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(Deep Cuts) FRIDAY THE 13TH and the Fear of Nobody Watching the Kids

By. Davalyn Baker

 

In the summer of 1967, a Public Service Announcement (PSA) made its way into the homes of American parents nationwide. As the years passed, it gained popularity and success.

“It’s 10PM, do you know where your children are?”

Celebrities and public figures sat in front of a screen with a line penned by copywriter Mel Epstein, imploring The Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to remember their responsibilities as parents and not fall into a never-ending whirlpool of child neglect. It was a simple message, there was no music, and the asker of the question stared into the screen with a somber expression, sometimes in an accusatory tone. For the parents of Gen X, also known as the “latchkey kid” generation, it was more than normal, acceptable even to let their kids move through the neighborhood and streets without supervision. In the summer, it was especially prevalent. Without social awareness taught to them, most kids were only warned not to get caught up doing things they weren’t supposed to or “they” will get you.

“They,” the unseen predator.

FRIDAY THE 13TH is the quintessential summer film. It features a summer camp, unaccompanied minors, and a beautiful lake where a young boy drowned, thus creating an eleven-film series, plus a reboot, and a prequel premiering soon. Had this film not been a slasher, it could have easily been a slice of life comedy about the hijinks that go into starting a business at a summer camp.

Camp Crystal Lake wasn't the only place audiences flocked to that summer. The whole genre of the seasonal must-see was still being written. Pleatherface traces how JAWS invented the blueprint FRIDAY THE 13TH would later cash in on.

The film starts in the late fifties with two teenage camp counselors sneaking off to have a tryst that ultimately leads to their murders. The main point is that they know their killer. Fast forward twenty years later, and another group of teens are venturing to the same camp – Camp Crystal Lake – to revive it camp and erase the dark history that looms over it. Their attempts prove to be futile once they are slaughtered one-by-one until the final girl Alice battles the killer.

The teens, Ned (Mark Nelson), Jack (Kevin Bacon), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Brenda (Laurie Bartram), Bill (Harry Crosby), and Alice (Adrienne King), are the core group this film revolves around as an off-screen killer makes them their targets for murder. The lone adult in charge is Steve (Peter Brouwer), young descendant of the original owners of Camp Crystal Lake. He and Alice have some romantic history that is explored briefly early in the film.

The first victim is Annie (Robbi Morgan), the would-be camp cook, who meets her end after hitchhiking her way to the camp and being picked up by the antagonist. In the 1960s and 70s, hitchhiking was a common form of travel and transportation, mostly done by teenagers and young adults between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years old. Because the practice was so informal, statistics regarding the practice are rare, but it was a widely popular activity amongst the youth of the time. Annie’s murder is a great representation of the era in which serial killers targeted young and vulnerable hitchhikers.

The group of teens are close friends, getting along well with one another, and the chemistry between them is natural and flows easily throughout the story. The director Sean S. Cunningham wanted emphasis to be placed on the realism of the teens in the cast. He wasn’t focused on who was the most talented, but who would look the realest in the roles, and it helps make the scenes in between the murders work. You know, as a viewer, that these counselors will be on the chopping block, but it makes you care about them because they’ve added humanity to their characters.

The cinematography is brilliant, giving the audience some beautiful shots of the lake and the woods, showcasing the tranquility that comes with nature before chaos strikes. The moments where the audience takes on the point of view shot of the killer, slowly stalking and hanging back in many voyeuristic takes as the music slowly builds the tension and creates enough anxiety to make you tense in your seat.

The group questions where Annie could be, but they don’t think much of it. They get to work after being given instructions by Steve, who leaves for town to order more supplies. Without the one adult in charge in attendance, the teens decide to rest for the remainder of the evening, playing around by the lake, hanging in the main cabin to play a game of Strip Monopoly, or wandering off to have alone time together.

Ned is the first victim of the group that gets caught after seeing someone moving around in one of the abandoned cabins. Jack and Marcie soon follow, murdered after a moment of intimacy and Jack’s consumption of weed. Of every death in the film, Jack’s is the most brutal, in which an arrow is slowly pierced upwards through his neck. Jack’s death could be the catalyst that led to the series’ brutal punishment for teens engaging in premarital sex and drug use. Quickly after, Brenda, Bill, and Steve are added to the kill count leaving Alice to stumble around, discovering her peers as the anxiety of her fate builds and the tension grows thicker.

Alice runs into Pamela Voorhees (Betsey Palmer) who speaks softly and fondly about a young boy named Jason, who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake. While Alice grows increasingly upset, Ms. Voorhees speaks in a faraway voice about the camp and Jason, seemingly in her own world that doesn’t include Alice. The curtain eventually slips, revealing that the seemingly docile, and kind Ms. Voorhees has been murdering counselors each time to exact revenge for young Jason, who is revealed to be her son. She knows that each time they attempt to open the camp, she will always make it her mission to kill any counselor walking around the premises, and she feels righteous in her violent revenge, forever consumed by the grief and guilt of losing her only son in an unfortunate accident.

Ms. Voorhees tells Alice that she was the former cook, but where are the other adults of Camp Crystal Lake? The teenagers are responsible for watching the children, but who is responsible for the teenagers? Despite the negligence of Jason’s death, the teens were still kids themselves, and Ms. Voorhees wants to punish them for something that she’s ultimately the cause for. Jason likely wasn’t one of the camp attendees and just around because his mother was the camp cook and it was one of the benefits of having a parent on staff. Ms. Voorhees herself tells Alice that Jason didn’t know how to swim, so she allowed her son to wander off knowing this. She focuses on the teens that come to work in the camps but not the adults that own it or employ them as counselors. Before FRIDAY THE 13TH became a franchise focusing on Jason adding to his body count, the first movie had an amazing plot about a mother who’d completely snapped at the death of her child due to negligence.

Who will raise GenX if the parents were not fully present? Pop culture is raising GenX. Movies, music, sports, and television influence their lives, and the decisions they will make as adults and eventually parents themselves. Before the audience learns that Ms. Voorhees is the antagonist of the film, the killer is unseen, an unknown entity stalking the counselors. The unseen killer is the perfect device for the projected “they” that has been used to threaten and frighten people of all ages.

If you don’t do what you’re supposed to, then they will get you.

Pamela Voorhees isn't the only horror villain born from a system that stopped paying attention. Davalyn's own look at GOTHIKA digs into what happens when nobody in charge believes you either.