Greetings, and welcome back to October Horror Fest! Today is Friday the 13th, in October as well! Of course, to celebrate the occasion, and the fact that we don’t have another Friday the 13th in October till 2028, there’s one movie that I had to watch. Today, stick with me as we venture into the world of one of the most famous horror icons. I haven’t seen any of these movies, and I am incredibly excited to venture into them now. Without further ado, sit back, relax, turn off the lights, grab some Candy and Popcorn, and let’s review…

Friday the 13th (1980) 

We start our tale at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. As we get shots of the camp, we hear a group of counselors sing songs in a cabin. As we hear the song, we enter a POV shot. In this POV, we see someone walk into a cabin, and see sleeping campers. We hear the famous “ki ki ki, ma ma ma” playing in the background, as we see the signing counselors once again. Two of the counselors hold hands and walk into a private cabin, as they begin to kiss. They are once again watched by our unknown stalker, and they head upstairs. Before they can do anything, our unknown heads upstairs. Once they reach the top, they are spotted by one of the counselors. As he attempts to back away, he is stabbed in the stomach, blood splattering everywhere. The female counselor is backed into a corner, and, in slow motion, is killed. We zoom in on her screaming face, and our title card begins.

  We picked up in a small town, on Friday the 13th, June 1980. A teenage girls is walking. She has a hitchhiking backpack, and jokingly asks a dog for directions to Camp Crystal Lake. When she enters a store for actual directions, she is stared at when she says the name of her location. A man finally agrees to give her a ride, and they begin walking to his car. However, they are stopped by the town crazy, Ralph. He asks if she is going to “Camp Blood”, and says that she will never return. The girl’s name is Annie, and her driver eventually grills her on her decision to go to “Camp Blood”. According to him, two counselors were murdered in 58’, and a kid drowned the year prior. It was never able to re-open, until now. He wants her to quit, but she can’t, and she wants to work with children. It’s Annie’s dream. The driver drops her off, and she starts walking.

We then catch up with three of our new counselors. Marie, Jack, and Ned. They enter Camp Crystal Lake, and meet up with the boss, Steve Christy. He is chopping wood, and immediately puts them to work. Shortly after, we meet Alice, our main character for this movie, and an amazing one at that. Steve asks if she has seen Bill or Brenda, two other counselors, recently, and she says no. Soon after, Steve decides to go for broke, and tells Alice she is beautiful. He just isn’t her type, however, and Steve asks for her to give the Camp a week, at least.

We meet Bill, and he is painting. Everyone is accounted for, besides Annie. Once again, our POV shot begins, and we see our stalker watching Alice from behind a tree. Steve leaves the camp after talking to all of his counselors, and tells them to get everything they can done before it begins to storm later that night. We also meet Brenda, who begins to do work on the archery range. While out there, Ned begins to flirt with her, and the two walk off together.

We meet back up with Annie, as she asks another car for a drive. She puts her stuff in back, and the car speeds off to Camp Crystal Lake. However, going at blistering speed, it passes the sign to the Camp. Annie begins to panic, and after the car doesn’t stop, she jumps out, injuring her foot. The car reverses, and our killer gets out. Annie begins to hobble through the forest, with our POV shot stalker chasing her. She trips and falls many times, due to this being a classic horror movie, and her hurt food. The killer appears in front of Annie, and she falls again. She backs up against a tree, and the killer slits her throat.

Back at the lake, the counselors have fun goofing around in the lake. As they play around, the stalker watches them in the trees. Brenda thinks she sees something in the trees, and we see the POV Stalker move position. The group begins to get back to work, until Ned starts convulsing in the lake, and dips under. Once he is pulled out, Brenda gives him mouth to mouth, and he gets up and grabs her. It was all a prank, and the campers move on, but not before the Stalker watches them once more.

We pick up Alice in her bathrobe in her room. We see that there is a snake on her floor, and she immediately calls Bill to kill it. The entire group rush in, looking for the snake, and tear up Alice’s room. Bill is eventually able to slice it’s head off with a machete, ending the scare for the group. As the group walk through the forest after the incident, we see Brenda and Marie walk together. Ned is making a fool of himself in the background, and an officer pulls in with his bike. He is looking for Ralph, as he heard that Ralph was near the Camp talking about nonsense. The officer gets called away for an emergency, and he leaves.

We get back with our girl Alice in her cabin, as she walks around to find items to cook. However, when she opens her pantry, Ralph walks out. He scares the counselors, saying that God sent him, the Camp is a death curse, and that they need to get out, or else they are dead. He says that they are doomed, and speeds away on his bike. The group starts to cook a meal, not having Annie to run the kitchen. However, when Alice goes to turn on the light, it doesn’t turn on, and Jack suspects that something is wrong with the generator. Jack, along with Marcie and Bill, successfully turn the generator back on.

We are treated to a few gorgeous scenes of the lake, as we see Marcie and Jack kiss in the background. We then see Ned, alone, walking away from the couple. We see a door open on his right, and from the cabin comes a person. He says hello, but receives no answer. Ned heads into the cabin. Shortly after, Jack and Marcie sit on the porch outside. They kiss, and talk, and kiss some more, pretty typical for 80s horror movies, and especially this one. The storm that Steve warned about starts to heat up, and Jack and Marcie talk about thunderstorms. Marcie said she was always afraid of thunderstorms, and tells of a dream she had when she was young when it was storming outside. She said how she would see rain, and that rain would always turn into blood, and the blood washed away in little rivers. The storm starts, and Steve was right, It’s huge. Steve and Marcie take refuge in the cabin, and begin to get very non PG.

Meanwhile, Alice, Bill, and Brenda relax in their cabin. Bill plays a nice, relaxing song on guitar, in one of my favorite moments from the film. Juxtaposing the dark events with the calm ones is an amazing decision for this amazing film. Brenda decides to play Monopoly. But, to spice it up since the others are bored, she wants to play her version. Her version is “Strip Monopoly”, because of course it is.

Back with Jack and Marcie, they continue the act. However, the camera pans up, and in the bunk above them sits Ned, his throat slashed, but his eyes still open with terror, blood pooling all around him. Ki, Ki, Ki, Ma, Ma, Ma starts up again, as Jack and Marcie continue.

Our group of three continue to play Strip Monopoly, as Jack and Marcie finish. Marcie gets out of bed to pee, and Jack puts his clothes back on. Marcie puts hers on as well, along with a rain jacket. She asks Jack to save her place, and with a kiss, she departs into the night. Meanwhile, Strip Monopoly heats up, as Bill removes his boot after he lands on Alice’s property. Alice says she is starting to like the game, and Brenda tells her to just wait and see, excited about the prospect of the game progressing. We meet up with Jack once more, as he lights a cigarette and relaxes on the bed. Just when we think everything is fine, a drop of blood lands on Jack’s forehead. He wipes it off, and in a shocking scene that actually frightened me, the Killer’s hand reaches out from under the bed at an extraordinary speed, and holds Jack’s forehead to the pillow. An arrowhead is passed through Jack’s throat from under the bed, as blood spurts everywhere. Jack, who is played by the legendary Kevin Bacon, is killed.

As we meet up with Marcie, she finally reaches her cabin. Marcie goes to a stall, and uses the bathroom. However, as she is in there, the door opens, and our killer steps inside. She hears a sound, and thinks it’s Jack, but receives no answer. She goes to turn on the sink, and after fidgeting with the pipes, gets water to turn on. She begins to wash her hands, but is nervous after she hears a sound come from the room next to her. After washing her hands, she walks to the room, believing Jack and Ned are pranking her. She turns on the light, and doesn’t see anything. However, after she opens the second curtain in her room, after finding nothing in either of them, we see a shadow holding an axe appear on the wall behind her. She screams, and the axe is plunged into her head in another horrifying and bloody scene.

Back with our classic game Strip Monopoly, Bill is missing his shirt and both boots, and Brenda is missing her shirt and pants, bringing her to her undergarments. Alice finally lands on Bill’s property. As she begins to unbutton her shirt, the door to the cabin swings open because of the storm. Because of this, Brenda remembers she left the windows in her cabin open. She puts on a rain jacket and leaves, and says that she’s upset that she had to go right when “it started to get exciting.” Bill and Alice begin to joke around, and clean up the mess they made playing.

We cut to a diner in the rain, lit up by its sign. It’s a cozy setting, another one of my favorite scenes in the movie, as 80s music plays. We meet back up with our friend Steve Christy, as he pays for his cup of coffee. He puts on his jacket and leaves, telling his waitress Sandy, who he is friends with, that he has to go back to the Lake to help his counselors. Steve gets into his car in the pouring, heavy rain, and starts the journey back. We see him cross onto the road heading back to the lake, and cut back to Brenda.

Brenda enters the same cabin Marcie was killed in, and begins to brush her teeth, even using the same sink. She is also startled by a noise from the room next to her, but continues to brush. We see a hand briefly come around the curtain in the room, but it retracts before Brenda can notice it. This is terrifying, as the hand, just like when it killed Jack, moves extremely fast, with “Ki ki ki, Ma Ma Ma” up and running in the background once more. Brenda turns off the lights in the cabin and leaves. A few seconds later, the light turns back on.

Back with Steve, his car breaks down. He runs into one of his friends, who is a police officer. He gives him a lift back to the camp, and Steve leaves his car. At the Lake, our killer peers in on Brenda at her cabin. She undresses to her nightgown, and goes to relax on her bed and read a book. However, she hears a “help me” from outside. Startled, she tries to continue to read. She hears another help, and in her nightgown, heads out into the rain. In the storm, the cries for help become louder and more frequent, when all the lights suddenly come back on. We see the hand of the killer flick the switch as they come back on, and Brenda is alone on the archery range. She backs up into the night, and lets out a terrifying scream.

Alice now sits in her cabin, with Alice playing a few cords of the guitar. She stokes the fire in her fireplace, as Bill enters the cabin. He’s in his raincoat, telling Alice that the generator seems to be ok. She says that she thought she heard a scream, and Bill goes back out to take a look. Before he leaves, he realizes that the lights are back off. Alice asks if she can come, and Bill says yes. The pair hold hands, and run out into the woods, both in their jackets. The pair, now in Marcie’s cabin, finds the bloody axe underneath the covers of a bed. The duo, now frantically, begin searching for their missing friends. Getting to Jack’s cabin, he is missing, and there’s no sign of Ned or Brenda either. Alice wants to call someone, and the two head to the office. The door is locked, so Alice busts through a window, and unlocks it. The phone lines are dead, and the pair isn’t left with any more options. They try to start the car in the Camp, and its engine is busted. Alice desperately wants to leave, and she begins to worry. Bill, being a pretty awesome guy, tells her to calm down. He says they will laugh about it tomorrow, and kisses Alice on the cheek. The two head out, and we meet back up with Steve and his cop friend.

The storm finally slowed down, and the officer got a call for an emergency. He drops Steve off, and speeds back to his emergency. Steve begins to hike back, and we see the sign for Camp Crystal Lake come into view. Steve runs into the camp in an amazing shot. We see a flashlight, which Steve can’t see behind. Once he gets closer, he seems to recognize whoever was holding it. He says hello, and asks what they are doing in this mess. Steve is stabbed in the chest, and we cut back to the Camp, where all light turns off.

Bill lights lanterns, and goes to check the generator. He tells Alice to stay and get some sleep, and ventures out into the woods. He reaches the generator, and begins to try to fix it. We depart from Bill, and pick back up with Alice. She awakes in a fright, screaming Bill’s name. She remembers the generator, and takes her lantern to the kitchen. In another incredible juxtaposition scene, Alice begins to make coffee during the tense situation. After feeling worried, she mustered up the courage to go find Bill. She gets to the Generator room, and finds his jacket on the floor. She repeatedly screams his name, getting to answer. She opens a door, and sees Bill. He has been pinned onto the door, with arrows through his body, with blood running everywhere. Alice screams and frantically runs, getting back to her cabin. She begins to desperately barricade the door as she panics and cries. Alice sinks down to the floor, and tries to calm down. She grabs a baseball bat and a fork for defense. As she thinks of what she is going to do, Brenda’s body comes flying in through the window. It is covered in blood and wrapped with rope. Alice sinks down to the floor once more, screaming and attempting to crawl away. She drops her weapons, when she sees a car pull up outside the cabin. She removes all her barricades at the door, and runs out frantically to meet her savior.

However, when she gets outside, it isn’t Steve who exits the vehicle… Mrs. Voorhees exits the car, her name, revealed later in the series, is Pamela Voorhees. She says she is an old friend of the Christy’s. She has the warmth of a grandmother, and hugs Alice. Alice begins to frantically tell her about what happened, and Pamela begins to tell her that she will take care of her, and how she worked for the Camp back in the day. Mrs. Voorhees says she isn’t afraid of a killer, and goes to see the bodies. She walks into Alice’s cabin, and sees the body of Brenda.

She says “Oh my Lord”, and in shock, hits the wall with her hand. She says that Brenda was so young, and so pretty. She cures the place, and says Steve shouldn’t have re opened it. Shen then tells Alice that there was a boy who drowned the year before the counselors died. She says how they didn’t pay attention as he drowned, as they were making love. Mrs. Voorhees was the cook, and she was working the day it happened. Pamela begins to grab Alice and shakes her. She calms down, and says how he wasn’t a good swimmer. She says that Alice is her dear, and that they can go. Alice says they should wait for Mr. Christy, and Pamela retorts, saying that it isn’t necessary. Suddenly, Pamela looks to the left, after Alice says she doesn’t understand. Pamela hears the voice of Jason, asking his mommy to help. She sees a vision of him drowning. Mrs. Voorhees says that she is, and tells Alice that Jason was her son, and today is his birthday. Jason Voorhees was the boy who drowned that day.

Alice asks where Mr. Christy is, and Pamela says that she couldn’t let them re-open the camp, not after what happened. She says how Jason was sweet and innocent, and that he was her only child. We see more visions of Jason, as Pamela says that Alice let him drown, and she asks Alice to look at what she did to him. Mrs. Voorhees takes out a knife, and is revealed to be our killer. She swings at Alice, and Alice swings back with a fire poker on Pamela’s side, knocking her down. Alice runs out of the cabin, terrified. Alice tries to enter the car, and as she does, she sees the body of Annie in the passenger seat, covered in blood. Alice screams, and exits the car. She runs again, when Steve’s body falls from a tree, knife still plunged into his chest. We see Mrs. Voorhees get up angrily, in an incredible feat of acting. She exits the cabin, slamming the door. She looks for Alice, and sees her running. Pamela then speaks, in the voice of a young boy. This is what she is hearing Jason say in her head. Jason is telling his mommy to kill her, to not let her get away, and to not let her life. Pamela returns to her normal voice, telling her boy that she won’t, in another incredible acting moment.

Alice, now in a new cabin, begins to arm herself with a shotgun, desperately looking for bullets. Mrs. Voorhees turns on the generator, and the lights come back on. Alice rushes even more, not finding any ammo. Pamela effortlessly opens the door, and says “Come Dear”. She says how it will be easier for her than it was for Jason, and her voice tells her to kill Alice once again. She swings, yelling angrily. She misses, and Alice begins to throw items at Pamela, which she effortlessly deflects. She corners Alice, and begins slapping her face, throwing her across the room. When she goes in for the kill, Alice hits her with the bud of the gun, and runs out of the Cabin once more. Mrs. Voorhees, dazed, runs into the night once more, passing a large table. Alice appears from behind, running in the opposite direction. We hear Pamela “Jason” speak again, telling his mommy to kill her multiple times, saying that she can’t hide.

Alice re-enters her cabin, still seeing the body of Brenda. Breathing heavily in panic and exhaustion, she reaches the closet quietly, and locks the door behind her. She slides down to the floor, when Mrs. Voorhees enters the cabin. We hear loud noises, as Alice holds the door knob closed from her side. We hear a door open and close, as Alice sinks to the floor once more. Her frantic breathing begins to close, and she hugs the wall. Behind her, the doorknob shifts in another frightening scene, and Pamela kicks the door down. She smiles in yet another amazing, amazing acting scene, and enters the Closet. She slices at Alice, now wielding a machete. She misses, and Annie hits her head with a pan. She falls down, bleeding from her head. Alice leaves once again, and runs down to the Lake. As she sits in a boat, we see her reflection in the water. We see Mrs. Voorhees appear, and slash once more with the machete. Alice blocks with a paddle from the boat, and the two engage in a fight on the sand. When Mrs. Voorhees is dazed, Alice runs and picks up the machete. Pamela is shocked, and in an extremely famous horror moment, Alice slices her head off, with her fingers still moving after decapitation. Alice, our final girl, traumatized, enters the boat and drifts into the lake.

In the background, the fear is replaced with calm. An absolutely perfect piece of music plays. It is calm, joyous, and mixed in with the perfect amount of 80s style. It is triumphant, and signals the end to the fear. In fact, I love this piece so much that I actually linked it on the top of this article. I HEAVILY recommend you all listen to it. Like, please. We hear this absolutely incredible piece of music as Alice drifts down the lake in the morning, with the fall trees behind her. They are reflected on the surface of the water, and Alice continues to drift. This is my favorite scene from the movie, and one of my favorite horror scenes, ever. Honestly, this is one of my favorite scenes from any movie I’ve ever watched, and I’ve seen hundreds. I am so glad I watched this film, and this scene isn’t leaving my memory. Alice floats downstream, as we zoom in on her face, finally waking up, her clothes still tattered from the nightmare before. This is when the unthinkable happens. A young boy, Jason Voorhees, jumps out of the lake. He is drowned, and his flesh seems like it has burned off. He looks like a zombie. He grabs Alice’s neck, and pulls her under, as the amazing music is replaced with one of terror.

Alice wakes up in the hospital, screaming. She asks her doctors if anyone is still alive at the camp, and they say no. Two officers pulled Alice out of the lake, thinking she was dead. The officer asks if the boy is dead, and the officer is taken aback. Alice panics, telling him about the boy that pulled her under. He says that they didn’t find any boy. Alice, in a terrible fear, says that he is still there. The perfect, heavenly music plays once more, as Alice’s face fades out, and the Lake fades in. We zoom in on the surface of the lake, and see bubbles form. Jason Lives…

That brings us to the end of Friday the 13th! I absolutely ADORED this film, and I am so happy I was able to watch it, especially on an actual Friday the 13th like today! Like I said, we won’t have another in October till 2028, so I’m making the most of it! This film was spectacular, and although Micheal and Halloween will still always be my favorite, Jason and Friday the 13th are now cemented in my heart as well. Thank you so much for sticking with me on this absolutely insanely long article. I promise I didn’t plan for this to be so long! I hope you all had a great Friday the 13th. Before I go, just make sure to think about this before you go to sleep tonight. Jason lives… and he’s still out there…