Alice awakes from a nap- unaware that she's the last counsellor alive at Camp Crystal Lake. Unnerved by the eerie silence of the night she goes to look for the others. The first of the bodies she finds is that Bill- which swings into view when she shuts the generator door. She flees the scene and sensibly barricades herself into a cabin- something which only affords her scant protection. The killer is still outside and terrorises Alice by throwing the trussed up body of Brenda through the cabin window. As the head-lights of a vehicle illuminate the inside of the cabin she allows herself to believe that she may be saved and tears down the barricade at the door- rushing into the welcoming arms of... none other than Pamela Voorhees! Babbling- "They're all dead!" she shows the seemingly sweet middle-aged woman the carnage in the cabin and Brenda's twisted body. However, Alice's hopes of salvation are gradually dashed when Mrs. Voorhees' attention turns from maternal concern to deranged homicidal intention! At first she's just a little twitchy- explaining that she used to be a cook at Camp Crystal Lake back in the 50's; just before a terrible accident... "The counsellors weren't paying any attention. They were making love while that young boy drowned- his name was Jason...he wasn't a very good swimmer." Then muttering, a crazed look flashing in her eyes, "I.. I couldn't let them open this place again...c..could I?"- she lifts up her sweater, revealing a leather pouch- from which she pulls a gleaming knife. From then on FRIDAY THE 13TH becomes a delightfully insane peek-a-boo chase through the Summer Camp turned teen graveyard. Alice and the demented Mrs Voorhees battling it out like a true life Tom and Jerry- even including a whack on the head with a frying pan!

       With teeth like tombstones Betsy Palmer, as Pamela Voorhees, is fabulous- high camp par excellence- amazingly Palmer was only given the part after she said she could provide her own transport to the set! Her terrifying grimace (blinding in the moonlight) is the icing on the cake (I once saw her playing a kindly Grandmother on the soap KNOTS LANDING- I couldn't help waiting for her to pull out a machete!). It's difficult to imagine anyone more perfect, or for that matter gloriously perverse, in the role. Palmer was essentially a house-hold face in the States, once a minor movie starlet, but better known for gurning gameshow appearances before FRIDAY THE 13TH; it was highly unlikely that she would be hired as a housefrau gone berserk. To put it into some kind of perspective (at least for readers from the UK), it must have been like seeing Brit quiz show Queen extroidinaire, Sandy Toksvig, going postal! This middle-aged assassin may not be as recognisable as a pop-culture icon as her son eventually became, but Pamela Voorhees is one of slasher cinema's great villains. Testament to the perversity of her casting was the fact that, effectively, she should have been mothering the counsellors, not killing them. That the killer was female also challenged the audiences pre-conceptions- if you knew nothing of the film before you saw it you would swear the unseen assassin was hulking and male (in-fact it was a man holding the array of weapons during the film; Palmer was only onscreen during the film's climax). However, in reality, although she is marvellous the revelation that she is the killer is somewhat a bit of a cheat. Although we have prior knowledge of a past crime (the double homicide in the prologue); and the fact that all attempts have failed in the past to re-open Camp Crystal Lake, the audience is not given any clues to the identity of the killer. Perhaps if we glimpsed Mrs Voorhees in the diner when Annie first came to town that may have been enough- I don't know. Quibbels aside- seeing her chase Alice through the woods under the light of the moon, hissing a schizophrenic dialogue with herself ("Kill her Mommy...KILL HER!......... Don't let her get away Mommy.... Don't let her live!" a high pitched squeal through those formidable teeth, impersonating her dear 'dead' son; "I won't Jason... I won't!" she adds in her own gravelly voice)- those moments are priceless (and if you ever get a chance to see it on the big screen- DO!)

       What does hurt the film slightly is Adrienne King's curiously bland portrayal of Alice- the film's final girl (legend has it the producers were all set on wooing Sally Field to the project- before they realised they could never afford her!). King is merely OK as the belegaured final victim-to-be, but she is no Jamie Lee Curtis- or even Amy Steel; and the movie would have undeniably had a bit more oomph if a slightly more flamboyant actress had taken the part.

       The last ten minutes add up to "an admittedly bravura finale" (surprising praise from Leonard Maltin - who, along with most other citics, loathed the series), culminating in the double climax of Alice decapiating Mrs Voorhees with her own machete; and the famous shock twist of Jason jumping out of Crystal Lake and dragging Alice below- after she drifts out there in a canoe. The beheading sequence is expertly handled- and as slo-mo gory as you could want ; and Jason's debut is so expertly timed as to make even seasoned viewers jump. Surprisingly it could have been all very different.... if an early version of a script I have is genuine then it wasn't Jason who jumped out of the lake- in fact Jason played no part in the finale. In this version Alice takes the canoe out into Crystal Lake after whacking Mrs Voorhees over the head with the frying pan in the cabin; and leaving her for dead. When morning comes Alice finds herself floating on the serene lake with sunlight dappled through overhanging trees. The danger doesn't come from the lake in this version. No. In this script it's Mrs Voorhees who leaps (with a blood curdling scream) into the canoe from the over hanging branches of a tree; her and Alice grapple in waist high water- finishing, still, with Mrs Voorhees messy decapitation.

       In-fact this alternate ending makes much more sense. Really, although it is undeniably effective- a defining moment in schlock cinema no-less, Jason's big moment is something of a cheat. It makes no sense that Palmer would have killed the courting couple in 1958 if Jason had in fact been alive; let alone returning for the wholesale slaughter in 1980- there would simply have been no need for any retribution... Having said that no-one could ever accuse the FRIDAY series of ever being overtly reliant on logic (or continuity for that matter!); and it is possible that Jason was a ghost of some type from the moment he drowned- waiting... watching. A more likely explanation though was that the film-makers just wanted a wham-bam-thankyou-mam ending to their film (a CARRIE moment) and logic was merely an inconvenience. Not that I'm complaining mind you - slasherville would be a much duller place without the FRIDAY films; and without the thunderclap emergence of elusive Voorhees junior we would never have had the marathon maim-a-thon series that we know and (guiltily) love today.

       A sequel, although not a given fact in those days, seemed pretty enevitable when Alice awoke in hospital- finding that, against chance, she hadn't drowned in Crystal Lake. Slightly drowsy she enquires of the portly Sheriff, "The boy- is he dead too?". To which the Sheriff looks bemused and replies, "Who?". "The Boy- Jason!", Alices continues. "Jason?", the Sheriff counters (the lights on, but no ones home). "In the lake- the one who attacked me. The one who pulled me under the water!". "Ma'am, we didn't find any boy". "But he..., Alice begins, her eyes glazing over, "...then he's still there...". (Cue eight sequels- and counting!)

BODYCOUNT 9     female:4 / male:5

       1) Male teen stabbed in gut
       2) Female teen has throat slit (offscreen)
       3) Female teen has throat slit
       4) Male teen has throat slit (offscreen)
       5) Male teen has arrow forced through neck from underneath
       6) Female teen has axe buried in her face
       7) Female teen killed (method unseen)
       8) Male stabbed in gut
       9) Male killed- throat slit; shot with arrows (offscreen)
      10) Female decapitated with machete