Friday the 13th (1980)

Friday the 13th (1980)
Directed by	Sean S. Cunningham
Produced by	Sean S. Cunningham
Written by	Victor Miller
Starring	Betsy Palmer; Adrienne King; Harry Crosby; Laurie Bartram; Jeannine Taylor; Kevin Bacon; Mark Nelson; Robbi Morgan; Ari Lehman
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Cinematography	Barry Abrams
Editing by	Bill Freda
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release	May 9, 1980
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$550,000
Gross revenue	$59,754,601
Followed by	Friday the 13th Part 2

Friday the 13th is a 1980 American slasher film directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller. The film concerns a group of teenagers who are murdered one by one while attempting to re-open an abandoned campground, and stars Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Kevin Bacon, Jeannine Taylor, Mark Nelson and Robbi Morgan. It is considered one of the first "true" slasher movies.

Prompted by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween, the film was made on an estimated budget of $550,000. Released by Paramount Pictures in the United States and Warner Bros.. When originally released, the film received negative reviews from film critics. It grossed over $39.7 million at the box office in the United States. It developed a cult following in the years that followed and it has become one of the most profitable slasher films in cinema history. It was also the first movie of its kind to secure distribution in the USA by a major studio, Paramount Pictures. The film's box office success led to Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), a long series of sequels, a crossover with the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and a 2009 series reboot.

Plot[]

In 1958, Barry and Claudette, two camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, sneak away from a gathering to have sex. An unseen assailant stalking the two of them attacks them and kills them both, one with a hunting knife and the other with a machete. Twenty-one years later, on Friday, June 13th, 1979, a young girl named Annie is making her way to Crystal Lake under the employment of the original camp owners' son Steve Christy who intends to reopen the camp. The history of the murders, water poisonings and fires has the town wary, and Crazy Ralph, a local man, warns her that the counselors are doomed. She shrugs the warnings off and hitches a ride with a truck driver Enos who has similar warnings for her.

Meanwhile, the other counselors, jokester Ned, his best friend Jack, Jack's girlfriend Marcie, handyman Bill, good girl Brenda, and Steve's ex-girlfriend Alice arrive at the camp and they begin repairs and fixes around the camp, enjoying a little free time in between the chores. Annie hitches a ride in a Jeep CJ-5 with an unseen driver. When the driver refuses Annie's stop at Crystal Lake, she flees and is chased through the woods before having her throat slashed by the killer's hunting knife. After Steve returns to town for supplies, Ralph arrives at the camp, and tells Marcie, Ned and Alice that they're all doomed. Ned encounters a stranger at the camp and goes into a nearby cabin in search of them while Marcie tells Jack about a dream she had that terrified her during storms. As a storm comes up, they seek shelter in their cabin and have sex, unaware that Ned is lying dead on the top bunk, having had his throat slashed. Marcie soon leaves the cabin and Jack is killed by an assailant who impales his throat with an arrow from under his bed; the assailant then follows Marcie to the outhouse and kills her with an axe to the face. Elsewhere, Steve returns on foot to the camp after his Jeep breaks down and recognizes the killer before being stabbed by the unseen assailant. Alice, Brenda and Bill finish their game of strip Monopoly when Brenda realizes her cabin windows are open and she turns in for the night. She is lured out into the storm with what sounds like a child calling for help and is killed on the archery range. Suspicious of the happenings, Bill and Alice find many strange things wrong with the camp but are unable to find their friends. Thinking it is all a joke, Bill convinces Alice to return to the cabin. The killer turns off the generator and Bill heads out alone to fix it as Alice falls asleep. Soon after, Alice awakens to go find him and discovers him staked to the generator room door with arrows.

Horrified, Alice runs off just as a vehicle pulls up to the cabin. The driver is Pamela Voorhees, who at first seems very concerned and tries to comfort the hysterical Alice. Almost immediately, though, Mrs. Voorhees begins to grow violent as she talks about her son Jason, who had drowned as a boy in 1957. She becomes schizophrenic and pulls a hunting knife on Alice who flees. She tries to escape in the vehicle Mrs. Voorhees arrived in but discovers Annie's body in the drivers side. She runs off, then, Steve's body (with a knife in the chest) falls from the ceiling of a porch. Alice tries to trick Mrs. Voorhees into thinking she has a loaded gun, but this fails instantly. Mrs. Voorhees slaps Alice in the face multiple times and throws her onto a table. But Alice strikes her with the gun and escapes and locks herself in a spice closet. Mrs. Voorhees breaches the spice closet with a machete, but Alice hits her in the side of the head with a frying pan. Alice then goes and sits on the side of the lake. Mrs. Voorhees attacks her by the lake. In the fray, Alice gains control of a machete and decapitates Mrs. Voorhees. Afterwards she climbs into a canoe and falls asleep offshore.

The next morning, police arrive to find a dazed Alice in the canoe. When they call to her, she is attacked by a young decayed Jason and pulled out of the boat, which is in reality a dream. She awakens in the hospital and discovers her friends are all dead, but remembers and asks about the boy. The sheriff tells her that no boy was found, and Alice says "Then he's still there..." as the final shot shows the lake in peace, and some bubbles erupting from the bottom, before fading to black.