Friday The 13th | 1980


- Locations |
- New Jersey
- DIRECTOR |
- Sean S Cunningham
The archetypal cheapo slasher, starting a series that seems set to run and run, and featuring an early appearance from Kevin Bacon.
If Halloween was more stalk than slash, Friday the 13th began to shift the balance the other way (assuming you didn’t get to see a cut version).

As Annie (Robbi Morgan) arrives in town on her way to a job at summer camp, it’s obviously not going to be a good day – what with the nickname ‘Camp Blood’ being bandied about, and the local wacko warning ‘Camp Crystal Lake’ has a death curse. Oh, and it’s Friday 13th of June.
The town in which she arrives is Blairstown, off I-80, northwest New Jersey, towards the Pennsylvania border. The stone arches on Main Street remain unchanged.

It doesn’t get much better when her lift drops her off in front of – what else? – a cemetery. And, in truth, this is not even the right direction. Hope Moravian Cemetery is on Delaware Road, just west of Blairstown Road, in Hope, about six miles to the south of Blairstown.

‘Camp Crystal Lake’ itself is Camp NoBeBoSco, 11 Sand Pond Road at NoBeBoSco Road in Hardwick – about six miles north of Blairstown.

The lake, in which young Jason drowned, is Sand Pond. Please be aware that Camp NoBeBoSco, which dates from 1927, is still a functioning camp and not open to visitors or tours.

One place you can visit is the diner in which owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) whiles away the evening as his happy band of counsellors is being sliced and diced by the unseen killer. The Blairstown Diner, 186 State Route 94, is just west of Blairstown itself.

• Many thanks to Peter Paulsen for help with this section.