This is a classic that still holds up if you're a horror fan. The pacing is a bit rough and the lighting is darker than expected but it's still impressive what they were able to accomplish with the small budget they had.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 13, 2024

It's a solid slasher that is quite tame in comparison to others the followed its path; even in the 80s. The twist with the killer was classic.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 13, 2024

On the surface, Friday the 13th has remained a classic of both the horror and slasher genre. But at its core, it is a story of madness and revenge within the unrelenting spirit of a prophesied evil.

| Oct 19, 2023

The best bits of Halloween, Carrie, and Hitchcock’s Psycho were cheekily repurposed here by the director Sean S Cunningham for a slasher movie — the first of a whopping 12 installments — that remains the genre standard-bearer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 12, 2023

There’s some bizarre fun in this (almost innocent) film, but maybe the fanbase are the ones to get most out of a revisit.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 12, 2023

Betsy Palmer, cast as Mrs. Voorhees, delivers the most embarrassing performance found in ANY film in the franchise.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 21, 2021

Although nothing about the film stands out as incredibly imaginative, the production isn't without a certain level of amusement.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 6, 2020

The likable, non-stereotypical teens in Friday the 13th didn't do anything wrong per se, yet they get punished. It makes you wonder if there's any ex-[your job here] running around out there, just looking for the right time to strike.

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 10, 2020

Jason Vorhees, the great golem of Paramount Studios and Warner Brothers Pictures, will always be here for us when we need to be frightened, titallated, distracted, or when we need a laugh.

| Mar 31, 2020

Friday the 13th is not a good movie, but it achieves its objective: to make the public feel adrenaline. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 13, 2019

The final reel reveal of the killer (not Jason) kicks the film into a higher gear.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 13, 2018

Cunningham skilfully works up plenty of gory scares, while also allowing the audience to sympathise with the counsellors.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 13, 2018

It's blatant exploitation of the lowest order.

| Nov 2, 2014

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 22, 2013

It depicts what is surely the first recorded instance of the game "Strip Monopoly" and would later inspire Wet Hot American Summer, and we should all be grateful for that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 15, 2012

Infamous teen slasher film has gory violence, sex.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 15, 2010

It hasn't aged well; its nonstyle renders it pretty sedate these days.

| Original Score: C | Oct 19, 2010

Within the dead-teenie realm it achieves a certain classicism

| Sep 6, 2009

Has there ever been a more unimaginative exercise in big-screen terror?

| Aug 21, 2009

What makes the movie work is that the slasher genre hadn't been set in stone yet, and some choices that director Sean S. Cunningham makes in the film that work against type.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 5, 2009