Friday The 13th: Ranking Every Movie From Worst To Best
1.Friday The 13th (1980)
The original and, quite simply, the best. It's all too easy to compare it to the first Halloween but, if anything, its Porky's with a POV killer and, after seeing that teen franchise, someone realised we needed to see those annoying kids get picked off one by one.
Sean S. Cunningham had a title and an image (the Friday the 13th logo smashing through a pane of glass) but not much else. With the help of writer Victor Miller, they created a film set over one night as a group of teens setting up a summer camp, and away from any adults, are picked off one by one. The plot owes as much to Halloween as it does to Bay of Blood and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. It was a mainstream horror produced by Paramount and it was a huge hit (adjusted for inflation, the film grossed $280million worldwide).
Cunningham and Miller create a backwoods world inhabited by a group of pretty realistic teens who seem both likeable and fun-loving. Yes, clichés abound as they indulge in pot induced strip Monopoly and Native American chanting but, when the kills start by the mysterious assailant, you feel like three dimensional characters are being picked off. In Alice, too, we have the best Final Girl of the series because she seems wounded and in need of care (beyond the amorous advances of Camp owner Steve Christie). Her battle with the killer in the last twenty minutes far surpasses later battles in the series. The revelation of the killer (look away now) in Mrs Pamela Vorhees is a bit of a cheat as she's a totally new character, but her motives for keeping the camp shut (her son, Jason, drowned when the counsellors were off having sex) gives enough motivation to turn her into the monster she's become.
Obviously, the cast are strong, probably the best in the series bar Parts IV and VI. Adrienne King as Alice is thoroughly believable (by slasher standards) but it's Betsy Palmer, taking the role because she needed to buy a new car, who steals the show. A Hollywood star from the 1950's, appearing in Mister Roberts, The Tin Star and Queen Bee, she is both maternal and terrifying. She is the monster we're terrified of in this series because she's real. Jason is a monster, his mother, in this film at least, is a woman we could meet in any diner in America.
The film has so many great elements from Kevin Bacon's role, and subsequent series favourite death, to Bing Crosby's son, Harry, taking a leading part. The real star though is Tom Savini and his effects. Halloween played on fear, Cunningham just wanted to bludgeon us. Yes, it's not subtle but it does make the film a slightly different beast and, to that end, the best film in the Friday the 13th franchise. Like this article? Let us know in the comments section below.