---movies---anime---
Sean S. Cunningham's epic Friday the 13th saga begins at a summer camp in 1958. Some dazed-looking campers are singing bible songs when a couple sneaks off to neck. A Point of View shot enters and offs them, and thus this ten-movie-long series begins it's crusade against healthy sexual relations. The legend goes that the killing sprees were to avenge Jason's death at the hands of negligent counselers, and that's why people always die after sex in these movies. I could point out that the bible-song-singing counselors also weren't watching Jason, but a series of movies about killing bible-song-singers wouldn't be that interesting (or would it...)
One girl has a snake in her cabin, and it gets chopped up by a machete (it looks pretty real). In another highlight scene, a character dances around in an Indian Headdress and a diaper while an unamused cop looks on (He says things like, "Can it, Cocheese." "What you been smoking, boy? You just get off a spaceship? You know what I'm talking about. Columbian gold, man, hash, grass, the weed." "I told you to sit on it, Tonto." "We ain't gonna stand for no weirdness out here.") The sex factor is here too, as the chicks all strip down to their bras and some even play Strip Monopoly (ironically, Monopoly is a still boring game). In what must be turn-ons for someone, somewhere, the hottest chick, Marcie, is shown taking a crap and one guy wears suspenders with no shirt.
There's no style or plot or amusing parts, it's all just packing material to keep the excellent gore effects by TOM SAVINI from rattling around. Throats are slashed and stabbed, there's an axe in the face, an arrow through the eye, and bloody corpses are strung upside down, nailed to doors, even tossed through windows. In one scene, a young Kevin Bacon (as a pothead) and Marcie are gettin' it on in the lower bunk while a dead body is lying in the top one. You know, you can take your Stan Winstons and your Joe Blascos and your Rick Bakers- and shove 'em! Tom Savini is the master effects man in my humble opinion. One need only look to "Day of the Dead" or "Maniac" to see what a genius (and artist) he is. Heck, even the effects in "Friday the 13th IV" are freakin' awesome.
Anyway, who could be the killer? The town crazy Ralph? Steve, the sleazy guy in charge of the whole camp-reopening? Or maybe, just maybe, the vengeful mongoloid JASON VORHEES?! No, but thanks for asking. Turns out it's- movie ruining spoilers ahead- turns out it's... wait for it... wait for it... Mrs. Vorhees, Jason's pissed off mother, played cheerfully by the motherly Betsy Palmer. ("I'll take care of you.") The lady's a total class act, whether she's ranting politely or getting her head cut off. Watching (and listening) her talk in Jason's voice is really creepy ("Kill her, mommy!"). She even flashes back to Jason drowning- if she was there why the Heck didn't she do something?
In the final scene an actress playing a nurse looks right at the camera.
