This isn’t a good movie, but I do give it credit for one thing: It’s the first Friday the 13th film that knows it’s campy. Most of the victims here are cartoonishly obnoxious.
Part of the fun of Friday the 13th movies is figuring out what sin each victim commits to earn a machete through their head—and this film offers plenty of that. Maybe they’re old. Or they’re self-righteous. Or they’re stupid. Or they’re fat. Or they practice pop-and-lock dancing while they listen to Pseudo Echo on their walkman. Or they wear a jheri curl. Or they spy on naked young people making out. Or they are naked young people making out. Or they have any interest in sex whatsoever.
It’s funny stuff.
Some people say that slasher movies like this espouse a puritan, anti-sex message, but I disagree. First, if these films were anti-sex, they wouldn’t enjoy having every attractive girl take off her top. Second, I think the only reason why sex is a sin in Friday the 13th movies is because they were trying to scare the audience, which was mostly young people, sex-crazed out their ears, often out on dates where they hoped to get lucky afterward. The victims in Friday the 13th movies aren’t an alien other; the victims are the audience themselves. The audience is meant to relate to some of them. And then see themselves die from a knife that rises up out of the mattress.