Friday the 13th Uncut – Deluxe Edition | DVD Review

On the eve of the theatrical bow of the Friday the 13th “reboot”, Paramount has smartly decided to issue deluxe edition DVDs of the first three films in the franchise. The question is, though, whether there’s any market for these new releases. Any fan of the series worth their salt already owns a copy of the DVDs in their previous incarnations, including a box set comprising the first eight films of the series. In the case of the first film, Friday the 13th Uncut Deluxe Edition, is the inclusion of 10 seconds of footage and some new bonus materials enough to entice fans to shell out again for a movie they already own? It all depends on how much of a fan you really are.

Screenwriter Victor Miller, whose other credits include most of the films in the franchise as well as a slew of story arcs on many TV soap operas (!), readily admits that originality had nothing to do with how this film came about. He was commissioned by producer/director Sean S. Cunningham (Deep Star Six) to come up with a blatant rip off of John Carpenter’s prototypical slasher Halloween, which had made a ton of money two years prior. Miller came up with the tale of a bunch of teens who, despite being warned repeatedly by various locals not to do so, decide to reopen the cursed Camp Crystal Lake, site of a horrible tragedy and its aftermath many years before. As soon as the camp counselors-in-waiting arrive to get the premises back up to some semblance of a working order, they begin to be dispatched in a succession of ever-more-gruesome deaths by an unseen killer. That’s about all you need to know about the plot, because even if it didn’t re-invent the wheel, Friday the 13th is single-handedly responsible for creating the conventions to which slasher flicks would aspire for the next couple of decades: a group of isolated teens being picked off one by one by a menacing figure, including the promiscuous couple, the practical joker, the sensible tough guy, and, of course, “the final girl”, the one who survives it all. This is all pretty standard stuff and it’s quite easy to predict the deaths long before they happen, but Cunningham actually managed to put together a rather compelling and tense thriller that isn’t quite as gory as some people might remember, although it has its moments.

Let’s not go too far and call this a cinematic classic in terms of filmmaking technique. Taken in the context of when it was made and what it was trying to get across, though, what emerges is a solid horror film featuring excellent practical and make-up effects by the legendary Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead), and a minimalist score from Harry Manfredini that manages to be both creepy and effective. Plus, it’s got Kevin Bacon getting killed postcoitus! Who could ask for anything more?

This crisp and clear widescreen transfer of Friday the 13th was mastered in high definition and is presented in an impressive 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound audio format. You’d be hard-pressed to figure out which 10 seconds of the film were added back in to this “unrated” edition, though. Really, with this much killing going on, how can 10 seconds make the difference between an R-rating and an X-rating (the 1980 version of NC-17)? What’s really enticing for fans is the special features:
Commentary by Director Sean S. Cunningham with Cast and Crew isn’t quite as intimate as one might think. It’s actually more of a pieced-together audio documentary about the making of the film, “narrated” by Friday the 13th historian Peter M. Bracke. While Cunningham has the bulk of the air time, there are blurbs from several cast and crew members, and it all adds up to quite the informative commentary track.
Fresh Cuts: New Tales from Friday the 13th is roughly 15 minutes of various cast and crew members relating stories from the set during the making of the film, offering up some amusing and unknown tidbits that are sure to be a hit with fans of the franchise.
The Man Behind the Legacy: Sean S. Cunningham is nine minutes of interview footage with the director where he more or less states that he has no real emotional ties to the film and that it was simply an attempt to put bread on the table for his family that ended up succeeding far beyond his wildest dreams.
A Friday the 13th Reunion consists of footage from a convention where Savini, Miller, Manfredini, Ari Lehman (the original Jason Voorhees), Adrienne King (Alice, the sole survivor), and Betsy Palmer (Mrs. Voorhees) reminisce about their roles in the making of the film. Palmer is particularly refreshing, especially when she talks about turning down offers to appear in some of the sequels.
Lost Tales from Camp Blood: Part 1 is an eight-minute short, sanctioned by the studio and written and directed by 22-year-old film editor Andrew Ceperley, that shows a couple being terrorized and murdered by a deformed killer. While slightly baffling for its inclusion in this package, it is somewhat interesting to see where new voices might take the legend of Jason Voorhees and Camp Crystal Lake.
The Theatrical Trailer included here just goes to show that giving away too much of the movie in a preview is not a new phenomenon. Almost every murder is shown (in less vivid detail, of course) in this 2-minute-plus trailer.

Nobody will ever call Friday the 13th the original slasher film, but it is arguably the one that catapulted the genre into the mainstream. On that footnote alone, it deserves to be seen by any self-respecting fan of horror films, as well as by anyone planning to see the “reboot” of the franchise.

Movie rating – 2.5

Disc Rating – 3