MEMORIES:
The film begins with a flashback. It is the summer of 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, and two of the summer camp counselors have decided to desert the campfire festivities for a little lustful encounter. Their amorous ways are short-lived, however, as they are both brutally killed by an unknown intruder. Flash-forward to the present day and Camp Crystal Lake is being reopening by a group of adventurous teenagers on Friday, the 13th. One of the teens, a young girl named Annie is headed there to meet her friends and stops at a diner to ask directions. The patrons react with shock and disgust, with one going so far as to tell Annie that her and her friends are all doomed. Luckily, a nice truck driver named Enos shows a little mercy and agrees to give her a ride – at least halfway – to the ominous campground.
While driving, Enos cautions the girl about her destination, schooling her on the events of the past that she might want to consider before this ill-fated adventure. For one thing, a young boy drowned there in 1957, and a brutal double murder occurred there the following year. Still, Annie persists on her journey and when she is dropped off at the halfway point, another driver in a jeep picks her up. Unfortunately, Annie won’t have to worry about pitching her tent that evening, as she soon meets her demise by having her throat slashed by the driver (whose face is never shown, of course.)
Plenty of other counselors do successfully make it to Camp Crystal Lake, however, and proceed to fix the place up until an ominous storm halts their progress – a foreboding backdrop what for what is soon to follow. Whoever killed Annie now has their sites set on these helpless teens and is doing a pretty thorough job of isolating, then murdering them. The terror is cranked up a couple of notches as they soon find the phone lines cut, their cars disabled, and the electricity that powers the lights completely disabled. It isn’t long before only one of the teens is left, a poor hysterical girl named Alice who keeps finding the bloody remains of her friends. When she hears an approaching vehicle, she goes out to investigate, hoping that it is the one counselor she has failed to locate.
Instead, she finds a motherly woman who goes by the name of Mrs. Voorhees. Alice tries to warn the lady of the gruesome activities that have occurred there, but the lady has her own story to tell as well – about her young son Jason who drowned at the camp many years ago, and whose birthday just happens to be today. Becoming more agitated and psychotic as she talks, she explains that her son would still be alive had the sinful counselors not neglected watching her son more closely, choosing instead to have sex. Before Alice can put two and two together, the not-so-kindly Mrs. Voorhees pulls a large knife, ready to eliminate her last victim. Alice runs, the monstrous mom follows and a heart-pounding chase ensues. After a shocking climax, Alice inexplicably wakes up in a hospital, wondering if her night of horror was real or merely a dream.
Much like its creepy cousin, Halloween, Friday the 13th was made on a very modest budget and earned an enormous amount at the box office. It also kicked off a legacy of sequels that would eventually introduce frightened audiences to the hockey mask-wearing offspring, Jason – who proved to be a chip off the old chopping block. Ten sequels would follow over the next 23 years - earning the franchise over $600 million along the way, something no other horror film series has ever accomplished (although the Hannibal Lector films have come close.) And almost three decades after the first film, a successful remake of the original was released…on Friday, the 13th, of course.
Those astounding box-office statistics, as well as the enduring fondness for these movies over the years have proven beyond a doubt that the slasher film is a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps it is as simple as people just loving to sit on the edge of their seat devouring popcorn in terror, or perhaps it is because nothing can make a squeamish partner cuddle quicker than when a sadistic killer is on the prowl. And that reason alone probably explains why millions of couples have flocked in droves to these films for many years past and, in all likelihood, many years to follow.
