Friday the 13th

Summary

Every week I will be reviewing a film from the Friday the 13th Collection: Deluxe Edition box set released by Shout! Factory until the entire box set has been covered. Stay tuned!

“You’re doomed! You’re all doomed!”

In 1979, writer Victor Miller was tasked with writing a script that would be reminiscent of the film Halloween. Halloween had made a great return against its small budget, and Paramount saw an opportunity to make a film for a small amount of money and hopefully generate a good amount of revenue. Taking his task seriously, Victor set about rewatching and analyzing John Carpenter’s masterpiece. He decided that the setting would be a camp instead of a neighborhood and began writing what would become Friday the 13th. He probably did not realize at the time that he was writing a script that would launch a million imitators and generate nine sequels and a remake. The film was made on a modest budget of $450,000 and generated forty million dollars at the box office which insured that future installments would be made. For the fortieth anniversary of the film, Shout! Factory has created an exceptional box set featuring all the films with extensive bonus features. My wife and I sat down a few nights ago to revisit Camp Crystal Lake and it was just as welcoming as I remembered.

Camp Crystal Lake – 1958

Two camp counselors sneak away from singing songs in a group. They head to the canoe area and begin to make out. Someone follows them and the camera shifts to the killer’s point of view as the killer stabs them to death.

Friday, June 13th – Present Day (1980)

A young woman wearing a backpack named Annie (Robbie Morgan) shows up in town and asks the employees and diners inside a cafe where Camp Crystal Lake is located. A man offers to drive her there. They bump into the town loony

Ralph and he warns Annie that the camp has a death curse. Unbelievably, Annie’s driver warns that the camp is cursed. He lists the numerous reasons why: A boy drowned in 1957. Two counselors were killed in 1958. The place has been plagued by fires and water issues. He advises her to quit and dodge the risks posed by working there. He drops her off down the road from the camp to avoid actually going there. At Camp Crystal Lake, the head of the camp Steve (Peter Brouwer) and camp counselor Alice (Adrienne King) have been working on fixing up the camp. They also may have an inappropriate relationship. Counselors Marcie, Jack, Bill, Brenda, and Ned (Jeannine Taylor, Kevin Bacon, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, and Mark Nelson) arrive at the camp with a full week to get the camp in shape before all the campers arrive. Annie doesn’t arrive at the camp. A storm approaches the camp, and a killer lurks in the shadows and in the forests surrounding the camp.

Revisiting Friday the 13th for the first time in years, my wife and I both really enjoyed the first film in the series. With a similar feel to Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood, Friday the 13th set the standard template for every camp based slasher film that would follow it. The film is well paced and plotted – moving quickly through the motions of eliminating each counselor before the final showdown between the killer and the final survivor. This film stands out from the sequels by featuring a unique killer (no spoilers here) and an iconic jump scare in the final reels that couldn’t be beaten in the later pictures. It holds up beautifully and is deserving of classic status – warts and all.

I am not trying to say that the writing of the film is perfection – some will surely scoff at the film’s dialogue – but the charm of this film is in the ideas and execution onscreen, not necessarily the things the characters say. Fans of campy writing (myself including) will find the dialogue to be enjoyable on its own terms. Harry Manfredini’s iconic score borrows elements from Hitchcock’s work with Bernard Herrmann, but adds in the perfect touches for accentuating the stalking presence of the killer. It has been imitated a million times. The same can be said for the moving camera first person view of the killer used by Sean Cunningham in the film. While this technique was used often in Giallo films (see The Cat of Nine Tails for an early example,) Cunningham popularized this technique with this film and it soon became synonymous with the slasher genre. Tom Savini provided special makeup effects that elevate the film a tremendous amount. The film is not overly gory, but the special effects work well and look realistic. While the kills in later films would become pretty creative, the kills here all work in a fairly realistic fashion. If you think about it, this film’s kill count is pretty low, and the film wins because it creates a great setting where characters seem trapped. The performances in the film all serve the film well. I enjoyed seeing a young Kevin Bacon in one of the roles.

The first film is one of the best in the series and well worth revisiting. It is a solid start to a great series.

Video

Shout! Factory presents Friday the 13th with a great looking transfer of the film using an MPEG-4 AVC codec in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 from a brand new 4K scan of the original elements. I don’t want to oversell this visually, because expectations should be tempered to what a low budget primarily nighttime film from 1980 should look like. The fact that the film presents some grain should not be distracting to anyone who loves the film. Cinematographer Barry Abrams did an excellent job given the slight budget he had, and the first person viewpoint shots from the killer’s point of view have been imitated a million times. This presentation definitely blows away prior presentations and is the de facto way to view the film currently, but later films in the series show improvement visually as the budgets for the films increased. I am not trying to detract from what has been done on this transfer. This is absolutely the best that this film has ever looked. Improvements over prior presentations in terms of detail, coloring, clarity and every other metric shows the great amount of work that Shout! Factory put into this title. I am so happy that they took the time to do this right.

Audio

Friday the 13th features a DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono track that is new to this release alongside a DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track. Both present the film well. The Mono track does a good job of preserving the original sound design of the film, while the surround track expands the sound field effectively. As can be expected with most expanded tracks, the rear channels are not used as much as the front. The iconic score by Harry Manfredini sounds great and dialogue is crystal clear. Fans should be pleased.

Supplements:

(These are just the supplements for the two discs included for the first film. This does not include the supplements on the bonus discs.)

Uncut Disc: 

• Audio Commentary: Director Sean S. Cunningham with Cast and Crew.
• Fresh Cuts: New Tales from Friday the 13th – this is an enjoyable piece featuring numerous interviews with cast and crew from the film.
• The Man Behind the Legacy – Sean S. Cunningham – this piece focuses on the director of the first film. It’s funny to think that he didn’t think the idea of Jason continuing the series would work. Hindsight is 20/20.
• A Friday the 13th Reunion
• Lost Tales from Camp Blood – Part 1
• Fangoria Articles: Accessible via a Blu-ray PC drive.

Theatrical Disc: 

• U.S. Theatrical Trailer 
• International Theatrical Trailer 
• TV Spot
• U.S. Radio Spots
• U.K. Radio Spot 
• Movie Stills Gallery
• Posters and Lobby Cards Gallery

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 3.5/5

Overall – 4.5/5

Friday the 13th gave the world Camp Crystal Lake and set the gold standard for camp based slasher films. The sequels expanded on the mythology and work well because of the solid basis that the first film created. Revisiting the film, I found it to be an effective slasher film with some great ideas. The dialogue in the film is a little dated or clunky, but I can’t help but think that actually adds to the charm of the film. The great score by Harry Manfredini and the direction by Sean S. Cunningham and first person cinematography by Barry Abrams have been imitated by scores and scores of imitators, but this film set the standard. The new 2-Disc Shout! Factory Blu-ray set of the film within the deluxe box set features the best visual presentation yet of the film from a new 4K scan, a lossless Mono track, the Uncut and Theatrical cuts of the film, and ported over supplements from the Paramount release. Fans are going to be very pleased!