Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and something should have been written. It's too bad that I treat my calendar like a collections officer, doing everything that I can to avoid contact while realizing that it will end up catching up with me. Seeing as how I binge watched six Friday the 13th movies a few months ago, it is only fitting that I take some time to write about what the franchise added to cinema.
Nothing. Practically nothing was added because of Friday the 13th.
The best argument that could be made is that it solidified the slasher genre of teenagers being stalked by a merciless masked man. I could possibly accept this assessment for some films that would have come out in the mid to late 80s, which was eight to ten years after the genre actually launched. Jason, the antagonist that is iconic with this franchise, was not in his marketable format until about halfway through the third movie. That's 1982, eight years after precursors to the genre came out in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas.
Jason's recognizable form came five years after John Carpenter's Halloween, which is easily the franchise that created the idea of the mysterious and near unbeatable, looming figure that sets its murderous will against the hormone ridden subset of humanity. The film that was closest to that format prior was Black Christmas, which focused on a sorority house. The concept of the masked killer came predominantly with Michael Myers, although some may try and squeeze in a case for Leather Face from Texas Chainsaw. While I will admit that Leather Face came first, it was John Carpenter's film format as a whole that woke up a generation of directors and copycat writers.
Basically, I don't think that Jason can be credited too much with the fad of that style of slasher killer. According to Wikipedia (which we must take with a grain of salt) there were one hundred slasher movies released between 1978 and 1984. Yes, Friday the 13th came out in 1980, putting it in a place where it could have heavily influenced other films, but, once again, it wasn't until 1982 that it had it's iconic visual nailed down. If anything, it did add to the genre a higher kill count and emphasis on the uniqueness of kills.
However, it wouldn't hold any kind of crown for style of kills for long. In 1984, Wes Craven brought the world the incredibly imaginative A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film with the slasher killer dwelling in people's dreams, leaving him outside of the confines of physics and reality. Freddy Krueger was the opposite of what we had seen prior. Gone was the silent, lumbering mammoth. Krueger was thin and scrawny, with a trademark burnt face and, most importantly, a personality of the worst psychotic that revelled in tormenting people. The killer now had a voice and undeniable personality, something that was not the norm in the earlier slashers.
It would be another four years before another slasher took a fresh and playful jab at the slow stalking style that Jason and Michael Myers became known for. Nineteen eighty eight ushered into cinemas Child's Play, a slasher that appeared to be taking a mocking swing at the now redundant monsters of the genre. The killer now was small and deviant, coming in the form of a child's toy that mimicked the My Buddy doll. The film turned the tropes of the killer on its head and threw some much needed energy into the slasher sub-genre.
From here it would be another eight years before anything revitalizing happened to slashers. Wes Craven would make his mark again with Scream, a self aware slasher that, like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Child's Play, seemed to take direct aim at just how boring and predictable movies like Friday the 13th had become. This leads to what could be a great debate over who may have brought more to slashers, John Carpenter or Wes Craven. Both had gigantic submissions, and, just like Halloween changed the landscape and caused knock-offs, so did Scream. I honestly believe that a solid argument could be made for either of those two forward thinking directors.
As you can see, there have been some well known slasher franchises. For the most part, each of the ones mentioned altered the game and took a new look at antagonist, formula, or both. Friday the 13th really only added the increased kill count and style of kills, and the style factor was blown out of the water in 1984. The overall footprint of Friday the 13th was just essentially building off of what was set up with Black Christmas and Halloween. Not a lot of original thought came out of this franchise that was been clung onto by studios as a hopeful money maker as recently as 2009.
One neat thing did happen in a Friday the 13th movie. In the fourth instalment, instead of having a screaming girl as the protagonist, it was this time a mother, daughter, and son. It is not the best reviewed film of the franchise, but I thought the addition of familial bonds and loyalties added some flavour. That being said, it's still not enough to recommend to anyone that they should spend time with this franchise. There are just too many imaginative and boundary pushing slashers out there to watch. While I am sure my podcast co-host Christopher Spicer is on Team Carpenter and would have you watch Halloween, I am on Team Craven and would push you towards A Nightmare on Elm Street. Honestly, you can't go wrong with either. People may call them dumb, but both Chris as I would argue that there is some thought to be found in both, something that you won't find with Jason,
Yep, I am always Team Carpenter, though I cheer for Wes Craven too. As for Friday the 13th, what it really brought, like you said, was the high kill count and the graphic murders patterned after giallo cinema. The other major thing it did was spark the mass popularity of slashers by being a massive hit in 1980, as the copycats came after that movie's major success. I know it was either 1981 or 1982 that had the most slashers ever released in cinema. I think a huge portion of them are heavily patterned after Friday the 13th, but yes, that movie itself was derivative. I never really got into the Friday the 13th series, but I would say my favourite is definitely number 4. What is the best reviewed of the franchise?
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