Halloween (1978) vs. Friday the 13th (1980) – Horror Movie Rip-Off

The episode of Horror Movie Rip-Off covering Halloween and Friday the 13th was Written by Paul Bookstaber, Narrated by Ryan Cultrera, Edited by Ryan Cultrera, Produced by John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

INTRO

Here lies the ultimate horror movie ripoff showdown between predecessor and potential successor. A debate for the ages, between two slasher icons. Was 1980’s Friday the 13th born from blood and ash, only because of a certain box-office titan that cemented its horror film legacy prior in 1978? Both 1978’s Halloween (watch it HERE), directed by John Carpenter and 1980’s Friday the 13th (watch it HERE), directed by Sean S. Cunningham both stand out as those proverbial slashers that stood the test of time and have spawned countless sequels throughout its franchise run. It’s without a doubt that both Halloween and Friday the 13th share distinct similarities throughout their first iterations. Both movies are strong and catapult the genre as we know it today, however did Sean S. Cunningham and crew try to evolve Friday above Halloween without it being considered a carbon copy of Carpenter’s Halloween? The real question is, which film does it better? Which film transcends the slasher subgenre and sits atop the pedestal as the king of slice and dice? Let’s dive in and discuss today on Horror Movie Rip-off.

THEMES

Slashers usually have a very standard formula from beginning to end. Both Friday the 13th and Halloween also have many themes beneath the surface that share similar identities throughout the movie, most importantly the maternal aspects of life. In Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode is a high school teenager looking for companionship in a boy, typical high school kid stuff. However, at its core, once the force of Michael Myers comes into the situation and lands on Laurie’s doorstep, her duty is to protect both Tommy and Lindsay from him at the climax of the movie. Her motherly instincts kick into high gear and get them to safety while potentially sacrificing herself as being Michael’s main target. There is a flipside to this theme in Friday the 13th. We may not know who the killer is until the end which is Jason Voorhees’ mother Pamela. She commits revenge on the camp counselors who are responsible for the drowning of her son. Her maternal, motherly instincts is to seek revenge to those taking a mother’s love away. Same themes but executed differently.

We can also talk about the infamous “Final Girl” theme. The Final girl is the last surviving female who is full of purity and innocence. She doesn’t dive into sex and drugs and goes above and beyond to take out the villain at the end of the film. Laurie Strode from Halloween and Alice from Friday the 13th go throughout the movie as the lone survivor of each of their groups. Both avoid sexual encounters from boys, and don’t drink or smoke either. Also, Laurie and Alice lose their friends to their knife-happy stalkers in some frightening encounters. And lastly, they both rise to the occasion to stand up to their blood-thirsty bullies and give them a run for their money. The final girl theme has been in almost every slasher film since these two came onto scene (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Nightmare on Elm Street etc). The final girl gives us hope when all is lost, and that good triumphs over evil, until a new sequel is spawned.

SCENES

It can’t be a Horror Movie Ripoff without a blatant rip-off of its scenes. Halloween is known for its famous opening scene. Halloween cinematographer Dean Cundey sets up a steady cam one-shot that puts us in the perspective of the killer’s POV as he stalks his sister Judith and her boyfriend within the Myers house. The outcome is a squeamish one as the POV shows us Michael’s butcher’s knife going up and down and killing his sister. This same execution of POV is beat for beat in the opening of Friday the 13th as two camp counselors get brutally killed in similar fashion. Only difference is the kill count in the opening scene is double to that of Halloween.

When couples engage in sex, they tend to become stab fodder as sex is the number one slasher movie sin. In Halloween, Laurie Strode’s high school friends, Paul and Lynda engage in some bed wrestling across the street from where Laurie is babysitting. Lynda asks Paul to go downstairs for a beer and when Paul goes into the kitchen, he becomes a wall decoration by being lifted and stabbed into the wall. Lynda eventually takes a telephone cord to the neck and strangled to death by Mr. Innovator, Michael Myers. In Friday the 13th, it almost plays out exactly the same. Kevin Bacon’s Jack and Jeannine Taylor’s Marcie have sex in a vacant cabin. Marcie leaves to use the bathroom, while Jack is enjoying some mary jane. A hand reaches out from under the bed, holds him down, and puts an arrow through the mattress into his neck. Marcie is in the toiletries and gets an axe embedded into her head after playing hide and seek with the killer. Truly horrific stuff.

The third act to Friday plays the same, beat for beat as Halloween’s third act. Alice decides to go look for her friends around Camp Crystal Lake unbeknownst to her, they’re scattered around the campgrounds for her to uncover. In Halloween, Laurie decides to go across the street as she doesn’t know if Paul and Lynda were playing a prank on her. As she enters the house, she finds all her friends dead, some stuffed in closets, or hanging upside down swinging. Hell, outside as Alice runs away in Friday the 13th, the Camp Manager, Steve, falls into frame and swings towards her, just like Laurie finding Paul in Halloween. Both Alice and Laurie eventually play the same cat and mouse game within their respective films up until the villain is vanquished.

SHOCK ENDINGS

Even though we may have a blatant rip-off on our hands, we can’t knock the endings to both films. Halloween sends shivers down my spine to this day watching that original ending. As we see Michael Myers shot off the balcony by Dr. Loomis, we’re probably thinking thank God it’s over. You couldn’t be more dead wrong as the viewer. The camera looks over the balcony and Michael is gone and vanished into the cold, windy, Halloween night to kill more victims. With Friday the 13th, Alice survives Pamela Voorhees’ night of terror by chopping her head off with a machete. The nightmare is over, or so we thought. Alice wakes up on a canoe floating in the lake and thinks she’s free, however Jason Voorhees pops out of the lake, grabs her, and brings her into the watery abyss below. Both movies deliberately execute a shocking last moment, but I couldn’t help but realize that again, Friday the 13th wants to have the last laugh when the end credits roll.

CHARACTERS

You can’t help but realize some déjà vu when watching Halloween and Friday the 13th and analyzing their characters. Alice and Laurie are the same person within personality (shy, silent type) as well who they hang with. These friends consist of jockey, douchey, sex-addicted teenage friends. A bit jarring that these sophisticated bookworms would even give these people the time of day. We almost know that these two women will be the last people surviving as the story centers around them, and sadly their friends are all just kill counts, albeit it is cool seeing them dispatched in creative ways. Alice and Laurie display that inner strength as the movie progresses down it’s narrative. They fear the unknown, or in this case the murders piling up around them. When it’s time to rise to the occasion, they fight back with weapons or fists, refusing to back down. They both exemplify that person that may be the strong, silent type on the inside, but passive and introverted on the outside. It makes for a good underdog story.

ENDING

I hate to say it, but Halloween paved the way for slasher films and also cemented itself as the king of horror slashers. Honestly, both films show that pedigree of horror-indie filmmaking that still stand the test of time. Both movies produced sequel after sequel within their IP, and created today these two infamous, horror slasher icons. Both Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees are still discussed and marveled over by bloggers, film enthusiasts, and professional critics. Michael Myers and the Halloween franchise just finished another trilogy by David Gordon Green, while unfortunately Friday the 13th is going through some contract and licensing disputes. These first chapters are very much identical and Friday the 13th does take some major influence from Carpenter’s film to the point of it being eerily similar scene by scene. That’s not to say that Friday the 13th is a bad movie because it’s not. it’s a great film that ups the ante with its gore, its setting, and storyline. Halloween is very tame in comparison but the atmosphere and scare factor trump Friday the 13th in every way possible. We should all be fortunate enough to know that these two films still have their hats in the slasher ring today. Without these films, we may not have had a slasher genre to begin with, or these two icons to look up to every Halloween.

The first episode of Horror Movie Rip-Off can be seen below, along with a sample of one of our other shows. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!