Synopsis
Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Betsy PalmerMrs. Voorhees
- Adrienne KingAlice
- Jeannine TaylorMarcie
- Robbi MorganAnnie
- Kevin BaconJack
- Harry CrosbyBill
- Laurie BartramBrenda
- Mark NelsonNed
- Peter BrouwerSteve Christy
- Rex EverhartTruck Driver
Recommendations
- 50
ReelViews
Friday the 13th is neither tense nor frightening (although, to be fair, it is at times creepy and atmospheric, due in part to budgetary limitations that led to a low-key style). - 50
Slant Magazine
It's a formula with no pretensions. - 50
Chicago Reader
The crude technique of director Sean Cunningham borrows whatever sophistication it has from Halloween's precise and elegant point-of-view shots of the killer, though Cunningham often cheats by using the ploy inconsistently. For all its shoddiness, the film manages, just barely, to achieve its ignoble goals--it delivers what it promises. - 40
Empire
As the bodies pile up amongst this testy crowd of horny teens, there remains a vacant hole were someone scary should be. In a strange way, this film stands unique amongst all slasher films as one where the killer is nearly intangible. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
Gruesome violence, in which throats are slashed and heads are split open in realistic detail, is the sum content of Friday the 13th, a sick and sickening low budget feature that is being released by Paramount. It’s blatant exploitation of the lowest order. - 30
Time Out
A tame, poorly plotted serving of schlock, less horrific for its ketchup-smeared murders than for the bare-faced fashion in which it tries and fails to rip off Carpenter's Halloween in matters of style and construction. - 25
LarsenOnFilm
A woefully bad low-budget slasher flick, complete with a requisitely inept cast (including Kevin Bacon in uncomfortably tight shorts); laborious pacing; and an interminable catfight climax. - 20
Variety
Lowbudget in the worst sense – with no apparent talent or intelligence to offset its technical inadequacies – Friday the 13th has nothing to exploit but its title.
