People try to elevate
Halloween above all other slasher movies, suggesting that without Michael Myers, movies like
Friday the 13th would never have existed. That's a topic for definite debate, but not here, because this is a capsule review and there's no room for it.
Anyway, we all know the story: teens get together to fix up and re-open an abandoned summer camp called Crystal Lake so local parents have a place to dump their kids for a few weeks while they go off to secret locations to engage in Satanic rituals and greasy '80s sex orgies. Everybody gets killed off by a disgruntled old lady named Pam whose child supposedly drown some years earlier because of counselor neglect (cuz teens can't keep their fingers out of each other) until the movies sole survivor lobs off the crazy bitch's head. A deformed kid may or may not pop out of the lake at the end to attack the girl, but we're left to believe that this lad (little Jason Vorhees) is just a halucination and let that be the end of it. Kevin Bacon got stabbed in the throat with an arrow; some creepy skinny guy with a semen encrusted mustache, coke bottle specs and tiny denim shorts walked around being hairy a lot; everybody died and we fade to white on what would give birth to the most recognizable horror series for what is now today's "35 and under" crowd.
As far as movies go, it's a slasher flick. Big fucking deal. A crazy lady with seperation anxiety passes up modern psychological help to instead take her anger out on hormonal guys and gals just trying to make some spare money on summer break. Granted, the killers in these flicks aren't usually women, so it's kinda got a niche for itself there, but aside from the Tom Savini gore effects and watching a young Kevin Bacon eat it, this one's pretty expendable... unless you're an F13 follower, in which case it's the foundation for what would become slasher movie history. You know, kinda like how nobody really cares about the first World War, yet without it there probably wouldn't have been a second?
If you don't believe me, take this into account: how many people do you know that didn't realize Jason Vorhees wasn't the first F13 killer until they saw Scream? I rest my case.
