Thanks (or no thanks) to this year's re-make of the 1980 original Friday The 13th, the franchise is now seeing a whole new light and generation. While the new film was not bad, it failed to capture the suspense and originality of the original version.
With this in mind, Paramount has recently re-released the original version in an unrated deluxe edition as well as the successful sequels, 1981’s Friday The 13th Part 2 and the 3D debut of Friday The 13th Part 3. This original trio of films, while not perfect, was certainly the better of all the eight trillion sequels that were made in the '80s and '90s — not to mention lights years above some of the utter nonsense that imitators tried to shove down our throats (Don’t believe me? Have you checked out A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors lately?)
The story of Jason Voorhees and his drowning at Camp Crystal Lake is well known; why he and his insane maternal monster of a mom took it out on future generations of Camp goers for an accident that happened years before is a mystery. Hell, even Death Wish’s Paul Kersey (made famous by Charles Bronson) knew when to let his vigilante vengeance take a rest – and his family tragedies were surely not accidents.
That aside, the original three films are essential, not just to horror buffs, but to those with an interest in '80s pop culture and they also show just how a movie masterfully creates suspense (without Hitchcock’s fingerprints) and makes a point of using violence, without taking it too far in a graphic sense. Sure the storylines in all the flicks are the same: hormonal filled older teens run off to Camp Crystal Lake to escape parental guidance, party, pick-up, and, well, die some awful death.
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