As unbelievable as it is, for someone who has watched a lot of horror like I have, last week was the first time I'd ever seen either of these films. They both came out before I was born, but that's not really an excuse, I know. I always thought I wouldn't like Friday the 13th to be honest. The obnoxious teens at camp trope seemed so uninteresting to me. I enjoy a slasher, but I find unlikable teens behaving in unbelievably horrible ways really annoying to watch. I saw the 2009 remake back in the day and assumed the original would be like that.
But I was bored and I saw the first Friday the 13th was on Netflix, so I watched it. And I actually liked it!
I mean, it's a B movie, but I can see why people would've enjoyed it back in the day, a good popcorn flick (in fact, I had some while watching it). I was interested in watching it particularly as one of the movies that started all the tropes and I found it really interesting in that way for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the teens aren't that obnoxious! They, for the most part, actually behaved more like teens/early 20s kids do when away. Reminded me a lot more of how my friends and I were. Too often I think these movies, because they cast 30 year olds in the teen roles, get the actors to do some pretty unteenlike things. I mean, yeah teens can be awful, but not exactly in the way a lot of these movies show.
I actually was surprised Annie died early on, I expected her to be Final Girl. Kevin Bacon and his girlfriend have sex and it's totally a nice scene of a couple together, rather than the weird, almost abusive way these scenes are usually shown. I thought the strip Monopoly scene was much closer to how kids behave during those games than the highly sexual way it would normally be shown.
And the effects by Tom Savini - there were some really good ones. I thought Annie's throat slashing was great, how it didn't bleed for a moment. The spear through Kevin Bacon's neck was done so well, as was the axe in the face.
I also thought the actress playing Mrs Voorhees did a great job with a part that could so easily have been hokey and over the top. I actually thought she showed an effective menace.
It's not all amazing, I mean, I didn't find the characters particularly memorable, for example. The Final Girl part goes on too long, and the overall feeling of the movie is that it's a bit dull. But overall, a perfectly serviceable film, I thought.
Then, knowing about the 'raft scene' and wanting to see it, I decided to watch The Burning. First thing I see is 'Miramax' and I think "ugh", but of course it's silly to hold every Miramax picture hostage by the actions of Weinstein. Then, imagine my surprise when I see that he wrote it! Ugh! And after watching it, I mean, maybe it's with hindsight now, but some of the scenes of the way the boys treat the girls made me think: "is this forshadowing?". Seriously, the dude comes across more and more like someone who was a bullied nerd who grew up to take all his frustrations out by abusing his power.
But here's the weird thing. I think I liked The Burning MORE than Friday the 13th. Which makes no sense - the characters are mostly awful, there is a lot of sexual aggression in it, it's much more clichéd in that respect, but at the same time I have to admit - the characters are awful teens, but they're each much more memorable. You couldn't pick who would die at any one time and who would survive. I feel like I got to know the group of them better, in this movie. It's a slower movie to get to the kills, but I didn't mind that so much. It still had a drawn out ending, but all up, good horror night fun. I totally picked that Todd was at the original camp, but I assumed he was meant to be the boy with the glasses, because they focused on his randomly in the prologue.
As an aside, I've been going through a lot of early slashers lately, and there is a LOT of male ass in them. Like, I'm not complaining, I'm just surprised. The cliché is that it's all boobs, lots of female nudity, and it IS, but... a lot of male ass too.
Opinions?