Gene Siskel's Original Friday The 13th Mini Review For The Chicago Tribune

Every Friday the 13th fan knows by now the hatred and disdain that the late Gene Siskel and his At The Movies co-host Roger Ebert held towards the Friday The 13th films. Their disgust built as each film was released by Paramount through the early to mid 1980's and they left little doubt on their true feelings about the slasher franchise. One has to wonder if the duos feeelings were a result of the films themselves or the fact that a major movie distributor like Paramount was actually putting these movies into theaters with massive screen counts? Nonetheless, Siskel and Ebert loathed every time these movies came out into release as they had to sit through and review them.

So, it should come as no surprise that Gene Siskel's original review for Friday the 13th 1980 would contain the major spoiler of who the killer was in the film. That's right, Siskel actually spoils the ending of the film in his review and does so purposely to thwart people from going out to the theater to see the film. Don't believe it? Well, he says so himself in his review, that he is purposely spoiling the ending to deter movie goers from seeing the the Voorhees tale!

Below is the original review from Siskel, feature in the Chicago Tribune from 1980. Give it a read and notice that he even gives out Betsy Palmer's address for people to send complaint letters to! This is something that would never fly in today's journalistic climate, unless it was posted on Twitter or Facebook.

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