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Poster (c) Paramount Pictures
The eleventh movie in the never-ending series of Friday the 13th, Freddy vs. Jason, is coming out soon, so I decided to see Friday the 13th, hoping it would be as much fun as A Nightmare on Elm Street. Well, Friday is a little scarier than Elm Street, but Friday lacks the fun and the tongue-in-cheek feel that Elm Street successfully has. It also lacks the chemistry between main characters that Elm Street.
Some could call Friday the 13th a genre-definer, while I call it a clich�-creater. A group of oversexed teenagers (played by people in their twenties) get together to reopen a camp. However, on the night of Friday the 13th, everyone starts to die. Who is killing everyone? Is there someone who actually doesn�t know?
I would have liked Friday the 13th more if it just wasn�t so stupid. If there�s a killer on the loose, you run away, you don�t lock yourself up by yourself in a small cabin. Also, if they�re supposed to be preparing a camp, shouldn�t they actually be preparing instead of playing around in the lake and having sex?
Friday the 13th, as with other late 70�s-early-80�s horror movies, features one up-and-coming star. Nightmare had Johnny Depp, Halloween had Jamie Lee Curtis, and Friday has Kevin Bacon. He�s about as good as his big scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. One more thing that I didn�t like about Friday was how, since I didn�t know anything about the characters (I couldn�t even keep them straight), I couldn�t do the best part of watching horror movies: guessing in what order they would die. Since I didn�t know anything about the characters, or care about them, I couldn�t guess.
It seems like I hated Friday the 13th, when, in fact, it was somewhat scary at times, but, overall, the cons outweigh the pros.
Rated R for strong violence/gore.
Review Date: August 14, 2003
