ch ch ch ha ha ha ha

KEEP IT OLDSKOOL PRESENTS
Oldskool Movie of the week



Friday the 13th was released May 9,1980 and Horror/Slasher movies have never been the same since. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham the movie spawned many imitations and 12 sequels. The movie made on a budget of $550,000 earned over $59 million. The movie starred Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer, Kevin Bacon and Laurie Bartram. 

The movie's plot if you want to call it that is about Camp Crystal Lake. The camp has been the seen of several tragedies yet the new owners want to reopen it. A group of the new counselors go up to Crystal Lake  to get the camp ready for the kids who will soon be coming. Unfortunately the counselors are killed off one by one by an unseen force who seems to carry around a little radio that plays "ch ch ch ha ha ha ha" when someone is about to be murdered. I don't want to burden you with the names of the kids because when watching the movie you really don't care what their names are you are just counting down the time until they are murdered. The ending attempted to pull you in with the premise that someone is/was "still there" but if the movie had flopped we would have never known.

Everyone is aware by now that the Killer in the first movie is NOT Jason. (If you were not aware of that what are you doing on this oldskool page?) Before this movie there were better "slasher"  movies (John Carpenter's "Halloween" was a better movie and had better actors) However what Friday the 13th did was start a trend to "out gore" the previous movies. Especially by the 3rd or 4th "Friday the 13th" movie people were watching just to see how inventive Jason had become in killing sex crazed teenagers. In 1980 I was 9 years old and seeing the trailer for this movie had me keeping the lights on in my room at night for a very long time. Here are some other tidbits about Friday the 13th. 

* In the original script Jason's name was to be Josh
* There was never a plan for film to spawn sequels
* Writer of the movie stated that it was "inspired by Halloween"
* Filming only took 28 days
* 10 people are killed in the movie 
* Director said he was looking for actors you would see in a "Pepsi commercial"
                                        (courtesy of IMDb.com) 

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