Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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time between the latter films is extended considerably, the franchise allows specific
opportunities to gauge benchmarks of aesthetic development, popular trends and
tendencies and, in some cases, a unique sense of aesthetic progression all within the
Slasher sub-genre and its relationship to perspective. The Friday the 13 th films, as I
will argue, while consistently innovative, are almost always representative of
contemporary aesthetic trends within its genre. However, the implementation of
these trends are made more significant and concise, making almost any given film in
the series a prime example of how these contemporary trends can be made most
effective.
Another reason for choosing the Friday the 13 th series is that there is very
little research done to date on this franchise. With the exception of an assortment of
essays and attempts by writers like Vera Dika and Jonathan Lake Crane to provide
more extensive analysis, the Friday the 13 th films are largely peripheral within
academia, and are only mentioned in passing or decried as examples of largely
ineffectual filmmaking within the slasher sub-genre. Admittedly, there is a range of
writing aimed at fan culture, exhaustively detailing production histories, most
notably Peter Bracke’s Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the
13 th (2006) and David Grove’s The Making of Friday the 13 th : The Legend of Camp
Blood (2005). However, these texts do not provide extensive filmic analysis, but
rather recount the process of production and distribution through a series of
interviews. I have therefore engaged with the film texts themselves in order to
demonstrate the potential implications that the Friday the 13 th series holds for an
understanding of film form, despite, and in some cases because of, the usage of
generic narratives.