Thursday, October 08, 2009

Friday the 13th


(1980) ****

Teenagers attempt to reopen a summer camp for kids where a boy drowned over 20 years ago. They are hunted down and killed off one by one.


I know, I cheesed out on the synopsis but if there is anyone on this blog that hasn't seen this film yet then shame on you! This was not one of my picks for this Horrorthon but then Zeke told me he had never seen it and really wanted to. So, I don't feel like my review would be fair since this film had such a huge impact on the horror genre at the time. Christ, I saw this at the theater when it came out. So, here I sat looking at my monitor at a loss for words for probably the first time in my life. Then I had a thought, why not write Zeke's view of it. So I sat him down and picked his 17 year old brain for what he thought of this 19 year old film. Here's what he had to say.


As horror goes it was pretty good for an old movie. He felt that a few major factors jaded his view of things. First of all, the modern effects and extreme style shock horror like Hostel or Saw made the deaths in the film look kinda lame. Although he loved seeing Kevin Bacon get a spear through the throat. He knew the ending because so many people have talked about it over the years and it really ruined all the surprise factor for him. Lastly, he claimed that being my son he's had the opportunity to see some really fucked up movies over the years and nothing much scares him anymore. Also he said that seeing me do make up has taken much of the realness factor out of gore for him. I guess being the child of a horror fanatic does have it's price. I still give it 4 stars just because it deserves it and I stand by that.

5 comments:

Jordan said...

"Cheesed on the synopsis"?

Let's nip this in the bud. You don't have to do a synopsis. In my opinion it's better if you don't! I never do a synopsis unless its absolutely necessary for a point I'm making. Synopses are the second worst thing to happen to movie reviews (the worst thing being Entertainment Weekly).

As my best teacher in college said (when advising us on writing papers): "Don't tell me about the book. I read the book."

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Catfreeek I think you're goal for the rest of the month should be to find a movie that actually gets to Zeke.

Force him to watch one of those disturbing Japanese flicks like Living Hell or Ichi the Killer.

Catfreeek said...

Thanks Jordan :)

I just watched another creepy one last night but I was alone. He lies, when a movie is getting to him he usually just says, "Fuck that" and leaves the room. Death of a Ghost Hunter got to him a bit. It's the unseen that fucks with him since the seen is too easily explained.

Octopunk said...

I don't know about Zeke, but when I was living in Berkeley with people way younger than me, I noticed they tended to describe everything as being terrible. Is this relevant? I'm not sure.

It's interesting that this movie has been the market inspiration it's been when really it is itself a knockoff of Halloween.

Whirlygirl said...

This is another movie I haven't seen in a while and can hardly remember. I'll have to watch this either this year or next.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...