That... that was kinda ass.

So my brother and I were realizing that we should watch more Horror films for Halloween. Whatever Classics we could find on our streaming services. I realized Friday the 13th was on Tubi, and remembered hearing that it was kinda bad; so I thought it would at least be a fun-bad watch in a similar vein to League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Breakin' 2. Unfortunately, this film was much less "Fun Bad" and more "Just Bad".

This film really feels like a mismanagement of Hitchcockian Suspense. Alfred Hitchcock's famous adage of Suspense in Horror goes something like, "Tell the audience that there's a Bomb under the table, without letting the characters know there's a Bomb down there". By making the audience aware of a threat you wind up the audience and make them nervous that something bad may happen to the characters. However, despite the fact that there's a killer on the loose at Crystal Lake, there's so little care for any characters that there's no tension for them being unaware of a serial killer on the loose. I'm not thinking, "Why are you guys sucking and fucking at the Summer Camp, there's a killer on the loose". I'm thinking, "We know nothing about anybody here. I don't care about any of you counselors. Did you just kill a snake on camera?!". It's a whole lot of drawn out "nothing" moments that serve less to build suspense for when toe proverbial bomb goes off, but more to boring you out of the moment.

The film is only really good for about 15-20 minutes after one big change occurs: When you meet the Killer for the first time. They are such a well-written and well-acted character that they elevate the film just by existing. Unfortunately, what they add to the table does not serve to salvage this train-wreck of a film. Everybody else is poorly written and poorly acted. The decisions in place don't make any sense. The Crazy-Man Red-Herring doesn't make sense because why would the suspect warn everybody SO MUCH. And overall, I couldn't even laugh at how bad it was because I was so thoroughly bored.

Overall, I was not very amused. Hopefully one of the later films is genuinely good. I've heard good things about 2.

3/10. I can't even like it Ironically.