Friday the 13th (Film Review)

1980 Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Sean S Cunningham; Written by: Victor Miller
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon
MPAA Rating: R; 95 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 7/10

After Halloween made truckloads of cash, imitators were sure to follow. Coming two years on Halloween's heels, Friday the 13th starts with a tracking POV shot from the killer's perspective, just like Halloween, which creeps on two horny teenagers, just like Halloween, and stabs them to death, just like Halloween, though this time, both guy and girl bite the dust. Unlike Halloween, there's little art or reasoning for this perspective, other than titillation, and the rest of the film follows course.
On the titular day, a group of hormonal teenage camp counselors show up at a recently reopened summer camp on Crystal Lake. The campers aren't there yet, so the counselors goof off, have sex, and get murdered. Halloween painstakingly crafted its main character, but Friday the 13th's gang of good-looking stab-targets are given little to set them apart.
The film reuses the "killer POV" over and over again to the point that it feels like nothing other than exploitation, but Friday the 13th is directed in a workmanlike fashion, the performances are admittedly solid, the killer's identity is fairly ingenious, and a certain jump scare may indeed be the greatest jump scare of all time. Yes, it's not art, but Friday the 13th's got enough positive elements to lift it above the surface of mediocre, though it pales in comparison to the film whose coattails it's riding,