Psycho killer

Of course, no one is ever going to award Friday The 13th any prizes for its plot. A night at a summer camp, preparing for the arrival of the children, becomes a desperate attempt to survive when Mrs Voorhees picks off the counsellors one by one. But where Friday The 13th excels is in making its young leads likeable. They might have sex, smoke the odd joint and play pranks on one another, but as with Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, you generally want this ragtag group of teenagers to make it to the end in one piece.

“When I read the script, I thought to myself, ‘ I think this is going to be a really creepy movie,’” admits Adrienne King, who played the film’s sole surviving heroine. “It was a dream come true for me to land the lead role. I thought the character of Alice was great and I wanted her to live – and that includes making it through part two – even though they decided to kill me in the sequel [ laughs]. But it was a family atmosphere making that first film with Sean, Tom and Kevin. We were just a tiny little independent feature being made in cold weather out in the back of beyond.”

For King, Friday The 13th’s biggest challenge proved to be surviving the shock ending in which her character is pulled to the muddy