the "monster" movie with which I had wanted to fill March. I select to start with the Friday the 13th series, watching as many as I could until I found them repulsive and then to move to another series.

The first film seems to be the oddball in the group as it actually features Mrs. Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) as the killer. There's a whole group of slaughtered kids that I'm not going to spend time naming as well.

This is really my first "slasher" film so I will try and not be too harsh in my comments since I don't really know the stereotypes and that at this point. For one though, I realize the acting isn't ever top-notch in a slasher so I'll be gentle there.

Friday the 13th does a good job at creating suspense in my opinion. There's a whole bunch of "No! Don't do that!" moments which are great. Some of the characters' deaths aren't shown until later when there's a sudden showing of about three as the final female character tries to escape. I liked this use of suspense. I also liked the use of the different sound effects for when the camera is in "point of view" or Mrs. Voorhees. It was cheesy but still fun. Overall, I liked the entire music selection.

The real problem I have with this film is the conclusion. Sure, Mrs. Voorhees being the killer is a cool twist but it sets up a really long battle between her and Alice that is just boring. I can understand having the last survivor put up more of a fight than all the previous characters but I just got the feeling that the two characters were just flailing around and that Mrs. Voorhees seemed really stupid compared to her previous strong and determined self. On a positive note, had this ending point not been spoiled for me, I think I would have loved this twist even more - I thought it was handled pretty well. The dream sequence of Jason jumping out of the lake is pretty cool though.

Overall, I gave this film a 5/10. It's fun and cheesy for the most part and has some fairly good suspense parts. The ending fight leaves a lot to be desired though. It still made me want to check out Friday the 13th Part 2 if only to see how Jason himself is at killing the kids.