5. Friday the 13th (1980)
Sean S. Cunningham first worked as producer on Wes Craven’s exploitation rape revenge film The Last House on the Left before creating the character of Jason Voorhees and directing the first Friday the 13th. It’s a film that established an iconic setting and slasher, shot Kevin Bacon to stardom, and gave Tom Savini another chance to give us nightmares. While its reliance on POV is nothing new within the confines of the horror genre (Peeping Tom would champion this), it effectively drew a line between suspense and horror. It did for summer camps what Jaws did for water, or Black Christmas did for sororities.
Friday the 13th was such a colossal success for Paramount and the budding slasher genre, that it delivered an onslaught of imitators (Sleepaway Camp, The Burning etc), and created a sound effect “Kill Kill Kill Ma Ma Ma” as memorable as John Carpenter’s Halloween score. While it’s tame – even by its predecessor’s standards – Friday the 13th remains a tense viewing experience with more game changers than body counts.