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Friday the 13th
Movie poster
Directed by	Sean S. Cunningham
Produced by	Sean S. Cunningham
Written by	Victor Miller
Starring	Betsy Palmer Adrienne King Harry Crosby Laurie Bartram Mark Nelson Jeannine Taylor Robbi Morgan Kevin Bacon
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Cinematography	Barry Abrams
Editing by	Bill Freda
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (North America) Warner Bros. (overseas)
Release date(s)	May 9, 1980
Running time	95 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$550,000 (est.)
Gross revenue	$39,700,000 (domestically)
Followed by	Friday the 13th Part 2
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Friday the 13th is a 1980 independent slasher film directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller.

Although the film was poorly received by most, if not all, mainstream film critics, it went on to become one of the most popular slasher films in cinema history, and was the first movie of its kind to secure distribution by a major studio (Paramount Pictures).^[1] The film's box office success led to a long series of sequels.

This film opened in 1,100 theaters taking in $5.8 million its opening weekend. It was famous for knocking off The Empire Strikes Back from the number 1 spot.

Domestically, the film has made $39.7 million.

Friday the 13th was produced by Sean S. Cunningham, who had previously worked with filmmaker Wes Craven on the film The Last House on the Left. Cunningham was inspired by the success of John Carpenter's influential Halloween, and conceived Friday the 13th as an exploitation film that would cash-in on the success of Halloween. Ironically, Friday the 13th became a huge box-office hit, caused even more slasher films to be made, and spawned a seemingly unending franchise of sequels.^[2]

The script was written by Victor Miller, who has gone on to write for several television soap operas, including Guiding Light, One Life to Live, and All My Children. Miller delighted in inventing a serial killer who turned out to be somebody's mother, a murderer whose only motivation was her love for her child. "...I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Voorhees was the mother I'd always wanted - a mother who would have killed for her kids." Miller was unhappy about the filmmakers' decision to make Jason Voorhees the killer in the sequels. "Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain."^[3] Subsequently, an homage to Mrs.Vorhees was present in the nineties horror sequel Scream 2 as a boy's mother ended up being the killer.

The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was not in the original script, and was actually suggested by makeup designer Tom Savini. Savini said "The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen Carrie, so we thought that we need a 'chair jumper' like that and I said, 'let's bring in Jason.'".^[4]

In a brief prologue set in 1958, two summer camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake sneak away from a camp fire sing-along to have sex. Before they can completely undress, an unseen assailant sneaks into the room and murders them both. The film moves forward to 1980; a young woman named Annie (Robbi Morgan) enters a small diner and asks for directions to Camp Crystal Lake, much to the shock of the restaurant's patrons and staff. A strange old man named Ralph (Walt Gorney) reacts to the news of the camp's reopening by warning Annie that they are "all doomed". Enos (Rex Everhart), a truck driver from the diner, agrees to give Annie a lift halfway to the camp. During the drive, he warns her about the camp, informing her that a young boy drowned in Crystal Lake in 1957, one year before the double murders occurred. After Enos lets her out, Annie hitches another ride in a jeep. The second driver, whose face is never seen, ends up murdering Annie by slashing her throat with a large hunting knife.

Tom Savini puts on a wig, pretending to be Brenda, and jumps through a window for Friday the 13th.

At the camp, the other counselors, Ned (Mark Nelson), Jack (Kevin Bacon), Bill (Harry Crosby), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Alice (Adrienne King), and Brenda (Laurie Bartram) are refurbishing the cabins and facilities along with the camp's owner, Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer). As a violent storm closes in on the horizon, Steve leaves the campgrounds to get more supplies. The unidentified killer begins to isolate and murder the counselors. Later that evening, Steve returns from town and is also murdered, apparently familiar with his attacker. Alice informs Bill that she saw the lights turn on at the archery range and that she thinks she heard Brenda screaming. Bill and Alice leave the cabin to investigate, and find a bloody axe in Brenda's bed. Attempting to phone the police, they discover the phones are dead and that the cars won't start when they try to leave. When the lights go out all over the camp, Bill goes to check on the power generator. Alice heads out looking for Bill; when he doesn't return, she finds his body pinned to a door by several arrows.

Alice (Adrienne King) finds Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) hanging from a tree.

Now alone, Alice flees back to the main cabin and hides. After a few moments of silence, Brenda's corpse is hurled through the window. Alice hears a vehicle outside the cabin and, thinking it to be Steve, runs out to warn him. Instead she finds a middle-aged woman who introduces herself as Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), an "old friend of the Christys". Alice hysterically tries to tell her about the murders. Mrs. Voorhees expresses horror at the sight of Brenda's body, but she soon reveals herself to be the mother of the boy who drowned in the lake in 1957. Talking mostly to herself, she blames her son Jason's drowning on the fact that two counselors were having sex and were unaware of Jason's struggling in the lake. Mrs. Voorhees suddenly turns violent and pulls out a large knife, rushing at Alice. A lengthy chase ensues, during which Alice flees her attacker and finds Steve and Annie's bodies in the process. Alice and Mrs. Voorhees have several confrontations, each time with Alice believing she has finally beaten Mrs. Voorhees. During their final fight, Alice manages to decapitate the defenceless Mrs. Voorhees with her own machete.

Afterwards, the decomposing "corpse" of Pamela's son, Jason (Ari Lehman), attacks Alice while she waits for help in a canoe. Just as she is dragged under water, she wakes in a hospital, where a police officer tells her that they pulled her out of the water. When she asks about Jason, the officer informs her they never found any boy.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The scene with the snake was not in the script and was an idea from Tom Savini after an experience in his own cabin during filming. The snake in the scene was real except for its on-screen death since this was said in an interview that it was a stuffed animal.
• The film came in at #31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the famous ending sequence.^[5] While the scene was shown, a commentary was also made that the ending was inspired by that of the ending to Carrie.
• The film was voted #15 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scariest Moments.^[6]
• The film Scream had a scene where Drew Barrymore's character was being stalked by the killer in a cat and mouse game. The killer asks her "Who was the killer in Friday the 13th?" to which she replies "Jason!". The killer responds "Wrong answer! Mrs. Voorhees was the original killer! Jason didn't show up until the sequel!"
• Betsy Palmer, known for her role in the war film Mister Roberts, had said she was disgusted with the film after reading the script. Palmer considered it to be a trashy horror flick peppered with nudity. She predicted that no one would see it, that the script was "a piece of shit." Yet Palmer agreed to play the part of Pamela Voorhees, solely on the basis that she needed the paycheck to buy a VW Scirocco (car). At one point, while filming, Palmer turned to director Sean Cunningham and made a comment which has since become famous: "Are you sure Bette Davis and Joan Crawford made their comebacks this way?"
• Willie Adams was a crew member for the film. Although he spent most his time working behind the camera, he played the male counselor in the 1958 scene, and holds the unique distinction of being the first murder victim in the Friday the 13th film series.
• There are signs in the film that very little has changed in the camp since the 1958 murders. When Alice is standing by the large fireplace first seen in the opening scene (where the counselors were singing), there is graffiti scratched onto the stones from many years ago. One of the graffiti reads "I Like Ike", which was a catchy slogan used by supporters of Dwight Eisenhower, who was in office at the time of the opening scene of the film's timeline.
• In the first Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode, Bart says he is not scared of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven", to which Lisa replies since it was written in the 19th century, people may have had a different concept of horror than the people of the 20th century. Bart agrees with that comment by adding "It's like Friday the 13th part 1. It's pretty tame by today's standards."
• The lake scenes were filmed at Cedar Lake, New Jersey.
• Several violent scenes were edited for the North American release.^[7][8] Outside North America, the film is available uncut from Warner Bros., however it has yet to receive an unedited release from Paramount in the United States.
• At Universal Orlando's and Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights 2007 there were Haunted Houses based on the film included titled Friday The 13th: Camp Blood. Jason Voorhees was also one of the four main icons of the event

• Friday the 13th at the Internet Movie Database
• Friday the 13th at Rotten Tomatoes
• Friday the 13th at Box Office Mojo
• Film page at the Camp Crystal Lake website
• Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future And You (includes anecdotes about working on Friday the 13th)

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