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Poster (c) Paramount Pictures
The eleventh movie in the never-ending series of Friday the 13th, Freddy vs. Jason, is coming out soon, so I decided to see Friday the 13th, hoping it would be as much fun as A Nightmare on Elm Street. Well, Friday is a little scarier than Elm Street, but Friday lacks the fun and the tongue-in-cheek feel that Elm Street successfully has. It also lacks the chemistry between main characters that Elm Street.
Some could call Friday the 13th a genre-definer, while I call it a clichè-creater. A group of oversexed teenagers (played by people in their twenties) get together to reopen a camp. However, on the night of Friday the 13th, everyone starts to die. Who is killing everyone? Is there someone who actually doesn’t know?
I would have liked Friday the 13th more if it just wasn’t so stupid. If there’s a killer on the loose, you run away, you don’t lock yourself up by yourself in a small cabin. Also, if they’re supposed to be preparing a camp, shouldn’t they actually be preparing instead of playing around in the lake and having sex?
Friday the 13th, as with other late 70’s-early-80’s horror movies, features one up-and-coming star. Nightmare had Johnny Depp, Halloween had Jamie Lee Curtis, and Friday has Kevin Bacon. He’s about as good as his big scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. One more thing that I didn’t like about Friday was how, since I didn’t know anything about the characters (I couldn’t even keep them straight), I couldn’t do the best part of watching horror movies: guessing in what order they would die. Since I didn’t know anything about the characters, or care about them, I couldn’t guess.
It seems like I hated Friday the 13th, when, in fact, it was somewhat scary at times, but, overall, the cons outweigh the pros.
Rated R for strong violence/gore.
Review Date: August 14, 2003