Doug’s Cinematic Firsties is a recurring series wherein Douglas Laman (A.K.A. NerdInTheBasement) will review a well-known classic motion picture that he’s never seen before.

In the pantheon of horror fare, a number of long-running franchises have their fanbases of varying sizes. Not every entry in the series may be liked but the likes of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street, tend to be widely regarded as beloved, even if it’s just because of the movies that spawned those franchises. Meanwhile, the sequels to Texas Chainsaw Massacre aren’t really as famous as the original but those follow-ups (especially the second one) have managed to develop their own cult following. The Friday the 13th features also have their own noteworthy following. However, the original film is predominately viewed as the weakest of the American horror movies in the 1970s and early 1980s that defined the genre stateside for years to come.

Having finally seen the original Friday the 13th, I couldn’t say it’s devoid of any merit but it’s definitely just an average horror film in its own right. When compared to the likes of Halloween and especially The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the latter being one of my all-time favorite horror films), it doesn’t even compare. But let’s take this inaugural Friday the 13th feature on its own merits. Such a movie begins with a group of counselors being gathered to get a summer camp called Camp Crystal Lake up and running again. The locals view this camp as cursed considering all the unfortunate circumstances that have befallen the location. A bunch of counselors got murdered there decades prior and ever since then only misery has greeted those who dare to return to Camp Crystal Lake.

These new counselors, which include eventual protagonist Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) and future empty warehouse dancer Jack Burrell (Kevin Bacon), all decide to throw caution into the wind. They’re just stories, right? However, an unknown figure begins picking off the kids one by one. The bodies really begin to pile up once night falls. When it isn’t about slaughtering people, Friday the 13th is pretty banal. Much of the first half of the story is dedicated to assorted hijinks of the generic teenage counselor characters, most of which prove to be pretty monotonous. There’s just so little personality on these individuals and the environment they’re staying in. With such thinly-defined elements, that means there’s nothing exceptionally interesting on-screen until the killer shows up to dispatch one of the teens.

Friday the 13th does itself no favor by shamelessly imitating vastly superior horror movies of the 1970s. Chief among the films it mimics is Halloween, particularly in how many scenes are shot from the killer’s point-of-view. Those older scary titles had such distinctly-rendered locales and thoughtfully-executed direction. Aping such movies so prominently only reinforces how short Friday the 13th comes up in delivering any sort of distinct scares of its own. The closest Friday the 13th has to a unique creative decision is to constantly pepper the first half of the runtime with a number of fake-out jump scares. These are meant to make the audience think the killer has arrived only for the rug to be quickly pulled out from under our feet when we see that one of the counselors was responsible for the mayhem. It’s a recurring bit that gets old fast.

The kills themselves at least make use of solid practical effects work courtesy of Tom Savini. A veteran of horror fare, Savini’s level of experience in this genre means his work in Friday the 13th holds up quite well nearly forty years after the movie’s initial theatrical release. Jack Burrell’s death is especially well-realized in how it looks both gnarly and convincing The variety of way characters emerge deceased (one person is found hanging upside down, another has their throat slit) also allows for a variety of ways for Savini’s imagination to flourish. Director Sean S. Cunningham struggles to make any of the build-ups to these death scenes all that interesting. At least Savini’s make-up work ensures that you won’t be disappointed when the killer finally jumps out of the shadows and gets around to offing people.

That killer’s identity ends up providing the most distinct trait in Victor Miller’s screenplay for Friday the 13th. Jason Voorhees isn’t the person responsible for all the deaths in this Friday the 13th installment. Turns out, it’s actually his Mom, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), that’s been the killer. It’s a nice touch to see a subversion of slasher movie gender expectations in making this murderer a woman (rarely are American slasher movie villains female). However, that, as well as Pamela mimicking the voice of her deceased son, are about the only real novel parts of this twist. Eventually, Friday the 13th gets back to just being a flatly-realized horror movie only livened up by some solid makeup work. The most entertainment I got from watching this original Friday the 13th was in realizing how this low-budget ramshackle affair would eventually lead to the outer space horrors of Jason X twenty years later.