Friday the 13th: Get in the spooky mood with these movies
We may be in the middle of August, but the spookiest of days is upon us this week. That’s right, folks – Friday the 13th is just around the corner. Jason Voorhees and his maleficent momma may have put Friday the 13th on the map, but there are plenty of scary silver screen gems to help celebrate the week’s most ominous day.
Furthermore, as summer wraps up its final balmy days, October is just over a month away. Halloween was sort of cancelled last year, but as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to surprise, spooky folks are wondering if they’ll be able to celebrate in style this year.
Either way, it’s best to be prepared with some scary movies, and there’s no better day to get started than Friday the 13th. We’ve gathered our favorite eerie flicks to help celebrate the spookiest day of the week. Check out our list below.
Raw
2016’s Raw appears on many top ten lists for horror movies you’ll only want to see once, and with good reason. Director Julia Ducournau’s tale of vegetarian-turned-cannibal is definitely not for the faint of heart.
Watching a young veterinarian in training develop a taste for blood despite her ironclad moral compass is intriguing, and the film is ripe with interesting subtext. Furthermore, the bloodbath of uncanny cannibalism which follows is a perfect backdrop to celebrate Friday the 13th.
Raw has a lot of hype to live up to, and we can’t say whether or not the film deserves its reputation. However, we can say Raw is unlike any of its horror peers of the time, with a punchline which is purely *chef’s kiss*. You’ll never look at meat the same way again.
Ready or Not
Ready or Not was an absolute sleeper hit of 2019, and the type of horror movie perfectly fit for a Friday the 13th movie marathon. The Friday the 13th franchise certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Ready or Not brings audiences a horror flick with equal parts horror & humor to make for a total blast of a time.
The film follows newlyweds who are pressured to perform a wedding ritual at the request of the groom’s family. The bride is hesitant, but follows along. She soon regrets her decision when the ritual turns out to be a situation of life or death.
What follows is thrilling, scary, and at times laugh-out-loud funny. Viewers are dragged along through the maze of the family’s mansion as we try to figure out, along with the bride, why bloodthirst is in the air and bodies keep on dropping. Ready or Not has perhaps the best ending of all the movies of 2019, and is ripe for this Friday the 13th.
Manhunter
Okay, so you’ve seen 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, 2002’s Red Dragon, and even 2001’s less-than-celebrated Hannibal. However, you can’t really call yourself a Hannibal head if you haven’t seen 1986’s Manhunter.
Micheal Mann gives audiences the original Red Dragon adaptation with Manhunter, and one with more subtlety & grace than the 2002 blockbuster. No, we aren’t given Anthony Hopkins’s masterful portrayal of Lecter, but Manhunter is iconic in its own right.
Color-soaked sunsets and moody monologues tie the horrifying tale of the Tooth Fairy killer together, and the final sequence puts even the blazen finale of Red Dragon to shame. Manhunter is creepy, eerie, beautiful, and perfect for Friday the 13th.
Dressed to Kill
1980’s Dressed to Kill has to be one of the most underrated movies of the decade, and one of the best horror films of the year. Hitchcockians will have a field day with Dressed to Kill, which almost acts as a love letter to the famed horror director.
Dressed to Kill presents the search for a slasher loose in NYC, amid a tangled web of crooked cops, psychiatrists, and sex workers. Yes, this is an extremely horny one coming from director Brian De Palma.
Some of the gender politics are admittedly cringey & dated a la Psycho, but compartmentalize these elements and you are left with an absolute smash hit slasher flick perfectly fit for a midnight Friday the 13th showing.
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What’s your favorite Friday the 13th movie? Sound off in the comments below!
