A group of camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp which was the site of a child's drowning and a grisly double murder years before.
In 1957, a young boy named Jason drowns in a lake near Camp Crystal Lake. The next year, two counselors are murdered. In 1980, a descendant of the original owners reopens Camp Crystal Lake with some counselors' help. The counselors gets killed one by one by a mysterious person. Could it be Jason, out for revenge?Written by
RedJames99
Composer Henry Manfredini came up with the now classic "ki ki ki ma ma ma" vocals attached to the score. It's his voice as well. See more »
Goofs
(at around 1h 8 mins) When Alice wakes up on the couch, she is wearing white socks. When she walks into the kitchen to make the coffee, her feet have a dark color (either dark socks or shoes). See more »
Quotes
Claudette:
[having sex]
Barry's out of bounds... Barry...
Barry:
Come on, a man's not made out of stone.
Claudette:
[whispers]
Somebody's there!
Barry:
[notices who it is]
We weren't doing anything. We were just messing...
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Crazy Credits
We see giant letters proclaiming 'Friday the 13th' moving towards the screen and crashing into and smashing a pane of glass. See more »
Alternate Versions
The new Swedish home-video version is from Warner Bros. (not Paramount) and is the gory Japanese version. See more »
Without a doubt, the work of Cunningham and Carpenter during 1978 & 1980 rocked the world of the horror genre. Friday the 13th is one of the films that to this day still has repercussions. It demonstrated the importance of setting the tone in horror movies, making the audience themselves feel as if they too were being stalked. Cunningham also was one of the few directors to introduce the idea of a possible female serial killer.
Without this film, Scream's Randy would have never uttered those famous words, 'There are certain rules to surviving a horror movie..' This film combined with Carpenter's Halloween, firmly etched the rules in stone. The creepy music, the infamous "ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha", the crude photography and the graphic depiction of the murders of the counsellors all blend together to give a classic piece of film history. It scared the hell out of multitudes of teenagers who, in many instances could see themselves in the victims of the stalker. These weren't bad people getting killed, these were just your typical average American kids, having a good time, getting picked off.
That is what makes this film so defining, that is why, for all its crude and harsh imagery, this is a classic. This is why alot of recent attempts at horror don't measure up. It's not the effects or the blood necessarily, it's the atmosphere and the familiarity that bring it home.It is more frightening to think, "That could be me"
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Without a doubt, the work of Cunningham and Carpenter during 1978 & 1980 rocked the world of the horror genre. Friday the 13th is one of the films that to this day still has repercussions. It demonstrated the importance of setting the tone in horror movies, making the audience themselves feel as if they too were being stalked. Cunningham also was one of the few directors to introduce the idea of a possible female serial killer.
Without this film, Scream's Randy would have never uttered those famous words, 'There are certain rules to surviving a horror movie..' This film combined with Carpenter's Halloween, firmly etched the rules in stone. The creepy music, the infamous "ch-ch-ch-ha-ha-ha", the crude photography and the graphic depiction of the murders of the counsellors all blend together to give a classic piece of film history. It scared the hell out of multitudes of teenagers who, in many instances could see themselves in the victims of the stalker. These weren't bad people getting killed, these were just your typical average American kids, having a good time, getting picked off.
That is what makes this film so defining, that is why, for all its crude and harsh imagery, this is a classic. This is why alot of recent attempts at horror don't measure up. It's not the effects or the blood necessarily, it's the atmosphere and the familiarity that bring it home.It is more frightening to think, "That could be me"