Friday the 13th-A review

This is the movie that started one of the most famous horror franchises and launched the most famous horror icon of modern times.

It's 1980 and John Carpenter's Halloween has been a huge hit at the box office despite it's very modest budget. Sean Cunningham is a filmmaker desperate for success see's this as a way to make some quick money so he picks a 'famous day', prints an ad of the words Friday the 13th breaking through a glass window and started a real buzz. At this point there was no script or story, just a title! It proved to be a masterstroke in marketing as the hype built up for the movie and Cunningham delivered the goods with a lot of help.

Tom Savini came on board and came up with some very graphic deaths. Henry Manfredini created one of the most chilling scores in film history. Betsy Palmer put a big name into the film. And the rest is history.

The story is simple. A group of kids open a camp at Crystal lake for the first time since a massacre at a different camp nearby. One by one they start getting killed in gruesome fashion. Who will survive? Who is doing the killing? By now you should know!! If you don't, stop reading and buy the dvd. If you do well read on.

The film was never intended to spawn a sequel, it's 10 and counting. But it is so well set up and written that the whole history of Camp Crystal Lake leaves the viewer intrigued. The legend of how Jason, the young son of one of the camp workers drowned while the kids who were supposed to be taking care of him were too busy getting busy with dope, booze and sex. The return of his estranged mother who has revenge burned into her brain.

The acting is pretty good from Crazy Ralph to Pamela Voorhees with all the dumb kids in between all very convincing as dumb kids! Kevin Bacon started his career in this and this is by far his best movie!!

Savini's effects are what really made this film stand out. Graphic and bloody but cut short enough to leave an impact without going into too much detail.

Manfredini's score is so creepy that without it the film wouldn't have been as scary.

All in all a 10 out of 10 horror movie. It is a slasher flick worthy of the slasher title.

All horror fans should own a copy of this. Thankfully the eurpean edition is the same cut as the US version so censorship is not an issue with this.

Go buy it now