Friday the 13th Movies: Ranked Worst to Best

2. Friday The 13th (1980)

Universal Pictures/Paramount Pictures

I really wanted to place this movie as #1. After all, it started the whole franchise; heck, it popularised low-budget slasher films. It's the best movie of the bunch and maybe the best slasher film of all time. It starred Kevin Bacon whose arrow-through-the-next death is one of the most memorable in film history. It gave us the classic ki-ki-ki...ma-ma-ma music. It even introduced us to Jason. But it wasn't ABOUT Jason. For that reason and that reason alone, I have to stick it at #2.

The plot takes us through a fateful day and night at Camp Crystal Lake. The date, conveniently, is Friday, June 13th. A large group of pretty, nude, drug-abusing, fornicating teens is systematically slaughtered by an off-camera killer that nearly everyone seems to know. Through the course of the movie, we learn about a series of murders that took place at Camp Crystal Lake years ago. The incoming counselors are warned by some townsfolk not to return to the campground, but they do it anyway. With the exception of Kevin Bacon, there aren't many unusual death scenes. Instead we're blessed with the more mundane hatchet to the head, slit throat, etc.

As we were famously reminded in the beginning of Scream, Jason is not the killer in this first Friday the 13th movie. How often has a film franchise been started where someone ELSE was the killer? I love this fact about the F13 series of films. Much of the legend of Jason was born in this film, but much more would be added later.

The movie was a perfect mix of background story about the killer's motive (Jason drowning while counselors got humpy), blood and gore, sex, and foreshadowing of movies yet to be made (specifically Jason popping up out of the water at the end). Your average, non-horror-loving movie-goer may not think so, but this is one of the two or three best horror movies ever made.

Contributor

Tim is a varied character. He's lived on three continents. He hates ice cream. He has been a highly-paid computer programmer. He invents collectible card games. He is a coffee shop owner. He has had fantasy stories published in magazines. Eventually he wishes to retire from life and become a professional 10-pin bowler who writes articles while living in his RV and traveling from bowling tournament to bowling tournament with his faithful wife in tow. And of course, Tim is a major horror and science fiction fan.