Friday the 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham)

🏆 🌲👫🔪👩🔪👨🔪⛈️👩🪓😑 Just checking the box. I believe this is the origin of the unexpected explosion in popularity of the low budget “group of teens dying one by one” genre that makes studio executives salivate. Never wanted to see it. Never expected to like it. Turns out, I didn’t like it. Nice to confirm the confirmation bias. I don’t like teen movies even when they aren’t getting murdered. Anyway on to the movie. Wobbly handheld POV shots from the killer. Low budget. Cheesy music. Cheesy 70s acting and dialog. Cheesy Kevin Bacon. It occurs to me the teen slasher is a survival horror at its core, which I like, but it seems to be filtered to remove any stakes, which makes them boring. For example, the plot of Friday the 13th is essentially the same as the plot of Predator and Alien, and while those movies keep me engaged and on the edge my seat, Friday the 13th doesn’t. I have a lot of time to think these thoughts and write them down, because the movie’s pacing is quite slow. On the plus side, I didn’t see any obvious instances of characters acting dumb to advance the plot (not counting the killer, who conveniently forgot how to kill a few times). I also enjoyed how the killer just blurted out their backstory and rationale at the end even though nobody asked them. Finally, I did actually jump at the Carrie-style jump scare at the end, because I was editing this text instead of watching the screen, when the sudden blast of noise from the speaker made me jump. (Max.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_(1980_film)