31 Days of Horror: Friday the 13th (1980)

As we come into the final stretch of the season {have you noticed the local 'Stuff-Marts' have already pushed the Chinese Christmas crap to the front?!}, I can finally unfold some of the cream of the crop. Don't get me wrong, each of the gems deserve a viewing {some deserve ownership}, but these are probably the ones that get the most play this time of year and rightly so.

For me, Friday the 13th evokes images like you wouldn't believe. I think my annual trips to summer camps, even now as a counselor, wouldn't be nearly as much fun with this one. There's always one night that we {the counselors} are allowed to scare the begeezus out of our young victims. No--usually it's just each other. Although my camp is nothing like Crystal Lake, can you really go camping without thinking 'this could be it'?

Jason Voorhees is one bad boogieman. Though his killing grounds are limited, it's idea that his knife-wielding self is 'out there' watching, waiting, striking. The harsh tone of the film starts quickly and sets the pace. The jinxed summer camp is just the setting for horrible deaths; it's the delivery that kills.

Friday the 13th is quite simple if you think about it. The young cast is par for the genre. The plot is spotty at times, but who cares?! It's the horrible, graphic, bloody, harsh, cold dispatching of camp counselors in woods on a stormy evening. It's a psychopath picking off horny teenagers in unexpected violent ways.

Upping the ante, is Pamela Voorhees. Jason's mother comes out of nowhere adding a mind-f^ck moment you can't believe.

Voorhees owns Krueger as far as I'm concerned. Friday the 13th is the bar for slasher flicks. It remains horror genius even after all these years.