I'm in a retro type of mood and have been watching the entire Friday series over the past couple of nights. Figured I'd put up some reviews for them. I'll start with the 1980 original(fittingly).

Where to start? Hmm... I love it. It's my inspiration. Some may laugh and think my taste in film sucks. That's fine. But I love this movie all the same.

The plot, in case someone out there doesn't already know, revolves around a group of camp counselors fixing up a local summer camp all the while a dangerous killer lurks in the shadows. No... not Jason. His mother.

The original has the best characters out of the entire series and each are actually pretty well developed. My favorite character is the nerd of the group, Ned. He's freakin' hilarious. I dare you not to laugh at his indian dance.  Kevin Bacon is also good in his role as Jack, the sensitive jock.

But lets be honest, people don't watch these films for the characters. They watch them for the kills. Well, this movie delivers on this aspect as well. The murders are grounded in a realistic world and aren't as over the top as they get in later sequels. Some of the notable deaths include a throat slashing sequence of a character who you believe is going to be the main character and a brilliant arrow through the neck death.

The acting is mostly solid. Nothing great, but nothing too terrible either. Adrienne King is great as the vulnerable lead Alice, and Betsy Palmer is awesome as the menacing Mrs. Voorhees.

A lot of people confuse the cheese fests that are the later sequels with the original, and it's a shame. The movie, despite being extremely well known, is underrated. Do yourself a favor and give it another look.

10/10

~Zack~

Underrated? A lot of people love it. Die hard horror fans do. In the "classics of horror" films it's up there to a lot of people. The series did get A LOT worse as it went along.

Man,
Talk about popping a memory cap. I remember watching the first 13TH, in a drive in with some buddies. We were 16. That opening scene with the girl getting her throat cut, was (to me) cutting edge horror. No pun intended.(unless it was funny).

And your right, as they went on, the only thing that felt the same with the movies, was the name. None of them had that same feel to it.

Now wheres the popcorn...

Shawn.....><

The characters in Friday weren't really developed per se, but you had a good idea of who they were. The sequels did not even attempt to achieve that level of depth except for maybe Pt. VII or Jason Goes to Hell (which is sadly hated amongst purists).

The characters in Pt II weren't too bad either.

Pt. IV had some really flat characters, but the main ones were probably the best-written out of the entire series (Tommy, his sister and her love interest who was out for revenge)

--Julio

I always wanted a part X where he took on ROCKY.

Or better yet Reality. FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE BACHALOR-

LED.

Quoted from Aaron Underrated? A lot of people love it. Die hard horror fans do. In the "classics of horror" films it's up there to a lot of people. The series did get A LOT worse as it went along.

Yes, underrated. Too many people associate the original with the sequels, which is a shame. The original film is quality horror cinema. People "love" Jason. Not that I'm saying I'm the only one who appreciates the original. I just think it has been overlooked.

~Zack~

I can see where you are coming from. Honestly Friday The 13th Part 3 I loved. I don't think many people did, but everyone has different tastes.

PArt 1 and Part 5 have the most in common... I actually think part 5 works on a level that part 1 didn't, tho.  Had I been the editor for it, I'd have taken out all of the paramedic "look around and look suspicious" scenes... They gave it away too bluntly that he was the killer. At all otherwise, Friday 5 is the best written in the entire series... It has more new and going for it than 1 through 4 and 6 thru 10... In my opinion, anyways.

Part 2 is still my overal favorite... Well, part 3 and the Friday the 13th I wrote - of course. Then again, the one I wrote actually makes sense.

Quoted from Baltis. At all otherwise, Friday 5 is the best written in the entire series...

Really?  That was the one my friends and I would always rent for a laugh in high school.  It's pretty cheesy.

Quoted from dresseme Really?  That was the one my friends and I would always rent for a laugh in high school.  It's pretty cheesy.

No, Friday 7, 8, Hell and X are cheesy... 5 has some incredible parts in it. Sure it doesn't age well, but some of the best andmost unique kills are in it.

The Tree Bind/Turbin... Classic kill.

The story was also very original... It was a pretty cleverly disguised who done it, actually. It, to me, is easily the most stand out of the entire series. It's just different than the others... So much that it could've just been called "Friday" ... Sure there are characters, as in every Friday the 13th, that shouldn't even be in the movie other than for a kill... and sure we seen one too many people come on screen for no reason at all... But they tried something new with it and did a great job at doing so.

It's not Jason... but it was better than nearly all of them. Also, of note and merit... He killed more people in part 5 than any other movie.

You're not alone Balt. I also really enjoyed part 5. The crazy rednecks Ma and Son are freakin' hilarious! Tommy was actually really interesting in that one as well. I'll get around to reviewing it.

~Zack~

Quoted from Baltis. Sure it doesn't age well

Nope, doesn't age well at all...

Well, I'll bite on this one. I wrote a review on it somewhere else some time ago, and here was my thought right after finishing it, and before I saw any sequels, so my opinion was fresh out and untainted by what followed:

As a movie lover, watching this film was simply a requirement. It spawned the second longest running movie series of all time with ten sequels (so far; the first being James Bond with twenty sequels), gave us a horror icon with Jason Voorhees (though he ironically does not appear in the first film), and still makes us scratch our heads in trying to figure out how it did so well.

The premise is simple and ancient. Get a bunch of kids to an isolated location and kill them off one by one. The killer remained a complete mystery until revealed, and ended up with a perfectly plausible reason for killing everyone and an equally creepy trait in doing it.

To back up a little bit, we have a Camp Crystal Lake that was closed out in 1958 because two counselors were killed. The year before that, a boy drowned in the lake itself. The camp had been wrought with problems and delays for years anytime it tried to open, and now we're trying again. While we're given a series of red herrings to follow in regards to the whodunit, none of them make a lot of sense and it looks like the film is in continuity error hell until the big reveal which sets it all straight.

So once everyone is in place, people start dropping like flies. The director knows suspense, though, which is rarer and rarer in a film like this. We know the killer is out there, but we watch as the characters cluelessly carry on with their completely logical routines. They don't know there's a problem; only we do, which adds to the suspense of each death. This is consistently done well throughout, and the characters don't make any choices that are illogical, which is another plus. After all, they are counselors who need to know the camp inside and out. If they see something, it stands to reason that they'd check it out. They are also a bunch of late teens who like having fun, so the presumption that someone is playing with one of them is also not illogical. After all, they don't know anything is wrong.

We can fault the film in the character area, but for what it is, it does fairly well. Most of the characters are just cardboard cut outs, and there's not much to relate to in them. This makes their deaths kind of anticlimactic, since only the suspense gives the deaths any meaning or feeling. We do get some snippets of the characters' lives, but just not enough. However, since we're also dealing with a large number of characters whose fate it is to die, it's hard to go very deep in a ninety minute film.

The final issue here when it comes to the fear factor is that the film has no real staying power. Halloween takes place in a neighborhood. I live in a neighborhood. A Nightmare on Elm Street happens in dreams. I have dreams. Friday the 13th happens at a camp. I never go to a camp. If I ever do, I will probably be creeped out, but as I sit here, the party is over. I'm not invading the camp, so the killer isn't out to get me.

Oh yes, and the score does seem to pay a tad bit of homage to Bernard Herrmann's main titles to Psycho. That's the main titles, not the famous "violin screech" accompanying Marion Crane's demise in the shower.

I rank this film as being very good for its genre, and delivering a solid amount of suspense. It doesn't really deliver in the scare department because I never really felt any fear during the movie, but I was locked in on the suspense, because it did that very well. If you like movies, you gotta view it. As for the sequels...well, they're on my list, so I'll let you know.

And since I reviewed every one of them too, I figure I'll contribute to the other posts as well.

Five is actually my favorite of them all just because it tried to be something different and succeeded rather well.