p e n g u i n d e v i l

But I did it anyway! It was Friday the 13th, so I watched Friday the 13th, 1 and 2. So there. I’m not making any apology’s.

With its low production costs, high profits (it took in about 100 times its budget) and wide distribution, Friday the 13th is the movie that really opened the floodgates of low-budget slasher flicks that washed through the theaters in the early 1980’s. For those who don’t remember… At Camp Crystal Lake, in the late 50’s, a young boy (Jason Voorhees) drown in the lake. The next year, two camp counsellors died at the same camp in an unsolved murder (the scene of which starts off the movie), and the camp eventually closes. Now, 20ish years later, a fellow has decided to re-open the camp… Though many of the locals now consider it cursed and some even call it “Camp Blood”! Luckily, the kids hired to start the camp up again are too smart to worry about silly talk like that!





But, alas, someone mysterious seems to be paying close attention to the comings of these meddlesome kids and they start dropping off like flies. There is some axe action, and some arrow work but most of the killings are of the slashed-throat variety. Maybe this is what gave rise to the “slasher” label in the first place.





A lot of other standard conventions are on display here, such as the victims going off by themselves so as to not even realise that they are all being killed off, and taking off your clothes being an especially quick way towards death.

While there are death’s-a-plenty, the dated gruesomeness and the significant amount of off-screen deaths lead to it being not particularly scary or gory, at least in this day and age, though I still appreciate the whack-a-mole scene. And I assume that nearly everyone must already know of the final twists… But we did watch it with a teenager who’d never seem it before, so that did pep it up a bit. Personally, I recall the final canoe scene scared me all through the 80’s, even when I knew down to the second when it would happen, I still jumped. Sadly… No longer.



Friday the 13th, Part 2 was the actual introduction of Jason Voorhees. This time the locale is a nearby camp to Camp Crystal Lake. A much larger group of kids are descended on this camp, and have been warned to stay away from Camp Crystal Lake. Some locals even say that the boy who drowned all those years ago is really still alive and has been living in the woods all of these years. Of course, not to give anything away but…

They’re right! In our introduction to Jason, he comes across like a ticked-off, backwoods red-neck with a sack over his head. And, while he is able to easily eliminate many teenagers, he was yet to turn into the supernaturally unstoppable killing machine of the later films.





Aside from the lack of surprises and the lack of subtly around the antagonist (they even show him without the bag on his head), the movie is pretty similar to the first one, with the most memorable parts being the two-for-one murder scene and a rather gruesome example of mommy worship.