I do loves me some long-running, trashy, horror franchise shenanigans, but for some reason - unlike, say, Nightmare On Elm Street and Wrong Turn, where I watched each episode religiously as it came out - I've only seen random parts of the Friday The 13th story.
Although I was well aware of the big twist on the killer's identity (it's not Jason) and the suckerpunch right at the end (it is Jason), the film still holds up after all these years with some clever touches (such as the girl we initially think is being set up to be the Final Girl is actually the first to go), decent acting and palpable tension.
The awkward, occasionally stilted, dialogue comes across as naturalistic, helping to heighten the verisimilitude of this very-grounded (except, of course, for that famous moment at the end) opening salvo in the Friday The 13th franchise.
The film unfolds over a single day and rain-soaked night, with the bulk of the kills falling into the middle third of its 92-minute duration, before third act game of cat-and-mouse between the actual deranged killer and the actual Final Girl.
A half-dozen young councillors (including Kevin Bacon) arrive at Camp Crystal Lake to help prepare for its grand reopening, several decades after it closed following a drowning, a couple of unsolved murders and some arson attacks.
Unfortunately someone doesn't want the camp to reopen...
Compared to some of today's gorefests, Friday The 13th is quite tame and even the (very brief) sexy time isn't exactly hardcore.
The Psycho-inspired stings and wind score emphasises the power of intelligent, nondiegetic, music to heighten tension and director Sean S. Cunningham wisely doesn't let us see us a fair number of the kills as they happen as I'm not convinced all of Tom Savini's effects stand the test of time.
It's only really in the last half-hour or so that the survivors suddenly twig that something is going on... and start finding the bodies.
Kevin Bacon manages to stay alive for less time than Johnny Depp in the original Nightmare On Elm Street and is best remembered for getting an arrow through his throat.
My only real criticism is the film should have ended with its Carrie-like shock moment, rather than then rambling on to the final scene with Alice (Adrienne King) in hospital.
This adds nothing except to slightly undercut the horror of the shocking scene before.
And as to the 'twist' with the killer's true identity, I guess at the time it wasn't even a twist as no-one knew of the unstoppable zombie that was Jason Voorhees in the later films.