Friday the 13th is a 1980 American slasher film directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Thomas Trenton. The film concerns a group of teenagers who are murdered one-by-one while attempting to re-open an abandoned campsite and stars Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, and Kevin Bacon in one of his earliest roles. Star of Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert co-stars in a supporting role having been dating Trenton for several months.
Friday the 13th, inspired by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween, was made on an estimated budget of $550,000.
Released by Paramount Pictures in the United States and Warner Bros. internationally, the film received negative reviews from film critics, but grossed over $39.7 million at the box office in the United States, and went on 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. The film's box office success led to a long series of sequels, a crossover with Freddy Krueger and a series reboot released on February 13, 2009.
Plot[]
In the summer of 1957, two counselors Barry (Willie Adams) and Claudette (Debra S. Hayes) at Camp Crystal Lake are murdered by an unseen assailant after they sneak away to a cabin to have sex. As the film jumps to present day, the camp is being re-opened by Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer). Annie (Robbi Morgan), one of the teens who will be a counselor at the camp, is hitchhiking to Crystal Lake and is given a lift by a friendly truck driver, Enos (Rex Everhart), after asking for directions at a local diner. She is warned by the town crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) that the camp is cursed and is also warned by Enos who tells her about the murders of 1957.
After being driven part of the distance to the camp, Annie dismisses the warnings when Enos leaves and continues to Crystal Lake, later being picked up by an unseen driver in a Jeep. As the driver speeds past the entrance to the camp, Annie becomes concerned and leaps from the moving vehicle when the driver fails to stop, fleeing into the woods. The driver chases her into the woods and slits her throat with a hunting knife.
Meanwhile, several other counselors have been hired to help Steve with the camp, including Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Jack (Kevin Bacon), Jay (Thomas Trenton), Brenda (Laurie Bartram), Sally (Melissa Gilbert) and Ned (Mark Nelson).
The counselors begin refurbishing and renovating the camp as Steve heads off to get supplies in town. Jay, a local to the area, reveals the camp’s sordid history, the death of Jacob Voorhees and the two murders. He reveals no one knows who is responsible, but that Mrs. Voorhees and her other son Jason was on top of the list. Ned follows a figure he sees disappearing into an old cabin and is murdered. Sally is attacked and apparently killed offscreen. Jack and Marcie take refuge in a bunkhouse and have sex, unaware that Ned's corpse rests on the upper bunk. Both are later murdered by the same unseen figure.
Meanwhile, Steve's car breaks down and he is escorted back to camp by a police officer. Upon arrival at the camp, Steve is murdered by the same attacker, although Steve appears to know the person. Upon completion of a game of strip Monopoly, Brenda is murdered while walking back to her cabin after hearing a child-like voice calling "Help me!" from the woods. Hearing her scream, Jay, Bill and Alice go to investigate but only find a bloody axe in Brenda's bed.
After discovering the phone lines have been cut and none of the vehicles at the camp are operational, Bill leaves to check the generator. When he fails to return, Alice and Jay search for him, becoming separated in the process. Alice finds the corpse of Bill and flees back to her cabin. After barricading herself in the cabin, Brenda's corpse is hurled through the window, forcing Alice to run back outside only to meet a middle-aged woman revealing herself as Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer).
As Alice begins to tell Mrs. Voorhees about the murders, Mrs. Voorhees tells Alice about her son Jacob 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 knife, and Alice realizes that Mrs. Voorhees is the murderer.
A lengthy chase ensues in which Alice appears to subdue Mrs. Voorhees several times and finds several other dead bodies in the process. Facing off near the shore of the lake, Alice manages to finally defeat Mrs. Voorhees, decapitating her with a machete. With Mrs. Voorhees dead, Alice appears safe. Jay appears and embraces Alice, proclaiming that “he’s sorry.” He then reveals that he’s actuality Jason Voorhees and slits Alice’s throat with a knife.
The next morning, Jason proclaims no knowledge of what his mother was planning to police officers as they arrive on the scene. The local Sheriff hopes that the history of Camp Blood can finally be over. Jason agrees.
Cast[]
- Thomas Trenton as Jason Voorhees
- Adrienne King as Alice
- Melissa Gilbert as Sally
- Harry Crosby as Bill
- Laurie Bartram as Brenda
- Jeannine Taylor as Marcie
- Kevin Bacon as Jack
- Mark Nelson as Ned
- Peter Brouwer as Steve Christie
- Robbi Morgan as Annie
- Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees
- Bruce Greenwood as Deputy Parks
- Ari Lehman as Jacob Voorhees
- Walt Gorney as Crazy Ralph
- Rex Everhart as Enos the truck driver
- Debra S. Hayes as Claudette
- Willie Adams as Barry
Production[]
Development[]
Friday the 13th did not even have a completed script when Sean S. Cunningham took out this advertisement in International Variety 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, and films by Mario Bava, wanted Friday the 13th to be shocking, visually stunning, and "[make] you jump out of your seat." Wishing to distance himself from The Last House on the Left, Cunningham saw Friday the 13th to be more of a "roller-coaster ride".
The 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 three incarnations. A shared title of “Friday the 13th” by Cunningham and Trenton, a rough draft story treatment titled "Long Night at Camp Blood" and a finished, but unpolished screenplay by Trenton. 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.
However two months earlier Trenton had his finished screenplay; including the title, registered by the Writer’s Guild of America. To avoid conflict, the two met and eventually decided to collaborate. Trenton wanted to act and learn production, and Cunningham would be the producer and director. Combing story elements from both scripts, a finished draft was completed in June of 1979.
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.
It was during the time that Trenton had been writing the first draft of Friday The 13th that his then-girlfriend Melissa Gilbert asked if she could join the cast. Gilbert thought it would be fun to be in a horror movie and was a fan of Halloween. Her agent, and others concerned about her all-American image on "Little House" felt this might be a bad choice for her career. After numerous discussions with Michael Landon, NBC and her parents, everyone agreed to let her appear in the film. With only three conditions; "No nudity, no swearing, no death on screen."
Ironically, Melissa would be killed on-screen in the first sequel after her death was retconned out of the first film. Gilbert would later cameo in the series' 13th entry 2013's Jason vs Jason X vs Jason.
Writing[]
The script was written by Trenton, who would go on to write the first six of the series, conceive the story for part 8, and write the final two films in the franchise. Trenton’s initial idea had been to set the movie in a high-rise building and create 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."
Cunningham’s story treatment suggested a new locale, an isolated campground and making the killer one of the counsellors. Trenton acquiesced to a certain degree, keeping the Mrs. Voorhees character in the film and making his chosen role Jay into “Jason Voorhees”, a second killer who would go on to dominate the sequels. Trenton chose to assume the role of killer, thinking if successful he could better control the series if Jason was the focal point of the franchise.
Casting[]
A New York-based firm, headed by Julie Hughes and Barry Moss, was hired to find eight young actors to play the camp's staff members. Aside from Trenton who was contractually given the role of Jason "Jay" Voorhees, as the series' co-creator. Cunningham admits that he was not looking for "great actors", but anyone that was likable, and appeared to be a responsible camp counselor. The way Cunningham saw it, the actors would need to look good, read the dialogue somewhat well, and work cheap. Moss and Hughes were happy to find four actors, Kevin Bacon, Laurie Bartram, Peter Brouwer, and Adrienne King, who had previously appeared on soap operas. The role of "Alice" was set up as an open casting call, a publicity stunt used to attract more attention to the film. King earned an audition primarily because she was the friend of someone working in Moss and Hughes’s office. After she auditioned, Moss recalls Cunningham commenting that they saved the best actress for last. As Cunningham explains, he was looking for people that could behave naturally, and King was able to show that to him in the audition.
| "I didn't even really think of this movie as a horror film. "To me, this was a small independent film about carefree teenagers who are having a rip-roaring time at a summer camp where they happen to be working as counselors. Then they just happen to get killed." |
| — Jeannine Taylor on how she viewed Friday the 13th |
With King cast in the role of lead heroine Alice, Laurie Bartram was hired to play Brenda. Kevin Bacon, Mark Nelson and Jeannine Taylor, who had known each other prior to the film, were cast as Jack, Ned, and Marcie respectively. It is Bacon and Nelson's contention that, because the three already knew each other, they already had the specific chemistry the casting director was looking for in the roles of Jack, Ned, and Marcie. Taylor has stated that Hughes and Moss were highly regarded while she was an actress, so when they offered her an audition she felt that, whatever the part, it would "be a good opportunity".
Friday the 13th was Nelson's first feature film, and when he went in for his first audition the only thing he was given to read were some comedic scenes. Nelson received a call back for a second audition, which required him to wear a bathing suit, which Nelson acknowledges made him start to wonder if something was off about this film. He did not fully realize what was going on until he got the part and was given the full script to read. Nelson explains, "It certainly was not a straight dramatic role, and it was only after they offered me the part that they gave me the full script to read and I realized how much blood was in it." Nelson believes that Ned used humor to hide his insecurities, especially around Brenda, whom the actor believes Ned was attracted to. Nelson recalls an early draft of the script stating that Ned suffered from polio, and his legs were deformed while his upper body was muscular. Ned is believed to have given birth to the "practical joker victim" of horror films. According to author David Grove, there was no equivalent character in John Carpenter's Halloween, or Bob Clark's Black Christmas before that. He served as a model for the slasher films that would follow Friday the 13th.
| "I went in to audition for [Moss and Hughes] for something else. They said, "you know, Robbi, you're not really right for this, but there's a movie called Friday the 13th and they need an adorable camp counselor." |
| — Robbi Morgan on how she landed the role of Annie. |
The part of Bill was handed over to Harry Crosby, son of Bing Crosby. Robbi Morgan, who plays Annie, was not auditioning for the film when she was offered the role. While in her office, Hughes just looked at Morgan and proclaimed "you're a camp counselor". The next day Morgan was on the set. Morgan only appeared on-set for a day to shoot all her scenes. Rex Everhart, who portrays Enos, did not film the truck scenes with Morgan, so she had to either act with an imaginary Enos, or exchange dialogue with Taso Stavrakis—Savini's assistant—who would sit in the truck with her. It was Peter Brouwer's girlfriend that helped him land a role on Friday the 13th. After recently being written off the show Love of Life, Brouwer moved back to Connecticut to look for work. Learning that his girlfriend was working as an assistant director for Friday the 13th, Brouwer asked about any openings. Initially told casting was looking for big stars to fill the role of Steve Christy, it was not until Sean Cunningham dropped by to deliver a message to Brouwer's girlfriend, and saw him working in a garden, that Brouwer was hired.
Estelle Parsons was initially asked to portray the film's killer, Mrs. Voorhees, but eventually declined. Her agent cited that the film was too violent, and did not know what kind of actress would play such a part. As his first and only choice, Trenton pushed Hughes and Moss to send a copy of the script to Betsy Palmer, in hopes that she would accept the part. Palmer could not understand why someone would want her for a part in a horror film, as she had previously starred in films such as Mister Roberts, The Angry Man, and The Tin Star. Palmer only agreed to play the role because she needed to buy a new car, even when she believed the film to "be a piece of shit." Stavrakis subbed for Betsy Palmer as well, which involved Morgan's character being chased through the woods by Mrs. Voorhees, although the audience only sees a pair of legs running after Morgan. Palmer had just arrived in town when those scenes were about to be filmed, and was not in the physical shape necessary to chase Morgan around the woods. Morgan's training as an acrobat assisted her in these scenes, as her character was required to leap out of a moving jeep when she discovers that Mrs. Voorhees does not intend to take her to the camp. Betsy Palmer explains how she developed the character of Mrs. Voorhees:
"Being an actress who uses the Stanislavsky method, I always try to find details about my character. With Pamela... I began with a class ring that I remember reading in the script that she'd worn. Starting with that, I traced Pamela back to my own high school days in the early 1940s. So it's 1944, a very conservative time, and Pamela has a steady boyfriend. They have sex—which is very bad of course—and Pamela soon gets pregnant with Jacob. The father takes off and when Pamela tells her parents, they disown her because having... babies out of wedlock isn't something that good girls do. I think she took Jacob and raised him the best she could, but he turned out to be a very strange boy. [She took] lots of odd jobs and one of those jobs was as a cook at a summer camp. Then Jacob drowns and her whole world collapses. What were the counselors doing instead of watching Jacob? They were having sex, which is the way that she got into trouble. From that point on, Pamela became very psychotic and puritanical in her attitudes as she was determined to kill all of the immoral camp counselors."
Cunningham wanted to make the Mrs. Voorhees character "terrifying", and to that end he believed it was important that Palmer not act "over the top". There was also the fear that Palmer's past credits, as more of a wholesome character, would make it difficult to believe she could be scary.
In addition to the main cast, Walt Gorney came on as "Crazy Ralph", the town's soothsayer. The character of Crazy Ralph was meant to establish two functions: foreshadow the events to come, and insinuate that he could actually be the murderer. Cunningham has stated that he was apprehensive about including the character, and is not sure if he accomplished his goal of creating a new suspect.
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". 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." 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. 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. 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. Manfredini finished the original score after a couple of weeks, and then recorded the score in a friend's basement.
Thomas Trenton 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?"
Release[]
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.
Friday the 13th opened theatrically on May 9, 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.
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 actresses Betsy Palmer and Melissa Gilbert. The film would take in approximately $20 million in international box office receipt.
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 third highest grossing film of the twelve film series.
To provide context with the box office gross of films in 2008, 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 2008 dollars. In terms of recent box-office performance, Friday the 13th would be the highest grossing horror film of 2008 using the adjusted figures.
On July 13, 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. 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.
A 30th Anniversary Edition was released on March 5, 2010.
Critical response[]
Upon release, Friday the 13th received negative reviews from critics. 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". He also published Betsy Palmer's home address and encouraged fellow detractors to write to her and express their contempt for the film. Siskel and Roger Ebert spent a entire episode of their TV show berating the film because they felt it would make audiences root for the killer.
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 Friday the 13th: Part 2 and called it a "...gory, cardboard thriller...one more clue to why SAT scores continue to decline." 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."
The film currently holds a 60% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the highest percentage for any film in the series).
The ending sequence of the film was listed at #31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and the film was voted #15 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scariest Moments.
Related works[]
Sequels[]
- Main article: Friday The 13th (Franchise)
As of 2015, Friday the 13th has spawned thirteen sequels, including a crossover film with A Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddy Krueger.
Friday The 13th: The Return of Jason Voorhees (1981) had Jason Voorhees, the younger son of Mrs. Voorhees, assume the role of primary antagonist, which would continue for the remaining sequels 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. At the time of its release, Freddy vs. Jason had the largest budget, at $25 million.
The 13th entry of the series, Jason vs Jason X vs Jason would later beat that record by 5 million. All of the sequels repeated the premise of the original, so the filmmakers made tweaks to provide freshness. Changes involved the addition of a subtitle—as opposed to a number to differentiate each entry—like "The Return of Jason Voorhees" and "Jason Takes Manhattan", or filming the movie in 3-D, as Miner did for Friday the 13th 3D. The third film would also be the birthplace of one of the most recognizable images in popular culture, that of Jason's hockey mask.
Trenton remained as a producer, writer and star of the series until part six at which time he killed off Jason. He would conceive plots for five sequels, writing two and writing first drafts for parts eight and nine. Though he declined to assume the role of Jason in Freddy vs. Jason, his script allowed the project get back on track from decades of development hell.
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. The film focused on Jason Voorhees, along with his trademark hockey mask. The film was produced by Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller through Bay's production company Platinum Dunes, for New Line Cinema. In November 2007, Marcus Nispel, director of the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was hired to direct. The film had its United States release on 13 February 2009.
In 2013, inspired by the comic Jason vs Jason X, Trenton returned to play Jason Voorhees in Jason vs Jason X vs Jason for the first time in 27 years. He conceived a story where three separate Jason's would duel to the death in a futuristic arena, using a holographic setting of the Crystal Lake area. Trenton brought back several surviving characters to the film and pitted his Jason against that of Kane Hodder's cybernetic Uber Jason from Jason X and reboot Jason as played by Derek Mears. With a budget of over $30 million, it is to date the most expensive film in the series. The film was a celebration of the entire franchise and the most successful film of the series.
Trenton and Cunningham enjoyed collaborating for Jason vs Jason X vs Jason, they came together two years later for another entry. Trenton was inspired to write a new story after researching the Beltway Snipers for a cancelled project. He also experienced a series of nightmares that helped form the story. Convincing Cunningham that a more intimate, psychological story was the right angle after the box-office spectacle of Jason vs Jason X vs Jason, Cunningham agreed to produce. Trenton would later convince him to direct the film, the only other entry in the series to be directed by Cunningham since the original.
Adaptations[]
In 1987, seven years after the release of the motion picture, Simon Hawke adapted 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. Another addition in the novel is more understanding in Mrs. Voorhees' actions. Hawke felt the character had attempted to move on when Jacob 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 counsellors, because she saw them all as responsible for Jacob’s death.
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.
Uncut DVD and Blu-ray releases[]
On February 3, 2009, Friday the 13th released an uncut home video version for the first time in the United States. It is available on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The uncut version of the film contains approximately 10 seconds of previously unreleased footage.
Awards and Nominations[]
- 1st Golden Raspberry Award
- Nominated: Worst Picture
External links[]
- Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future and You (includes anecdotes about working on Friday the 13th)
- Official website for the friday the 13th films