FRIDAY THE 13th was the trend setter. The first real movie that created the sub-genre of slasher (yes PSYCHO, BLACK CHRISTMAS, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and HALLOWEEN came before it and directly influenced this movie but FRIDAY THE 13th cemented the conventions it borrowed) and began what was surprisingly the genre of the 80's. It started a golden age in horror that hadn't been seen Universal stopped making black and white scares in the 40's. The series spawned an iconic and highly marketable pop culture icon in Jason Voorhees who along with Michael Myers and Freddy Kruger, gave studios box office icons it hadn't seen since Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. Now the 80's generation of teenagers (and many more later on VHS, including my own) were treated to their own mysterious icons which they could read about it magazines, watch in countless sequels, debate the motivations of with their friends and feel sympathy for but be absolutely terrified by them at the same time. FRIDAY THE 13th started a craze that is still present today. The 80's slasher pulse is still beating, either directly through same titled remakes (ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN, the new FRIDAY THE 13th) or of 80's movies that were basically remakes of FRIDAY THE 13th (i.e. the remakes of PROM NIGHT, MY BLOODY VALENTINE) or recent original slasher films that still use the same basic formula (HATCHET, CABIN FEVER). The genre still has people excited once again and this new FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, which though we shouldn't forget is produced by Michael Bay, is bringing the fun back to the slasher genre.
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Now ya'll know I fucking hate remakes and I ripped apart what Rob Zombie was doing a while back with HALLOWEEN but if these high profile releases are bringing interest back to the genre, then I guess it's not such a bad thing in the long run. If we see some original horror's spawn out of this revived interest in the genre, or even remakes of really bad movies to the quality of the recent MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, then can I really complain? If the recent surge in these movies are enticing Wes Craven to return to the genre, or a Joss Whedon, or a Sam Raimi, or a John Carpenter... then isn't this a good thing? This week Obsessed With Film is going to do something it hasn't ever done before. This week, I won't be running the site, instead it will be Jason. He has taken over OWF, leaving Camp Crystal Lake and going into the world wide web for the first time. Over the coming days in the run-up to friday's release of FRIDAY THE 13TH, your going to see a number of articles from the staff here at OWF, celebrating or maybe denouncing this franchise (I have given my writers free will to come up with what they please) which I encourage you all to read. On Friday, I plan to get together with my podcast crew to record a 30 minute or so discussion and review of the movie which we will hopefully get up for you on Saturday. I may also write a print review but yeah, it's FRIDAY THE 13th week here at OWF. For some reason (maybe it's the dual U.K. and U.S. release date combo which doesn't happen very often) but I'm more excited for this flick than for any big release for a long time. So I hope you enjoy reading these articles. Because his name was Jason... and FRIDAY THE 13TH is his birthday!!!