Friday the 13th is a
1980 American independent horror film directed by
Sean S. Cunningham and written by
Victor Miller. The film stars
Betsy Palmer,
Adrienne King,
Harry Crosby and
Kevin Bacon in one of his earliest roles. The film concerns a group of teenagers who re-open an abandoned
camp site years after a young boy drowned in the camp site's lake. One by one, the teens fall victim to a mysterious killer.
Friday the 13th, inspired by the success of
John Carpenter's
Halloween,
was made on an estimated budget of $550,000.
Released by Paramount Pictures in the United States, and Warner Bros. internationally, the film was poorly received by
film critics, but grossed over $39.7 million at the
box office in the United States,
[Grove, David, pg.60] and went on to become one of the most profitable
slasher films in cinema history. It was also the first movie of its kind to secure distribution in the USA by a major studio,
Paramount Pictures.
The film's box office success led to
a long series of sequels,
a crossover with
Freddy Krueger and
a series reboot released on February 13, 2009.
