"Friday the 13th" is the second horror series I started watching classics from the past decades. Before that, I had watched 2 parts of "Halloween", which was encouraged by the brilliant sequel from 2018 and several other factors. I will say right away, I did not become a fan of Jason movies, but lest I start by complaining - against the background of "Hellraiser", "Evil Dead" and two other classics, this is the best series I have seen so far. Right behind the Michael Myers series started by John Carpenter. I don't compare "The Thing" to these movies, with all due respect, but it's like comparing Kevin Spacey to Marcin Dorociński, because they both played in the Netflix series - it's a different class. I decided to watch "Friday the 13th" until the fourth part mainly because, according to the assurances of my friends, Rafał and Przemek, in order to be able to speak honestly about this series, I should watch at least the first four episodes. I finally finished it not long ago and ... Well, I didn't like it. However, it seems to me that this is due to the fact that despite some interesting ideas, the series did not age too well and if we did not come across it earlier (i.e. in our youth or, for example, a few years since its premiere), it does not already such a big impression. I do not blame these movies here, they are good or not bad products of their time (like many games, eg a few parts of "Assassin Creed", "Gothic" series, most of Marvel movies) almost everything is just to have fun here and now. If they pass the test of time, it is an advantage, not something necessary. Praise in this respect is reserved for movies like the aforementioned "The Thing", "Alien 8 Passenger Nostromo", "Terminator 1 & 2" and some others.
Let me start with the pros, I guess. I think I'm writing because I don't know if there will be anything - I don't have much to complain about, but I can praise these films for a few things. For example, for being surprisingly pleasant to watch them, because after the first part I did not expect to write it. On Hellraiser I had 1 good part (better than the beginning of the series I am discussing) and a disappointing sequel. The fact is, it's not a fair comparison, because I compare 2 movies to 4, but the sequel to Clive Barker's work was weaker than the second part of "Friday the 13th". There were also some good ideas in "Evil Dead", but the screening was tiresome for me because the film was uneven in terms of execution. Some fragments were a lot of fun, but it was too much boring, poor dialogue (not that Sean S. Cunningham's title lags on that aspect, but it was at least a little better), I think the director was less experienced. "Friday the 13th" is technically a good job (cinematography, editing, directing, atmosphere, relatively well-written script) with a visible idea for the series. Maybe not an extremely complicated one, after all, it's just a slasher for teenagers, 20-year-olds, but it is and works quite well. I mean, there's no escaping the curse at Crystal Lake. Ie. that even if you escape Jason, he will somehow get you and destroy your life. It may not be something very revealing compared to the rest of the slashers (correct me if I'm wrong), but so far I have seen very few movies in this genre, so I appreciate that element.
The plot is standard and you could say that back in the days when I was a little boy (late 90s, beginning of the new millennium), it was what we now call a meme. A group of teenagers go to the lake to have fun without nagging parents and feel the taste of freedom. It was unfortunate that they chose the lake where a young boy had drowned a few years earlier due to his inattention and mistakes by the rescuers. Young Jason's mother has cursed Lake Crystal - all people who stop by it will perish. In the first part, the murderer is Jason's mother - Pamela Voorhees, and in the following her son (or at least the ones I saw). An interesting procedure is that for a long time we do not see the face of the killer, but only observe the murders directly from his perspective or see only his legs or hands in which he is holding some dangerous object. We only see his face when he loses his iconic hockey mask or a bag on his head in which he runs in 2 parts. Once upon a time, I heard an interesting sentence that the appearance of the monster is deliberately hidden for most of the movie (or movies) to keep it scary for as long as possible. I don't know much about horror movies, so I don't know how common it is to hide the killer's full identity (in the sense if Sean S. Cunnigham's approach is unique or rather popular), but I liked it. Not that Jason's character is so interesting as to surround him with a hint of mystery, but the idea itself is ok. Also, I relatively liked the soundtrack of each of the films. It is true that I do not listen to it (except for the musical theme from the third episode, an atmospheric and good song, although not very original or creative musical creation), but it was well suited to the movies.
When it comes to the main course of each slasher, that is, ingenious and brutal murders, "Friday the 13th" did not impress me in this respect. Most of them, because there were a few single cases that I liked, looked quite common. I don't know, maybe it was the idea that they should look like an ordinary, bestial crime performed by an "ordinary" man, but I did not like them. I have forgotten most of these good examples. I liked how Jason pulled out one of the characters and threw it out of the window, or squeezed one young man's head so much that his eyes popped out of his sockets. It was much nicer to watch such fragments in parts 1 and 2 of "Halloween". Mainly due to the fact that they were more thoughtful, better directed and written, I could also get closer to Final Girl and the antagonist himself. Since I mentioned the heroes, although in this respect "Friday 13" is better than the slashers I wrote about at the beginning, it does not mean that it is automatically good. After four parts, I do not understand the cult that surrounds Jason, and none of the important characters have been remembered in any way. Be that as it may, I think "Halloween" is only good in this regard because of Laurie Strode. Michael Myers in parts 1 and 2 is an equally boring persona and if it were not for his 2018 creation, I would think about him more or less the same as about Jason Voorhees. But I assume that this is a feature of the genre, so don't take it as a criticism.
Summing up, I do not regret the time spent. While compiling the list of films that I need to know, I expected that at least some of them would not be to my liking. If only because, as I wrote in the introduction, they are products of their time and without a sense of nostalgia, it will be difficult for me to get involved in the screening. In the past, scripts were written differently, characters were created, and the slasher films themselves were created relatively quickly, easily and at a low cost, with the aim of ensuring an equally quick and easy profit. It has its charm, and a small budget requires creative action and combining how to show something that is both qualitatively good and not too expensive. However, I did not notice this in the films discussed. Maybe it was ignorance, maybe I didn't watch each of these films properly, but even if I omitted such elements, I don't think there would be enough of them. Another thing is that, as I have already mentioned, I am not a connoisseur of this genre and hardly any horror movie impresses me. I do not dislike them as much as musicals or works based on music or dance, but this is not a category I like. Nevertheless, I am glad that I watched this film, because it was not, it is a classic of its genre, and these are worth knowing if someone is interested in cinematography. I will not rate it because I cannot decide on any specific number, and even if I could, I would not. As for the list of my favorite parts, at the moment it looks like this - 3> 4> 2> 1.