Whole books have been written about the conservative-leaning "sex = death" politics of early-'80s slasher films and the Friday The 13th series in particular. But since, the Friday The 13th saga stretches from 1980 to 2003 (so far), has it had anything else to say about the world in which we've lived? Has it changed along with that world? Can you flip past Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and instantly recognize that it came out in 1989?
Short answer: Yes. For the long answer, read the survey below.
1980: Friday The 13th
The plot: Twenty-plus years after an unattended mongoloid drowns at Camp Crystal Lake, a group of counselors works to re-open the summer camp, but get slaughtered one-by-one by the mongoloid's mother, Pamela Voorhees.
The victims: A band of shaggy, fornicating pot-smokers with a dream to provide a wilderness experience for "inner-city kids." Plus Kevin Bacon.
Series motifs: As the series' first and arguably best, Friday The 13th forges the mold for what's to come, introducing Harry Manfredini's Bernard Hermann-ish score (peppered with creepy, breathy "ki-ki-ki"s and "ja-ja-ja"s), stark white credits on a pitch-black screen, transitional fades to white, and methods of teen seduction that range from strip-Monopoly to classical guitar recitals. The film's climactic image of a gnarled little boy rising from Crystal Lake to maul a seemingly safe survivor recurs throughout the series—though never to as terrifying effect.
The style: Strictly post-Halloween. Director Sean Cunningham apes John Carpenter's steadicam POV shots to such a degree that even when the shot couldn't logistically be from the killer's perspective, the audience still reflexively tenses up. Also like Halloween, the darkness in Friday The 13th is an inky dark, threatening to swallow up the counselors and their warmly lit cabins. Friday The 13th is one of the last of the horror films in the earthy, low-budget '70s style of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, where funky-looking bit players and naturalistic location footage play as much a role in creating atmosphere as the score or the dialogue.
1980 signifiers: In keeping with the counterculture fascination with old Hollywood movies, the counselors do impressions of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. And nothing screams "1980" like the camp's director, a virile leader whose hunkiness is indicated by his wavy hair, moustache, glasses and bandana. "Sexy" was different back then.
1981: Friday The 13th Part II
The plot: Five years after the rampage of Pamela Voorhees, the slaughter resumes, as her apparently undead, now-grown son Jason offs the lone survivor of his mother's kill-spree, then sets his sights on another group of counselors prepping another summer camp nearby.
The victims: "Prep" is the right word to describe this lot. The post-hippies of the first film have been replaced by clean-cut, feather-haired, tucked-clothed, gods and goddesses. The women are a little curvier (and expose themselves a little more), and aside from one fellow in a wheelchair, the men are more studly. (And even the wheelchair guy's a jock.)
Series motifs: On the bonus disc in the DVD box set From Crystal Lake To Manhattan, Sean Cunningham (who produced Friday The 13th Part II but didn't direct) explains that he briefly debated whether to use the "Friday The 13th" title as a hook for an entirely new story. But then the demand for a quick sequel—combined with fan interest in that strange "monster in the lake" at the end of the first film—pushed him to repeat himself, and to set the series on what would become a very narrow course. The most significant additions to Part II include Jason himself, and a few soon-to-be repeated pieces of horny teenager behavior: skinny-dipping, and a woman heading off alone to her room to prep herself for sex. Also, the addition of Jason is accompanied by the addition of one way to defeat Jason: by pretending to be someone else and momentarily confusing him.
The style: Slapdash. An already short film is eaten up by six minutes of recap, and director Steve Miner draws out the action further by introducing every fake scare in the book: leaping cats, whistling teakettles, boyfriends jumping out at girlfriends, and so on. Nevetheless, even though the pacing is slack and the suspense sequences thoroughly pedestrian—with still more steadicam POV shots that don't make logical sense—the climactic chase scene is legitimately nail-biting, leading up to an ending that's arguably scarier than the heart-stopper that ended part one. And the head counselor's warning to the women to avoid bears by "keeping clean during your menstrual cycle" foregrounds the series' preoccupation with female sexuality.
1981 signifiers: Aside from a twisty telephone cord and some designer labels, the biggest era-definer was happening off-screen and in the real world, where "slasher fatigue" was already setting in among critics, if not yet audiences. In Roger Ebert's review of Friday The 13th Part II, he writes, "The movie fantasies when I was a kid… involved teenagers who fell in love, made out with each other, customized their cars, listened to rock and roll, and were rebels without causes. Neither the kids in those movies nor the kids watching them would have understood a world view in which the primary function of teenagers is to be hacked to death." Thus, a new front for the culture war was opened.
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