MiddletownJournal.com

By JOSEPH LITSCH
Cox News Service

"Friday the 13th" is billed as a horror movie, but the main horror of it is that it was ever made. It is 90 minutes of tasteless, disgusting for broken intermittently by a dreadfully simple story, which seems to have been adapted from one of the sleazier tabloids cluttering newsstands.

Sean S. Cunningham, whose past works include such forgettable films as "here Come the Tigers" (1977) and "Kirk" (1979), relies on all the tricks and gimmicks of past horror films, but brings them to a new low. And he seems to have an unnatural taste for human blood and takes great pains to photograph the slashed carcasses of the murder victims.

And Betsy Palmer, the sunny, blonde darling of the 1950s TV quiz show "I've Got A Secret," headlines a cast that other than herself, looks like a high school class. Miss Palmer, with cropped hair, boots and slacks, looks like the gym instructor.

Apparently Miss Palmer's secret is one of two distinct possibilities: Either she needs work so desperately she will accept anything, or she doesn't read scripts, before she signs contracts.

The cast also includes a young man named Harry Lillis Crosby III. His father has the good sense to change his name to Bing. His father also never made such a distasteful movie.

Acting? Well, there's little time for it, what with the trite script and all the footage wasted on misleading attempts at sex, and panning the lake and woods. It's doubtful Cunningham stands to lose much money on this film because it's cheaply made.

The story is brutally simple: Camp Crystal Lake has been closed for 20 years after two counselors were murdered the summer after a young boy drowned. Now, the camp is being prepared for the summer and the staff is reporting to the camp. The would-be cook, a young girl, makes the mistake of hitching a ride with an unseen driver and winds up with a slit throat. And one by one, the rest of the six staffers are literally staked and skewered.

By process of elimination, it doesn't take a genius to figure out who the murderer is. And once the pattern is established, it's just a matter of time until each kid had his or her turn with the butcher. Cunningham futilely attempts suspense with the use of string music, a hand-held camera roaming through the rustic cabins and surrounding area and the crunching of someone walking through the otherwise silent woods.

There's also a whispered, breathy, "Get, get, get, get! Out, out, out, out!" echoing repeatedly throughout. In retrospect, I wonder if the warning is not as much for the audience as for the unfortunate, doomed counselors.

The whole film is one of the best arguments for resuming movie censorship to come along in years.