Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition)

by Peter M. Bracke

  RON KURZ, Screenwriter, Part 2:

  Phil Scuderi asked me to do Part 3, but at the time I was working for CBS on a movie of the week and, despite some outrageous offers to entice me, I turned him down. It's probably sacrilegious to tell you, but I've not seen any of the Friday films beyond Part 2. Writing horror is not my thing—they just don't interest me—although for about a year after Part 2 I was "hot" and offered just about everything horror thing that was floating around Hollywood. But I never took advantage of it.

  PETRU POPESCU, Screenwriter:

  I was a student at the American Film Institute at the time. The first paid English writing job I got was Peter Weir's The Last Wave, which is unusual—to work on a green-lit film, with personalities who were relatively known in the industry. So I was anxious about what would happen next. I had written a number of scripts and I was starting to write fiction again, but let's be honest—it's easier to write a script than it is to write fiction. There are fewer words and it's less complicated, and they don't place as much emphasis on vocabulary or emotional invocation. I was struggling to write prose, and I went to my agent and asked him for a job.

  I met Steve Miner and Frank Mancuso, Jr., who was an extremely young producer. They were doing a film in 3-D, and as is a common thing to hear as a screenwriter, they said, "We have a screenplay but it needs some work." There was a first draft and they didn't like it. They wanted somebody to pull it together and restructure it. I was aware that it was a slasher. I had seen Halloween. And I was affected by the notion of doing something so unpretentious—for someone like myself who had had experiences with very literate people and projects, with writers who took themselves so seriously, it's very straining to be "deep" all the time. Even today, this is what I like best about working on films.

  Before we started production, Steve Miner screened a few 3-D movies for us, and I saw Alfred Hitchcock's Dial 'M' for Murder for the first time. Do you remember the scene with the scissors, where the guy tries to strangle Grace Kelly with her stockings? And she was lying backwards on a desk and reaching right out towards the audience? I said to myself, "This is what Part 3 is—right here!" And I knew where the location of the filming was going to be, so I visited, because that would restrict a lot of the inventive stuff in the writing. There was nothing to rewriting the script—the previous writers had done at least a decent job, but I ended up writing three drafts. I suggested close-ups and what people had in their hands and certain angles so things could push toward the camera. No one paid much attention to whether it was realistic or not…

  Friday the 13th Part 3's elaborate lodge set (top left and bottom) was built from the ground up. Seen at top under construction, the filmmakers would utilize the Valuzet Movie Ranch (top right) for most of Part 3's onscreen mayhem. Located in Saugas, California, Valuzet remained home to the lodge set until 2007, when it burned down in a fire attributed to local vandals.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  The problem was that at the time, everybody had a different 3-D system. So we hired this guy, Marty Sadoff, to come out and work on the movie and who was, at the time, probably as knowledgeable as anybody could be about the 3-D process.

  MARTIN JAY SADOFF, 3-D Supervisor:

  My father was a partner with in Cinema 5 in New York. We had the premiere art theatres there: perfect projection, no automation, higher ticket price, no candy in the theatre. And the only way I could relate to my dad was to talk movies—he really didn't want to talk about anything else. Then dad took me to Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D when I was like 10 or 11 years old. I had to sleep with the lights on for a week. I never forgot it. Eventually my family moved to Buffalo, and Frank Mancuso, Sr. was our neighbor. At the time he ran the Paramount branch there. One day I invited him to come and see this 3-D test I shot. He said, "If I ever become the head of Paramount Pictures, I'll take you to L.A. and we'll make a movie." And that was the end of it, because I always thought he would become the head of distribution at Paramount. Instead, he became the head of Paramount itself.

  Then around late 1981, I get a call from Tony Bishop, who would be one of the producers on Part 3, and he says, "I was told to call you. We were thinking of doing a Friday the 13th in 3-D." I went right on salary for Frank Jr. And I had met this guy named Mortimer Marks in Toronto, who was playing around with 3-D. He had put together an Arri-2C camera, which was an early Arriflex camera that was hand-held, and he figured out a way to shoot single-strip 35mm on it that could focus and converge in different places. It was totally different than the way 3-D had traditionally been done. With the Marks system, the distance between your eyes would always remain the same based on the focal points of the lenses. The camera saw like your eyes saw. It was the first 3-D camera I had ever seen like this.

  STEVE MINER:

  We looked at all the systems when we started, and the consensus of opinion was that they were all difficult. There was no state of the art where 3-D was concerned at the time, because all the systems are from backyard inventors who were piecing them together. We ending up using the Marks 3-D system, an "over and under single strip" process, meaning that the left eye and the right eye are printed one above the other on a single, full 35mm frame. You have two lenses on one camera, and photograph the image on one piece of film, which, of course, makes everything easier in the editing and post-production stages. That's the way we did Part 3, and I believe we were the first feature film to be shot with that system.

  GEORGE HIVELY, Editor:

  I had been working at Paramount in the late 1970s, where I met Frank Mancuso, Sr., and then I ended up working on a project for his son called Off the Wall. Then Part 3 came along right after that. Frank Jr. was kind of insistent that I cut the film, as he liked what I had done on Off the Wall—I didn't even have to interview with Steve Miner. Steve may have had his reservations about me, but we got along fine and the relationship worked out. And it was funny, I even stayed in the same cutting room—we literally cleared out all the Off the Wall stuff and started filling it in with Friday the 13th.

  In this business, we are all kind of prostitutes—we may be our own worst enemies because we will take whatever comes along next. But the concept of Part 3, of experimenting with 3-D, was fun. And this was during a renaissance of 3-D. Warner had resurrected House of Wax and Dial M for Murder and a bunch of older 3-D movies, so the first thing I did was get in a car and drive over to Westwood and watched House of Wax. Then Steve Miner and Marty Sadoff and I had some meetings with the Marks guys, who where providing the lenses. Ultimately, we went with a system that was a single camera, and a stacked frame on the film that could then, with a special projector, be projected on a custom silver screen in the theater.

  Behind the scenes: Harold and the snake.

  GERALD FEIL, Director of Photography:

  At the time, Mike Nichols was considering doing a version of "Peter Pan" in 3-D, and I had spent the six or seven months previous to Friday traveling all over the country looking at different 3-D systems. Unfortunately, the rights were not available so the project was killed. But here I was with all this exciting new research and all this confusing information and disinformation about 3-D. I had also just finished shooting Let's Spend the Night Together; Steve Miner had seen it, and I had met him at some event in New York and told him about my research. He asked me if I'd meet him the next day and talk about Part 3. Although I had not done a 3-D picture before, I was always interested in the technology and particularly in the storytelling aspect. 3-D is a sleight of hand—it's all about suspension of disbelief—which is what dramatic film is all about.

  I have always been a fan of the really old horror movies, the classics. After this project was offered to me, I did screen the first two Fridays, and watched all the other contemporary films of the genre. Reading the script for Part 3—I wouldn't say it was a crisis of conscious, but more asking myself, "Am I going to do something that puts more poison out in a world where there is already enough?" Then I thought, "No, this
is just an adventure. People who are fans of this are not the sort of people who would be inspired to go out and commit real-life atrocities." All I did hope for is that the violence in the film would not be glorified or romanticized. And I truly believe we see more of that in mainstream feature films than we see in any of these types of genre films. So I was grateful for the offer to do Part 3, and also that I would have some way to use all of the information and experience I was going to get working with the 3-D.

  PETER SCHINDLER, Associate Producer:

  At the time, I was working on TV show called "Flamingo Road." I was the First Assistant Director, and one of the producers, Tony Bishop, introduced me to Steve Miner, and we got along great. I originally only wanted to be an assistant director on Part 3, but it was non-DGA, and though Steve Miner wasn't in the Guild at the time, I was. So I put my title as Associate Producer to cover the fact that it was a non-DGA film.

  I was pretty young at the time—I was only like 33 years old—and to be honest, this wasn't a movie that I normally would have pursued. But I really liked Steve, and it was a chance to work in 3-D. Besides, the opportunity to do a Friday the 13th wouldn't come along very often. It ended up being my job to make sure the show ran smoothly for Steve. To make sure everybody was in the right place at the right time, that the actors and the crew all knew their call time, that the equipment that Steve needed to shoot with is there. And getting the cast through hair, makeup, and wardrobe, and that the special effects will be ready to shoot on schedule. Ultimately, making sure that we all brought the show in on time and on budget.

  MARTIN JAY SADOFF:

  There was so much thought that went into the planning of this movie that people don't realize. Nothing was an afterthought. Everything—the set design, the costumes—was done with 3-D glasses on. My job was to pick a 3-D system and figure out how to coordinate the glasses, and if we were going to make all those glasses, how would we get glasses to theaters? How many of the projectors had to be modified? All this had to go into it before they actually made the decision to make the movie, because Frank Sr. really made the decision that Paramount was really going to try and revive 3-D. If they were going to put it into major theaters, they were going to do it right. We got everybody involved—projector companies, screen companies. It turned into a mammoth challenge.

  ROBB WILSON KING, Production Designer:

  I grew up in a household that created theme parks. Pacific Ocean Park, Queen Mary's Village, Jack London Square, House of Pancakes—these are the these things I grew up looking at. It was great. It was my dad's business, so I was a draftsman early. And eventually getting into film was a natural for me. Before Friday the 13th, I was art director for a movie called Longshot, and had done Swamp Thing, for Wes Craven. When Part 3 came along, any time you wanted to do a 3-D movie, there would be a different system. But that's what was fun about doing 3-D—trying to outsmart it.

  Some people have complained that in Part 3, it's obvious it is the West Coast, but what can you do? It allowed us to do something different from the previous Friday movies, because we had a chance to build all the locations from the ground up. There was only one scene, the convenience store with the gang members, where we were in another location that was practical. The rest of it we created. The script originally called for mountain cabins or something. I said, "That is not unique enough. I think we have to create a camp lodge." And we also needed to find a canyon that looked forest-y rather than like a desert. So we found this great place in Saugus, California called the Valuzet Movie Ranch. They became like partners in the film. I think we had about $140,000 for the whole deal, which wasn't a lot for what I just described. We were begging and screaming and all that stuff, but we did it with the partnership of a lot of people. Especially Valuzet. They helped me build the lodge and the barn. I also had a really terrific construction coordinator, and a lot of good minds and good arms.

  Actress Cheri Maugans (bottom right) found the experience of working with special makeup effects "a riot!" The actress recalls: "We had to get to the makeup shop at six o'clock in the morning. And there I am, drinking my coffee, next to a dummy of Steve Susskind just dangling in front of me, covered in blood with a hatchet in his chest. All these macabre things—it was hilarious."

  SANDI LOVE, Costume Designer:

  The 3-D process was a real challenge, but a rewarding one. Because of the lenses, and the polarized glasses that the audience would be wearing, I knew I had to be very careful of my use of color, otherwise the clothes would disappear. Also, the concept was not to use any fashions of the time period that could be identifiable—the picture was supposed to be able to withstand time. We also tried to let you know when the scene changed by the different colors, and that something else was about to happen. Such as the use of red, for certain character's clothing—it was subtle but something that we were consciously aware of.

  ROBB WILSON KING:

  One of the interesting things about the design of Part 3 is that we stayed almost completely away from primary colors. That's always been the case with me, though, unless one is doing Dick Tracy. I like earth tones anyway, so that's why, along with the move to Los Angeles, that amongst the Friday films, I think Part 3 has the most naturalistic look.

  GERALD FEIL:

  Robb is astonishingly talented. He's a terrific guy with the ability unlike any other production designer I've ever known to take whatever limitations there were and turn them into something really brilliant. The sets were designed so the corners of the floor would come out, where people could actually walk out of the screen. Even the lake itself was built forced-perspective, because we simply didn't have the room or the ability to create a real lake—that's the reason those scenes are only shot from one angle.

  ROBB WILSON KING:

  I worked very closely with Gerry. You had to be aware of foreground, middleground and background. You have to treat each plane equally, with the same importance, and each required different lighting. We had to work very closely to create, in every shot, clear dimensions that were present, whether it was a little set prop or a piece of furniture. My favorite word for that movie was "cantilevered." It's sleight of eye—things that come at you are exaggerated to be larger than they are. I wanted the 3-D to exist constantly, which is why we built the entire lodge—three stories tall and huge—on a lake in forced-perspective. Even the whole front deck was angled. We did that with some of the rooms, too—we wanted to give the feeling that the walls could crush you, that it was suffocating. Upstairs, the bookcases all moved and turned. It was pretty interesting design-wise and construction-wise. And the coolest find of the movie was that circular staircase in the lodge—I'm really proud of that. I also designed the lodge and the lake to be in specific proximity to each other so that we'd always know the amount of time it would take one of our scared victims to run from here to there. We didn't want to make it too far, so in screen time you could see where they were coming from and where they were going. Then, with everything juxtaposed, it would create the kind of tension that we needed.

  Petru Popescu's final draft of Friday the 13th Part 3 again replicated the basic framework of the previous two Friday films while injecting somewhat broader humor, upping the film's body count to an even dozen, and developing a beefed-up backstory for Jason, including a thinly developed subplot that suggested a previously unexplored sexual aspect to the character. Following the production's relocation to the West Coast, casting sessions for Part 3 were held in Los Angeles, attracting a more industry-saavy ensemble of young actors who were now fully aware of the potential career benefits to starring in a film that was to be distributed by a major studio. Though all were thankful for the opportunities the series could bring them, they were also far from shy about voicing their concerns about any perceived limitations in the script or the lack of complexity to their characters, nor, in some cases, setting boundaries for what they would—and wouldn't—do in the film.

  PETRU POPESCU:

  I was never under
any pressure to flesh out the characters, only to work on the circumstances of how the next kid gets slashed. There was definitely a discussion of types: "This guy has to be a good guy. This one has to be a bad girl. This one smokes. This one is sexually experienced." I went to some of the casting sessions and I saw that there were boys and girls who gave good readings and those who gave bad readings, but it didn't matter. They were hired for their look, not for how they said the words. Those decisions were made very quickly—nobody agonized over any of this. Because a lot of the movie is a field trip of sorts. You're out in nature, hiding behind a bush and there is the killer. So the relations between the characters are inane. There's an obligatory amount of sex, or suggestion that some of these people are couples. Because when one of them gets it, it's obligatory that the other one gets it, too. But even then, it's only on the most superficial level.

  Steve Susskind's photo album. Although uncredited on the final film, legendary effects artist stan Winston topr left) created the initial makeup designs for Jason in Part 3. Here, he poses with the late Steve Susskind, a "dummy" Jason, and Steve Miner.

  LARRY ZERNER, "Shelly":

  I was 18 years old and a struggling actor. I hadn't done anything professionally. I was working for one of those research companies at the time, handing out movie tickets in Westwood to a screening of The Road Warrior. And as I was standing on a corner these two people came up to me, Marty Kitrosser and Carol Watson. They said, "Excuse me, are you an actor? We wrote Friday the 13th Part 3 and we think you'd be perfect!" I looked just like I did in the movie, and they must have took one look at me and said, "That's Shelly." Pretty amazing. I got discovered on a street corner. Me and Lana Turner.