Before the Hockey Mask...
So today sees the release of the reboot, and by tomorrow night you will all have my opinion on that cinematic event (along with a podcast threesome tonight- aherm), but what of the origin of the species? It seems only fair to go back to the very beginning, before the hockey mask, before the repeated Lazarus tricks and before the need to come up with sensationalist kills, each more grotesque and often ridiculous than the last. Back to when killing really fucking meant something. Now we all know that FRIDAY THE 13TH was by no shadow the first of its kind- nor was it even an attempt at being original, seeing as though it was in fact a blatant and shameless attempt to capitalise on the success of HALLOWEEN. So why does this inauspicious low-budget shocker inspire the type of fervour that inspired numerous sequels and one reboot, various parodies and a frenzied fan scene? How has a man in a hockey mask, with such an obvious lack of personal hygiene and a grooming regime transcend the medium and become a pop icon from such humble beginnings? As a work of horror cinema, FRIDAY THE 13TH looks like a collection of stereotypes: the killers POV camera during attacks; ominous warnings from shady locals, the hidden, somehow irresistibly charismatic killer (that POV camera work enslaves is to a sickening empathy with the killer), the not-quite-dead-yet ending, and of course the setting. There is no way it was the first film to employ any of these characteristics, it simply claimed them for its own by executing them to perfection. Pretty much every slasher released since 1980 owes a stylistic debt to FRIDAY THE 13TH, and a lot of modern flops can trace their critical failure to a too-radical departure from the familiar tropes. So many of the ideas in the film work on a very innate level, the lighting plays on the age-old fear of the dark, the choice of weather upon the inherent uneasiness we feel in storms. And best of all, the way the killer is presented up until the moment of revelation is deeply unnerving and effective- there is absolutely no hint of who is killing the camp counsellors, so the audience has a sense of the helpless, irrational fear that they feel when they meet their grisly ends. The choice of POV hand-held camera also plays upon our innate voyeuristic desires, we watch through the banister as the first couple have sex and we take an uneasy pleasure from it- an uneasy pleasure that is heightened when the POV casts us as the killer. Hence the horrific empathy that we feel for the killer- something that simultaneously disturbs and thrills. The film also retains the delicious peek-a-boo element that every decent horror film has at its core, and even if the pace takes a little of the effect away, it is still utterly gripping. That we want the killing to speed up and be over with is testament to the fantastically claustrophobic feeling the film-makers have managed to create. And look at the effects and the infamous gore: what appears almost quaint to our eyes (HOSTEL and SAW have a lot to answer for), has to be considered through 1980s eyes. Chief effects wizard Tom Savinis pioneering work may now look like a mess of obvious latex and fake blood, but it was an absolute revelation at the time: I challenge anyone not to be affected by Bacons death (though not the acting) or by the axe in the face makeup that was truly horrifying the first time I saw it. It is too easy to cast aside these effects as outdated and ineffective in the wake of the advances in the field, but whos to say those advances would ever have been possible were it not for the FRIDAY THE 13TH effect? What I dont agree with is the rose-tinted image of FRIDAY THE 13Th that ignores its various faults: chief among them the acting of the majority of the cast. Even Kevin Bacon, a usually dependable face, manages to make a mockery of his death scene, clearly flinching twice when the fake blood from his skewered neck gets dangerously close to his eyes. And the less said about Betsy Palmers performance the better- okay so shes untouchable because shes Mrs Vorhees- but the hyperbole is over-cooked and the madness just isnt intoxicating enough. There is little artisan finesse to the film, it is self-conscious in its crassness (how many times is the slashed neck effect used?!), and its vulgarity: this is not art in the true sense, it is an exercise in emotional effectiveness. While Bacon, Betsy Palmer et al would never be critically acclaimed, the audience couldnt fail to be shocked an appalled at the arrow through the neck, the axe embedded in the pretty face, the decapitated head complete with over-egged clenching hands. There is an obvious diligence- an eagerness to affect those good enough to pay the box office fee, to a state of frenzy. So I can forgive the slightly slow pace- and no, it isnt because Ive been brought up with the perpetually accelerating shockers of the last twenty years- the abysmal acting, and even the ball hugging cut off jean-shorts that appear more times than I care to see. I can forgive them because I love FRIDAY THE 13TH, a love that has been bludgeoned, macheted and shocked into me over ten films, and long may it continue I say. At the end of the day FRIDAY THE 13TH is the reason why we are all still so willing to part with our cash whenever a new addition to the family hits screens, despite any turkeys bearing the name; it is the reason that the films are an established brand; and most of all it is the reason why millions of us will flock to the cinema later today and tense our buttocks when the opening credits roll.