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• The Coldest Open: Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th is un-campy camp horror with a killer score

Welcome, Popversians, to the very first edition of The Coldest Open, the column where I, your humble horror host, examine the history of scary cinema through the first moments of its standout entries. Since it is both the first time we're doing this together and a date absolutely synonymous with horror, I thought we'd start off with a 1980 classic that any fright fan is sure to recognize: Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th.

The way Coldest Open works is this: I'm going to be breaking down five different hallmarks of every great cold open in horror, then judging whether the movie in question pulls them off. If so, that hallmark will get ranked with a "Cold" verdict; if not, it'll get ranked with a "warm." At the end, we'll tally up those verdicts and determine a temperature, ranging all the way from Lukewarm to Absolute Zero.

I know you've already got your doors locked and your ACs cranked, so let's get into it.

Friday the 13th's Cold Blooded Killer

In the Year of Our Lord 2025, we already know that it's Pamela Voorhees behind the knife when Friday the 13th opens (spoilers? You should watch more movies if so). However, the reason this villain introduction still works is that it uses a technique that will one day become commonplace in the slasher genre - that is, the "killer POV" or "slasher cam" method of filming kills from the slasher's point of view. Though used famously in the opener of John Carpenter and Debra Hill's Halloween (1978), the technique goes back at least as far as Black Christmas (1974), and arguably as far back as the 1946 proto-slasher The Spiral Staircase.

However far back the idea goes, its use in Friday the 13th helped make it a reliable staple of the burgeoning genre and introduced a spine-chilling element of mystery to the movie just seconds in. Sure, you might know why this unseen force is doing their slashing, but their first victims don't, and to this day, the terrified confusion in their eyes still hits.

Verdict: Cold

Friday the 13th's First Person to Get Iced

And hey, speaking of victims...

The honor of being the first to die in a Friday the 13th movie is shared between Claudette Hayes, played by Debra S. Hayes, and Barry Jackson, played by Willie Adams. Claudette and Barry set an important precedent for this movie and the franchise it spawned - sneak off to have sex and you will die - but beyond that, aren't a terribly memorable part of the movie. I mean, they're not even named in the short moments they appear on screen; it's not until the film's end credits that we learn their identities.  

Still, you have to hand it to Claudette and Barry's fashion sense. I've been wanting one of those Camp Crystal Lake Counselor uniforms ever since I first saw this movie.

Verdict: Warm

Friday the 13th's Polar Plot Intro

While an opener that features forgettable camp counselors might not do much for characters, it is kind of a boon for setting up the plot. The whole reason for the movie's (and the franchise's) carnage is that the camp counselors weren't where they should have been, after all. 

But that's probably me reading a little too deep. What really works about the opener, plotwise, is that it sets up everything you need to know about Camp Crystal Lake, which is just as much a character of the movie as grieving Mrs. Voorhees is. It is a place with lax rules, unlocked cabins, and the wrong type of people in charge, making it the perfect spot for both an avoidable tragedy and the unbridled revenge scheme that follows it. 

Friday the 13th won't get into supernatural territory until the third film (or at least the end of this one, depending on how literally you take that Jason jumpscare at the end), but in a different sense, Camp Crystal Lake is haunted from the moment we first step foot in it.

Verdict: Cold

Friday the 13th's Frozen Snapshots

Before I get into this section, I want to take a moment to remind you of the budget director Sean S. Cunningham was working with for this movie: $550,000. I'm not going to adjust for inflation here, but I will tell you that in the same year this came out, the average cost to make a movie was $10M, according to a 1991 Christian Science Monitor article. With such a scrappy, shoestring budget, we can be forgiving to parts of this opener that don't quite punch, and for me, that's the imagery.

I'm no film school grad, but I don't find any terribly memorable horror staples here. When our killer is coming up the stairs to the loft, for example, I don't get the same chill as I do staring up the steps of the Bates Motel. And even though the film's FX master (and horror legend) Tom Savini will eventually scare me with an arrow through Kevin Bacon's neck, the blood spilled here feels tamer than the scene is setting up for. 

Verdict: Warm

Friday the 13th's Bone-Chilling Music

But hey - is the Friday the 13th opener really about the visuals anyway? Of course not, it's about the sound.

That sound is the Main Theme of the Friday the 13th franchise, famously ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma-ing its way into cinematic history in these first couple of moments. You may know that this track was inspired by a dialogue line later in the film, wherein Pamela Voorhees channels her son to say "Kill her, mommy." But did you also know that composer Harry Manfredini compiled it (and the rest of the soundtrack) with a team of only 12 musicians? It's true - ask the folks at Bloody Disgusting. 

No matter the size of his team, Manfredini worked an absolute miracle with this one, setting up one of the most iconic numbers of all scary soundtracks and, in my opinion, crafting the standout element in this legendary cold open.

Verdict: Cold

Friday the 13th's Cold Open Temperature: Midwinter

Feel free to disagree, but I think one thing that keeps Friday the 13th alive after all these years is that you can do pretty much anything with it - go to New York, go to space, meet Freddy Krueger, whatever you want. The flipside to that malleability, however, is that it has so far relied on a formula, a familiar base level to build off of. The franchise's first cold open is just that - formulaic - and while that doesn't make it bad, especially compared to its legion of shameless ripoffs, it doesn't do anything to make it stand out as more than average. 

Except for that damn score, man. Harry Manfredini, if you're reading this, know that you are loved.

Friday the 13th is streaming now (for free!) on Tubi. 

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we've cobbled together a couple pieces to send a chill up your spine. Join Popverse as we explore:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.