31 Days Of Hallowe’en: Friday The 13th (1980)

Welcome to JOE's 31 Days Of Hallowe'en. For each and every day of October, we'll be bringing you a horror movie to tuck into for the lead up to the big night. It could be new, old, an undiscovered gem, or a classic you'll have seen a thousand times. No matter what it is, we guarantee you that it is brilliant, and it is SCARY.

For Day 13, and for the day that's in it, we'll be looking back over 1980's "classic", Friday The 13th. Seriously, what else could we recommend for today? Twelve movies later - including one spin off which put him head-to-head with Freddy Kreuger like some kind of even-more-nasty version of McGregor V Mayweather - and Jason Voorhees continues to live on. Developed as a quickie to cash-in on the success of 1978's slasher classic Halloween, the original (and best?) was based on nothing more than a title idea and a script that was originally called A Long Night At Camp Blood. Common sense prevailed and a quick name-change was put in place. 37 years later, and what people probably remember the most about Friday The 13th is that it wound up being the most vital pop-quiz question in the history of cinema when it resulted in Drew Barrymore's boyfriend getting gutted during the opening of Scream. The legacy, however, is much more than that... Clip via LonChaneySr Hockey masks, big machetes, scary sleep-away camps, promiscuous teens and that CHEE-CHEE-HAW-HAW soundtrack have percolated through the decades and are now short-hand for horror. Friday The 13th didn't burden itself with interesting characters and anything approaching a plot or a story arc. There was a killer, they wanted teenagers dead, and by the end of it, most of them were dead. Plus there was that ending - which, let us be fair, was just a wholesale rip-off of Carrie - but still managed to send shock-waves through the audience and eventually went on to give us the Jason Voorhees we know and fear today. The original Friday The 13th and the majority of its sequels aren't meant to be taken too seriously. They are meant to be laughed at by the audience, a cheap horror ghost train ride, 90 minutes of escapism interspersed by graphic violence, random nudity and terrible acting. And we wouldn't have it any other way. Check out our previous recommendations below: Day 1 - The Omen Day 2 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Day 3 - The Ring Day 4 - The Invitation Day 5 - Scream 2 Day 6 - It Follows Day 7 - Eden Lake Day 8 - The Thing (1982) Day 9 - Switchblade Romance Day 10 - The Babadook Day 11 - 28 Weeks Later Day 12 - The Strangers