Rating of
1/4
"Friday The 13th" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 01/26/12
A group of young students arrive at Camp Crystal Lake and are picked off one by one by an unseen killer. The original Friday The 13th was an unashamed cash in on the success of Halloween and it's odd how the franchises became a kind of arms race of idiocy as each sequel became more and more absurd and outlandish as they tried to outdo each other. Neither killer from the original films were supernatural or indestructible as their sequels suggested, each really just very human, homicidal nutjobs. But whereas Halloween had John Carpenter's directorial skill and Donald Pleasance's character to add an interesting dynamic to the equation, Friday The 13th is just an excuse to get some obnoxious teens into various states of undress while a cameraman lurks behind trees/by windows etc etc. The dialogue is extremely trite, there is no characterisation and the killer is not even mentioned til the end when we are "rewarded" with a feeble rip off of Psycho's Norman Bates. The entire production is just plain amateurish, particularly the performances and even Kevin Bacon who became one of the best actors of his generation is going to struggle when he has lines like "A storm's gonna show. It's gonna tear down this valley like a son of a gun." to deliver. Somehow it's achieved cult classic status, but this film is really nothing more than an amateurishly executed, piss weak serial killer movie that seems overlong and repetitive even at 90 minutes.
