The Plot

Camp Crystal Lake has been shuttered for over 20 years, after several vicious murders which have remained unsolved through all the years. A young owner has bought the property and plans to reopen the camp, having hired seven young people to be counselors.

Annie, a pretty student on summer vacation, is hitchhiking to Camp Crystal Lake, to begin her new job as cook for the camp. Asking for directions, she encounters a friendly truck driver who gives her a lift-and an ominous warning about "that place."

The truck must turn into another route, so Annie looks for another ride, which she quickly finds in a jeep with someone who is headed towards the camp. As they continue down the road, Annie notices that the driver has passed the camp turn-off and does not respond to her queries as to why. Terrified that something terrible might happen, Annie jumps from the moving vehicle. Annie runs into the woods seeking safety, the pursuing car halted by the trees. The driver of the car jumps out and pursues Annie on foot. There is a terrified scream that comes from the forest.

Six other counselors and the owner have already arrived at Camp Crystal Lake, and have started the painting, cleaning and general repair work of the camp. Pitching in to make needed improvements are Alice, Bill, Brenda, Ned, Marcie and Jack.

A local religious fanatic named Crazy Ralph gives them all a scare when he is discovered hiding in the pantry. Ralph warns all the young people that the camp has a "death curse." Then he hurries away.

The camp owner leaves town to purchase additional supplies. Night falls, and the full moon brings with it a violent thunderstorm that pelts the camp. Unseen but driven to bursting is a sinister prowler . . . seeking blood.

Slowly, methodically and with savage precision, four of the counselors are murdered, one by one, each meeting a gruesome and bloody end. The shadowy menace has dispensed them in cruel and bizarre ways.

Unaware of what has been happening around them, the two remaining counselors, Bill and Alice, begin a search for the others. They begin to realize that something sinister is erupt- ing at the camp, and that they are targets, next.

When they find a bloody hatchet in Brenda's bed, they run to the office in an attempt to telephone the police. The line has been cut. Their communication with the outside world has been shut off. They try to leave the camp by attempting to start the pick-up truck, but it does not work. The trap is tightening around them.

Relentlessly, the rain pounds away at the camp, washing blood. Alice returns to the cabin as Bill braves the torrential rain to check the camp's generator which has been providing the power for electricity. When Bill does not return after a long time, Alice goes to look for him. Alice stumbles through the rain and dark until a flash of lightning exposes the horror of Bill's corpse. Consumed with terror and with panic obliterating her senses, she runs blindly through the camp. She is powerless against the unseen menace that has struck. Are the dark forms chasing her moon shadows or real forces about to grab her and mutilate her in the bloody way in which she had just discovered Bill? Alice is beyond terror.

Suddenly an older woman appears to comfort Alice. She is Mrs. Voorhees, a local resident whose property borders that of Camp Crystal Lake. She attempts to calm the frantic girl, who has edged past the border into hysteria.

Mrs. Voorhees assures Alice she will drive her to safety, and then lapses into a memory...and how the camp had been closed long ago because her son, Jason, had drowned while his counselors were off on a tryst when they were supposed to have been on duty. As Mrs. Voorhees turns to talk to the long-dead Jason, Alice freezes for a moment as she realizes this is the crazed murderer from whom she must escape. Alice runs, her nerves shattered.

The full moon has overpowered the sky, as it does, a restless celestial force burning as the master of the night. As Alice stares around her, she realizes that any shadow might suddenly take different form and lash out at her to destroy.

Everyone else around her has already been executed. And there is nowhere to run. For a brief instant, Alice senses safety as she reaches a boat at the dock, but the twisted and screeching face of Mrs. Voorhees appears as a menacing image in the black water of the lake where she has cornered Alice. A rolling, scratching duel to death ensues on the dark, wet sand. Alice, enraged and wild, pushed to the limit of her instinct to survive, files at the madwoman and kills her. The act of vengeance has been completed.

Numbed and conscious of very little around her, Alice saunters into a canoe which silently drifts toward the middle of the lake, perhaps powered by the full moon. The night hides what has been done in its shadows.

The sun rises, with the rays gently rubbing against the rippling water of the lake. Alice opens her eyes. It's over, the nightmare, the horror. Suddenly an aquatic demon, the drowned Jason, reaches up from the depths and grabs Alice, pulling her into his watery grave.

Alice abruptly wakes in a hospital room. A policeman is there to piece together the bizarre events of the long night at Camp Crystal Lake. But when Alice mentions the child, Jason, who had grabbed her for death's clutch, she is told that no little boy was found. No one was at the lake except Alice.

Alice murmurs, "Then he's still there."