In 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, counselors Barry Jackson and Claudette Hayes sneak inside a storage cabin to have sex, where an unseen assailant murders them. Twenty-one years later, camp counselor Annie Phillips is driven halfway to the reopened Camp Crystal Lake by Enos, a truck driver, despite warnings from elderly Crazy Ralph. While driving, Enos warns Annie about the camp's troubled past, beginning when a young boy drowned in Crystal Lake in 1957. After being dropped off, she hitches another ride from an unseen person, who chases her into the woods and slashes her throat.