What makes the movie work is that the slasher genre hadn't been set in stone yet, and some choices that director Sean S. Cunningham makes in the film that work against type.
2 Comments
03/05/09
Friday the 13th - Part 1 (1980)
61
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:46
Fresh:28
Rotten:18
Average Rating:5.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: Despite repeated warnings to stay away, a group of fun-loving but none-too-bright teenagers set out to reopen the eerie Camp Crystal Lake, which closed 20 years earlier after a series of bizarre... [More]
Starring: Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer, Kevin Bacon, Harry Crosby
Director: Sean S. Cunningham
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Reviews for Friday the 13th - Part 1
Makes not the slightest attempt to hide the outright theft of every one of its ideas from much better films.
09/14/07
How do you sum up a movie that's really quite awful yet helped define a filmmaking era?
02/13/09
The whole film is one of the best arguments for resuming movie censorship to come along in years.
03/07/05
A hugely influential film that contributed to the 1980s horror boom.
01/01/00
Unsophisticated by today's standards perhaps, but still contains plenty to satisfy the dedicated gore-hound.
09/26/07
For all its shoddiness, the film manages, just barely, to achieve its ignoble goals -- it delivers what it promises.
09/26/07
Top CriticClick to read the article
02/13/09
Top CriticWithin the dead-teenie realm it achieves a certain classicism
09/06/09
Has there ever been a more unimaginative exercise in big-screen terror?
08/21/09
I say it's the worst.
05/26/06
A skillful, if by-the-numbers, horror pic.
10/09/08
...perhaps more than any other film, it helped to popularize the slasher genre and codify the formula.
02/01/09
The slasher king.
01/01/00
No review available.
08/31/05
It may be one of the most famous, but it's certainly not an original on which others are based.
09/26/07
A dreadful piece of trash.
04/19/02
No review available.
07/29/05
No review available.
07/29/05
Long before Jason, and the endless machinations of dumb sequels, Friday the 13th represented the purest form of terror.
12/08/02
Latest News for Friday the 13th - Part 1
March 05, 2008:
Platinum Dunes Planning Rosemary's Baby Remake
If you were upset when you heard that Platinum Dunes was planning to reboot the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series...boy, do we have a story for you. More...
January 07, 2008:
New Line Planning New Nightmare on Elm Street?
We've had a rebooted Halloween, there's a new Friday the 13th on the horizon, and Screen Gems has devoted itself to exhuming every available '80s horror flick in its vaults.... More...
November 14, 2007:
Marcus Nispel to Direct Friday the 13th Reboot?
You can't keep a good man down. Nor, apparently, can you keep an undead, hockey mask-wearing lunatic off the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Marcus... More...
September 18, 2007:
Friday the 13th Remake Update
Like the hockey-masked serial killer at its core, the Friday the 13th franchise refuses to die -- and the series reboot announced by Michael Bay last year continues to lumber... More...
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