Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th is a 1980 film from the USA, directed by Sean S. Cunningham, running 91 minutes. reelscum files it under slasher.
- Year
- 1980 · 1980s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 91 min
- Director
- Sean S. Cunningham
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (3/100)
- Also known as
- Vendredi 13 · Friday the Thirteen · A Long Night at Camp Blood
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Slasher
On the Section 3 seizure list, though the film itself reached UK cinemas with cuts.
Cynical, derivative, and it industrialised the whole form. Savini's finest hour.
Cynical, derivative and enormously influential. A summer camp, a group of teenagers, and a killer whose identity the film withholds for a twist most viewers now know going in. Sean Cunningham set out frankly to copy Halloween and cash in, and did.
What it has is Tom Savini's effects, which are the real star and set the standard for the decade of slashers it launched. The film is machinery, efficient and a little soulless, and it printed money.
Historically unavoidable. Watch the first, skip most of the rest.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
Filed alongside
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
Halloween
$325,000 into $70 million, and every slasher after it is a photocopy.
Black Christmas
Predates Halloween and is scarier. The phone calls still work.
High Tension
Aja before Hollywood, at maximum brutality, with a twist that still starts fights.
A Bay of Blood
Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.
Maniac Cop
A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.
Prom Night
Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and a decade-old secret. Halloween cashes in, disco included.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The killer-Santa movie that got itself run out of cinemas in a week.
Happy Birthday to Me
A prestige director slumming in the glut, and a poster more famous than the film.
My Bloody Valentine
Canadian, mine-set, unusually well shot. The censored cut ruined it for decades.
The Burning
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
Sleepaway Camp
Ninety minutes of nothing, then an ending nobody who has seen it forgets.