Friday the 13th (1980) Review – Before Jason Took Over

The strange thing about Friday the 13th is that the movie that created the Jason Voorhees franchise barely has Jason Voorhees in it.
I watched it far too young, like Halloween, and went in blind. Reading a synopsis wasn’t exactly high on my list when I was a kid, so I had no idea who the killer was. I assumed there was some lunatic wandering the woods killing camp counsellors.

Then Betsy Palmer turned up.
The reveal that Pamela Voorhees is the killer is genuinely surprising to me. Not only was I not expecting a woman, but I certainly wasn’t expecting a grieving mother whose son had drowned at Camp Crystal Lake years earlier. Watching it now you can obviously spot the little hints throughout, but as a kid I was completely flabbergasted.

Palmer is fantastic once Pamela’s true nature is revealed. She is completely unhinged, switching between herself and the voice of Jason as she recounts what happened to her son. The whole “kill her, Mommy” element is creepy as hell, and Palmer manages to make a woman in a jumper considerably more frightening than she has any right to be.

That’s one of the reasons I still think the original might actually be the scariest Friday the 13th. Jason eventually became one of horror’s greatest icons, but this movie doesn’t have the hockey mask, the unstoppable supernatural killer or the mythology that would build around him. Pamela is simply a mother who has lost her mind, and there’s something disturbingly grounded about that.

The movie obviously owes a debt to the success of Halloween, but Friday the 13th is much more interested in showing us the kills. That’s where Tom Savini comes in, his practical effects still one of the highlights.

And then there’s Kevin fucking Bacon.

Long before Footloose, Tremors and the career that followed, a young Kevin Bacon turned up at Camp Crystal Lake and received one of the most memorable deaths in the entire franchise. He’s lying in bed when a hand suddenly grabs his head from underneath before an arrow bursts straight through his throat. It’s a brilliant practical effect, and seeing how Savini and the crew pulled it off only makes you appreciate it more.

The finale gives Betsy Palmer and Adrienne King plenty to do as Pamela and Alice beat the hell out of each other around the camp. It’s rough, physical and exactly what the movie needs, eventually ending with Alice grabbing the machete and taking Pamela’s head clean off.
You’d think that would be enough excitement for one night.

Alice escapes onto Crystal Lake and eventually wakes the following morning drifting peacefully in a canoe. The police have arrived, the nightmare appears to be over and everything finally goes quiet.

Then Jason comes flying out of the fucking lake.
That moment scared the shit out of me as a kid, and even when you know it’s coming it’s still one of the great horror jump scares. Alice wakes up in hospital and asks about the boy who pulled her into the water. Nobody found a boy.

Then he’s still there.

Friday the 13th was never designed with the enormous franchise it eventually became in mind, and there’s something brilliant about going back to the beginning before Jason became Jason. No hockey mask. No machete-wielding giant stalking teenagers through the woods. Just a grieving mother, some fantastic practical effects and the legend of a drowned boy waiting underneath Crystal Lake.
Jason’s time would come. But Pamela Voorhees got there first.