Friday the 13th Uncut (Deluxe Edition) DVD Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 03.21.2009
The iconic slasher film finally gets its uncut DVD; is it worth a potential double-dip?
Directed by: Sean S. Cunningham Written by: Victor Miller
Starring: Betsy Palmer - Mrs. Voorhees Adrienne King - Alice Jeannine Taylor - Marcie Robbi Morgan - Annie Kevin Bacon - Jack Harry Crosby - Bill Laurie Bartram - Brenda Mark Nelson - Ned Peter Brouwer - Steve Christy Ronn Carroll - Sgt. Tierney Ron Millkie - Officer Dorf Walt Gorney - Crazy Ralph Willie Adams - Barry Debra S. Hayes - Claudette
DVD Release Date: 2/3/2009 Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated R (DVD Release Unrated)
There is no denying that Friday the 13th is a worldwide cultural icon. Through nine sequels and the reboot in February of this year, the film series has built a strong reputation as a box office heavyweight and created an influential benchmark for horror that all movies since owe a major debt to. It has certainly expanded itself above and beyond the wildest dreams of creators Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller, who created the first Friday the 13th in 1980 to be a low-budget cash in on John Carpenter’s classic Halloween. That first film, made on a small (even for 1980) $550,000 budget, went on to gross nearly forty million dollars domestically, which by Hollywood box office adjustment figures would have be nearly $120 million in today’s market. Even without such inflation figures, it remained the highest-grossing of the Friday the 13th films until 2003, when Freddy vs. Jason racked up an eighty-two million dollar gross, and remains one of the fan-favorites of the series. There have been several DVD releases of the original film, from the original 1999 DVD to its inclusion in 2004’s Friday the 13th - From Crystal Lake to Manhattan eight movie set. In each of the sets different cuts of the film have been used; however a full uncut version of the film has never been presented to Region 1 audiences. Thus, for those audiences who want the full, maximized gore version of the original classic, Paramount’s recently-released Friday the 13th Uncut may be just what they’re looking for.
The Movie
The film begins in 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, a summer camp that is about to live in infamy. When two summer camp counselors sneak away from a campfire sing-a-long to fool around, they meet a shocking fate. Twenty-two years later, Camp Crystal Lake is nearing a grand reopening by Steve Christy (Brouwer), whose parents owned it before him. The camp has had several failed attempts to open and has garnered the nickname “Camp Blood” for the deaths of the counselors and the drowning of a young boy that happened in 1957, but Steve believes now is the time and has assembled a team of counselors to get the camp up and running: goofy jokester Ned (Nelson), horny lovebirds Jack (Bacon) and Marcie (Taylor), nice guy Bill (Crosby), archery expert Brenda (Bartram) and Alice (Adrienne King), who's not sure she wants to stay for personal reasons. Before long it becomes obvious that someone doesn’t want the camp to open, and the body count of the counselors-to-be starts to rise. As a storm rages through the night, it becomes a showdown with the last counselor standing against the killer, whoever that may be.
The story of this first film in the franchise is well-known by now; in crafting it, Victor Miller created a story that was remarkably straight-forward but differentiated itself from most horror films by being quite funny at the same time. Miller created a low-rent story that nonetheless succeeds where decades of imitators have largely failed by making the cast of victims likeable. Sure, you have the clichés that would be aped for years, from the horny couple to the goofball to the one nice guy and, of course, the “final girl,” but at this point in the era of horror they weren’t yet clichés, and it holds up nicely even today. The movie even makes its killer sympathetic in their own way by giving them a very real motive, albeit tempered by the obvious insanity of the character. While the story of Friday the 13th may not have the iconic image of Jason Voorhees or the creepy sensibilities of Halloween or the later A Nightmare on Elm Street, as a slasher film this one set the stage and did so by being successful in what it attempts to do: scare and entertain.
Much of the film’s success relies on the likeability of the characters, and the cast does their most to make that work. Of course, the most recognizable of the cast today is Kevin Bacon, who has a smaller part here in his first film role but carries it well. The main roles are that of Alice and Pamela Voorhees, and in those roles Adrienne King and Betsy Palmer are exceptional. King, who would go on to take a twenty-seven year hiatus after the second film due to being stalked by an obsessive fan, carries the role of the lead counselor quite nicely, making her sympathetic and yet strong by the end of the film. She has a very strong “girl next door” quality to her in the film that serves her quite well and helps to differentiate herself from the rest of the cast. Betsy Palmer, on the other hand, creates a very memorable role as Pamela Voorhees, the woman that any picked-on kid would want as a mother. Palmer created an iconic role here, marginalized in history only because she’s been overshadowed by the later appearance of Jason in the sequels. The rest of the cast performs admirably enough for a film such as this, never taking the viewer out of the movie or displaying the kinds of bad hyperbolic performances that would cause many a viewer to cringe in later slasher films.
Even with all of the above, none of it would have come together as it did without Sean Cunningham. The producer-director had previously produced Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, and here he took the reins behind the lens as well. In doing so, Cunningham showed he was capable of making a better film than he did as just a producer. Cunningham doesn’t do anything amazingly noteworthy as a director, relying mostly on the story, the acting, and the amazing (at the time) gore effects by Tom Savini to deliver on the film’s goals. Savini does some great work here, and Friday the 13th, while obviously eclipsed by advances in technology over the last three decades, were cutting-edge at the time and deservedly helped make his reputation as the go-to guy for great make-up effects in the eighties.
This is not to say that the film is perfect. It is, as stated, decidedly low-rent and doesn’t stand as the best of the franchise; against the first films of many the other big horror franchises—including Halloween and Nightmare, but also Hellraiser—it pales by comparison. The additional footage included here on the uncut rendition amounts to approximately ten seconds and is ultimately a bit underwhelming for those expecting too much more. Still, the film stands as a very good, if clearly not great, horror film in its own right.
Film Rating: 7.5
The Video
For the Friday the 13th Uncut DVD, Paramount has remastered the film from the 1999 DVD release and presented it in a 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, enhanced for 16:9 televisions. The film looks much sharper than any previous release, with much stronger contrast and color depth. Darker scenes are much easier to see with clarity and sharpness is vastly improved from either the 1999 DVD or the eight-film box set edition. There is nothing about the image quality that is lacking, and this is undoubtedly the best of the transfers of that sort to come through in a long time. The only problem—and it is a significant one—is that just like on the Uncut Blu-Ray Release, Paramount has cropped down the image significantly for whatever reason. While it may well be a major problem for serious fans of the film, casual fans simply looking to add this movie to their collection may not even notice it and although it shaves off a couple points for the video score, it’s certainly not a deal-breaker as this is still the best print of the film to come along yet.
Video Rating: 7.0
The Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound audio track is also an improvement on the mixes on previous releases. It brings out Harry Manfredini’s iconographic score quite nicely, and while there are a couple points where it seems almost a little shrill it never sounds particularly bad. There isn’t a whole lot of specific channel use, as obviously Surround Sound wasn’t something the filmmakers ever planned for, but on the whole this sounds better than Friday the 13th ever has. There’s also English, Spanish and French Mono tracks, and subtitles are available in all three languages as well.
Audio Rating: 7.5
The Packaging
Paramount has given the uncut disc a snap case with a holographic slip cover that actually looks pretty cool. Unfortunately the snap case has a problematic sort of snap case. The plastic bits holding the DVD securely in place are fragile and easy to break, and one might have to replace the snap case fairly quickly. The DVD menus feature still images awash in red with the Manfredini score playing over, and are very easy to navigate.
Packaging Rating: 6.5
Special Features
Commentary by Sean S. Cunningham with Cast & Crew: This commentary track comes from Warner Bros’s Region 2 Special Edition release. It features Peter Bracke hosting, who wrote the franchise retrospective book Crystal Lake Memories in 2005, with Cunningham, Palmer, King, Miller and editor Bill Freda talking about the film. Bracke also provides his own thoughts and comes off as quite bright and articulate; as commentaries go this is provides a good amount of information, from Cunningham’s background doing porn with Wes Craven and moving onto horror or how it distinguishes itself from similar films. Unfortunately, it’s not a running commentary and all the commenters are stitched together with jarring introductions every time the voice changes. Despite this strange format choice it’s worth checking out for people interested in knowing more about the film.
Friday the 13th Reunion: (16:45) This comes from a reunion event that occurred September 13, 2008, and features Adrienne King, Harry Manfredini, Betsy Palmer, Victor Miller, Ari Lehmen (who played the child Jason) and Tom Savini answering questions. There’s some great stories here, including Palmer being reluctant to doing a horror film but taking the role thinking it would never be seen and Miller talking about how Cunningham basically told him he wanted to rip off Halloween and how he watched the Carpenter film to figure out “the formula.” These Q&A sessions always come out with some interesting information and this is no exception, with the panelists being rather frank at points; one of the highlights is Palmer talking about how Jason is at the bottom of Crystal Lake and nothing else matters for her, or King talking about the stalker that made her quit the business for a long time.
Fresh Cuts: New Tales from Friday the 13th: (14:08) This is a series of sit-down interviews with members of the cast and crew. Victor Miller talks about basically the same information he supplied in the reunion short and talks about the final scare scene, while Ari Lehman talks at length about getting cast as young Jason and how he wasn’t the first choice for the role and scaring King with his make-up. Robbie Morgan exuberantly relates how much fun it is to be the first person ever killed in a Friday the 13th film while Tom Savini relates tales of Harry Crosby, who played Bill and was Bing Crosby’s son, and how he followed the stunt people around all the time. Savini also talks about staging the final fight and other details. Harry Manfredini talks about scoring the film. The last segment is about how surprising the success was. Some of the stories have been told before, even elsewhere on this DVD, but the amount of new information, amiably related, makes this fun to watch.
The Man Behind the Legacy: Sean S. Cunningham: (8:59) This short focuses on the man behind the franchise, Scott Cunningham. Cunningham is humble in the opening moments of this short, and talks about why he doesn’t do a lot of reunions and other stuff about the series. He comes across very well here as he takes us through his daily life and his few pieces of Friday the 13th memorabilia. He relates a few anecdotes about making the film and why he thinks the franchise succeeded, calling it a “blue collar” horror franchise. Cunningham’s son Noel also talks a little bit about the working relationship he’s had with his father. While some people would surely like to hear more from the man about the series and the film, this is quite satisfying in its own right.
Lost Tales from Camp Blood, Part 1: (7:32) Certainly one of the more interesting special features, this basically amounts to a mini-film about some killings that took place in-between the films. The production quality is decent, though as a film itself it’s somewhere just below made-for-cable material. It’s entirely too visually dark and the acting is subpar, but the gore effects are decent and it makes for an interesting piece of work if nothing else. The one strange thing is that it’s obviously Jason doing the killing here, so it may have been a better fit for the DVD for the other films.
Theatrical Trailer: (2:33) The original trailer for the film is included, which was nicely done for the time and probably contributed quite a bit to the movie’s surprising success.
Special Features Rating: 8.0
The 411: The Uncut Deluxe Edition of Friday the 13th is perhaps an odd choice as a DVD release, as most horror aficionados probably already have this in their collection. That would suggest the film is relying on the uncut length to draw them in for a double-dip purchase, but will people who are that fanatical about the film be happy with the odd decision to crop the video? Either way, for those new fans who don’t have it, this DVD is probably the best one to pick-up for an introduction to the movie and the franchise. The video (outside of the aforementioned cropping) is the best transfer of the film yet and the audio sounds good. The special features are quite a nice set, adding nicely to the final product of the DVD and lifting it a cut above the previous releases.
