Friday the 13th, 1980.
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham.
Starring Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Kevin Bacon, Robbi Morgan, Harry Crosby, Betsy Palmer, Walt Gorney, Ari Lehman, Peter Brouwer.
SYNOPSIS:
A group of teenage camp counselors attempt to re-open an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past, but they are stalked by a mysterious, relentless killer.
A timely release given that prequel TV series Crystal Lake has just premiered on Peacock, Sean S. Cunningham’s original Friday the 13th gets a nice shiny 4K UHD Steelbook so you can connect the latest interpretation to the one that started it all. But how does the 46-year-old slasher stand up on this latest release?
Very well, it must be said. It isn’t a spoiler to say that this movie is very different to the rest of the franchise because of who the killer turns out to be, but given that Friday the 13th was originally conceived as a Halloween knock-off so director Sean S. Cunningham could have some of the success that John Carpenter was getting it has grown in stature over the years to become its own thing. Even if you disassociate it from what followed it works as a terrific standalone mystery thriller about camp counselors attempting to reopen a summer camp that has a dark history of tragic accidents and murder.
Opening with a POV shot reminiscent of Halloween, the movie begins in 1958 where two randy counselors at Camp Crystal Lake remove themselves from the rest of the group for a bit of intimate fun, only to be interrupted by a mysterious figure brandishing a knife. Fast-forward to 1979 and Annie (Robbi Morgan) is hitchhiking her way to Camp Crystal Lake to help get it ready for reopening. Even after repeated warnings from the locals – including doom-monger Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) – Annie carries on her journey while the rest of the counselors are already there under the watchful eye of new owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), who is aware of the camp’s past but ignores the local’s warnings.
From this point on Friday the 13th veers off from anything that Halloween did, as in that movie you always knew who the killer was, but here you don’t know who is doing the killing as the camp counselors get picked off one by one and that mystery element is the big difference between the two movies. The other big difference is that the kills in Friday the 13th are a lot gorier than pretty much any slasher movie we had seen up until this point, thanks to effects wizard Tom Savini, and although the variety of weapons that got used would become more inventive as the series went on, there is an element of terror that comes with the kills here, especially when the reveal of the killer is made.
And that is where Friday the 13th drops the ball really, as several characters are framed throughout the movie as potential suspects, from Crazy Ralph and his warnings of danger to the camera lingering on one of the counselors brandishing a machete after killing a snake (which was a real snake that got chopped up on camera). A murder mystery is a great idea but when the reveal is made it is a bit of a “What?” moment, especially when you look at the kills in isolation and realise that the actor physically doing them is clearly not the same actor at the end of the move as they are considerably stockier and have hairier hands, something made all the more obvious in 4K UHD.
So how does the movie look in 4K UHD? On the whole it looks great, with the daylight scenes looking remarkably fresh and vibrant, especially the opening shots of Annie in the local town and when Alice (Adrienne King) is on a boat on the lake near the end. However, there are issues here as the 4K print is considerably darker than on previous Blu-ray releases, most notably in the opening scene which is shot at night but the contrast is such that the yellow shirts the counselors are wearing look muted and a bit dull. This isn’t a negative all the way through, though, and during the second half of the movie – when it all kicks off – the darker print actually helps with the overall tone. Seeing as the camp has power failure problems and light is limited, the murkier look adds a feeling of immersion as the remaining counselors creep their way around the camp, and when daylight hits again the level of detail in the trees and surrounding area of the lake is fantastic.
Other aspects, such as Tom Savini’s throat slashing effects, unfortunately suffer from having more clarity shone upon them, but this was also a problem on previous Blu-ray and DVD releases as the latex he used on certain characters for their deaths doesn’t quite match their natural skin tones so you can see the joins, literally. Then again, neither Savini nor Sean S. Cunningham could have predicted this movie being presented in glorious 4K UHD back in 1979 when it was shot, so we can let them off.
Coming as a 4K UHD/Blu-ray package, the Steelbook features the original poster artwork on the front and it looks gorgeous. The Blu-ray disc is the previously released UK edition that comes with a cast and crew audio commentary and several background featurettes, so there are are no new special features to be found but there is enough here if you are a newbie.
Despite starting life as a Halloween rip-off, Friday the 13th has deservedly become a classic horror movie as well as one of the cornerstones of the slasher genre. It isn’t perfect – as well as the technical flaws previously mentioned, it does lag a bit going into the final act as quiet scenes are drawn out, no doubt to try and add a bit of atmosphere – but nevertheless, it is still an effective slasher movie, even when you know who the killer is and where the franchise would go. People will quibble about image quality and colour grading forever, but this 4K UHD print is distinctive enough from any previous release to warrant the upgrade should you already own it, and for a low budget horror movie approaching 50 years old it looks a damn sight better than many others of the same vintage.
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Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
