"When Friday the 13th was released in May 1980, its remarkable financial success poured gasoline on the flickering slasher-genre flames. Already burning solid thanks to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween, these films became touch points for many filmmakers looking to break into the industry or simply stack a few coins. Everything from masks and machetes to final girls and fake-outs quickly became solidified as standard genre tropes. However, it was Friday the 13th that reframed summer camps as prime locations for slasher mayhem and popularized it with others looking to replicate the results.

For those lucky enough to have attended a summer camp in their youth, the yearly pilgrimage offered a chance to disconnect from the outside world, forge new friendships, connect with nature and escape the day-to-day oversight from annoying parents. While the often secluded, remote locations foster this sense of escape, it also naturally prohibits one. Further exacerbated with limited automobile accessibility and adult supervision, everything that makes a summer camp the perfect setting for killer chaos is built into its DNA. With many actual summer camps in the 80s willing to rent out their facilities, its no wonder why so many filmmakers were quick to jump on the summer camp canoe…"