13 Scariest Movie Endings That Kept You Up All Night

Producer-director Sean S Cunningham's 1980 horror is in many respects little more than a facsimile of other, more inventive films that came before it. For the most part, it's essentially a clone of Halloween, with the action taken away from the suburbs and out to the grounds of a remote summer camp, where an initially unseen killer is taking out the teens one at a time.

However, when it comes to the climax, the film heads directly into Carrie territory; the lone survivor (Adrienne King), having beheaded the deranged Mrs Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) in self defence, lies exhausted in a canoe on Crystal Lake in the light of dawn... but just when all seems peaceful, the drowned boy Jason Voorhees suddenly leaps up from under the water to drag her down. Just like in Carrie, it's only a nightmare.

Yes, it's yet another derivative moment in a highly derivative film - and yet, just like everything else in Friday the 13th, it all works in spite of itself. The film may be a patchwork, but it's a hugely successful one, which somehow winds up with a unique character all of its own.

The haunting final scene is a big part of that, not least because it sets the stage for Jason returning as the killer in all but one of the subsequent Friday the 13th sequels (11 thus far).