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

by Peter M. Bracke

  PAUL KRATKA:

  They used a stuntman for the scene where my dead body is propelled through the window by Jason. But because I was supposed to already be dead, the stuntman couldn't dive or really move at all. So they brought out this pneumatic ramp that propels whatever is standing on it—and they just shot him right through the window! Over and over and over, at least half a dozen times. He's hitting high, he's hitting low, and all the while they're trying to figure out the right trajectory.

  I just had to walk away—I couldn't watch it. Because if memory serves, the stuntman was paid $750 for that day's work. Meanwhile, I had it easy. I just had to lie on the floor, surrounded by breakaway glass shards with some fake blood on my face. But what that poor stunt guy had to go through… I was so appalled.

  DANA KIMMELL:

  What I remember were the wind machines. I think I was stuck in the corner of that cabin for 27 takes.

  TRACIE SAVAGE:

  The scene that was the most fun for me to shoot was when Dana finds me dead in the closet, when she's hiding from Jason. I remember going to lunch right before and sitting there with the rest of the cast, with this knife hanging out of my neck and blood all over my face. That was hysterical.

  RICHARD BROOKER:

  There is a scene were Dana is standing on the porch of the lodge, and I come through the door and she is supposed to hit me over the head with a log. We set everything up and the camera's rolling, and I open up the door and come through smoking my pipe. Nobody laughed. All they said was, "You're wasting time! Come on!"

  DANA KIMMELL:

  I thought I'd be a super stuntwoman and do a lot of my own stunts. I was so ready to do them, too, because there was often so much time between takes that to finally be able to get to do my thing fueled my energy. I didn't know I was doing so much damage to myself until the next day, like in the barn, when I crawl out onto the beam with Jason below me. And I'm not really sure why Chris flipped over there—it doesn't make much sense to me. I ended up with bruises all over my legs. I was actually out on that beam, hanging there, 18 feet above the ground. And then, of course, each time after we ended the scene, they'd want to do another take.

  GERALD FEIL:

  We went over schedule—an optimistic schedule. One always had to help the 3-D because, in the end, it's an illusion. I looked at old black-and-white movies from the 1930s and '40s and saw how carefully they separated the actors from the backgrounds, because otherwise there's no 3-D—everyone will just look like cardboard cutouts. You just have a headache. But I discovered that most of the literature that was published about early 3-D was totally misleading, in the hope of the people who wrote it being hired as consultants to solve production problems, because nobody could replicate what they'd done from reading the literature! And because Part 3 was built from scratch on a film ranch, a good square mile of background was visible from almost every place on that set. Then, when you decide at the end of the second reel that Jason is going to cut the power and everything after that is going to play in the dark, what do you do with a couple of square miles of background on the exteriors? There is no natural lighting, there is no ambient lighting. Everything had to be lit. Plus, the camera system, because it polarizes, loses several stops of sensitivity. And Kodak was not in good shape with their high-speed raw stock in those days.

  A face that only a mother could love. "Steve Miner said, 'Don't ask me what your motivation is, just kill her!'" laughs Richard Brooker of his director. "He would say that Jason is like the shark in JAWS—but I don't necessarily agree with that. It doesn't matter whether you talk or not. If you're playing a role like that, the way you move and your body reactions can create a certain kind of character, which, hopefully, Jason in Part 3 is.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  Part 3 was very difficult to shoot because we needed an extraordinary amount of light everywhere we shot. It seemed unreasonable that we had to light the set to the level Gerald said we needed. It was like working at Yankee stadium the whole time. If people were antsy or unsupportive towards Gerald, it was because we were all saying, "I hope this works, because this is looking nutty." You had to take this giant leap of faith. It was a big jump because while we were shooting it, it never looked anything like it finally did on film.

  GERALD FEIL:

  One of the challenges was to create a source to replicate moonlight. So we put up a soapbox 20x20x20 feet in dimension, on top of a 100 foot construction crane, with a 750,000 watt generator at the bottom of it, powering an enormous amount of lights needed to illuminate this square mile of background. We essentially built a moon on top of a construction crane!

  PETER SCHINDLER:

  The cast were all troopers, tromping in that man-made lake at three o'clock in the morning. But the crew, they were much harder to control than the actors. They were very difficult. It was a very tough time. We had pretty much an outlaw crew. There was a lot of stuff on that set—every problem associated with the 1980s. By the second week of shooting, we had some margaritas in the makeup trailer, then certain substances floating around. We also had a camera operator named Eric Van Haren Noman, who I think was trying to get Gerald Feil's job. And he had this gaffer who would throw rocks on the tin roof of the barn when we would shoot. It started reaching a low point. We were out in the middle of nowhere, working for cash. I was just trying to keep us from shooting each other. Sure, it bothered me a lot. Gerry drank espresso all night long, Steve Miner and I stayed sober, and just kept it going. I really think Steve and Gerry and I were really the ones that held this show together.

  Being non-union was a total negative. With the quality of the work we were getting and the problems that we had, the union wouldn't have stood for it—I could've fired people and gone to the union and hired new people, which in several cases I would've done. You fire someone non-union, you're not sure you can replace them and find somebody who wants to work non-union. But this is what I was handed.

  PAUL KRATKA:

  There were some real redneck crew members. They're blue collar and they have their own life and language and attitude. And on a movie set, everyone has their specific jobs. One time I reached out to help this guy with his ladder. I was just trying to be helpful. And they really frowned upon that. It was a real no-no. When one of "those people"—the actors—offer to help, they can interpret that like, "Oh, you think I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing?" They thought I was a real dick for offering this really innocent, helpful thing.

  One of the crew guys in particular—he played one of the cops at the end of the movie—took a dislike to me from day one, for whatever reason. And he was into guns. That was a big part of his life—he carried them and wore them. Then there was talk going around about the guns and whether or not they were really loaded. It could just be very uncomfortable.

  DAVID KATIMS:

  The crew could have their fun with the actors. In the scene where my character goes into the outhouse, when I sat down I noticed it was really warm. I looked underneath and sure enough there is a flame coming up—they had put a blow torch under my ass. They just got it close enough to where I was like, "Oh shit!" It would have been mean if they actually burned me, but no, they just tried to scare me. That, they accomplished.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  When you're making a negative pick-up, you're making a deal with the studio's marketing department. To them, it was something coming out of New York that was going to be released on a certain date. It was a bought product. The production guys at Paramount never read any scripts or saw the casting tapes. They were precluded from being involved on a day-to-day basis with the production of the movie—that would make it a studio movie, and it would be bound by all the guidelines and the unions. So there was no Paramount presence. I'm sure they never even saw any of the Friday the 13th movies.

  Friday the 13th was always like a renegade experience. These movies were about people operating outside their job category. I started out as a production assistant and
ended up being a line producer. On one movie! The guy who was the script supervisor on the first one ended up being the writer on Part 3. These kinds of movies could only exist with people working outside their particular job category because the fact is, quite frankly, if they were doing their job, and doing it well, they'd be working on a real Paramount movie. They wouldn't be working on this for $275 a week.

  In Part 3's theatrical ending, following an ax wound to the head (right), Jason chases after a canoe-bound Chris (left).

  MARTIN JAY SADOFF:

  It was great because there was nobody in the movie anywhere over 30 years old, except for Gerald Feil. "Rough" is the wrong word. Peter Schindler was the assistant director, the associate producer and the production manager all in one—Peter controlled the set. He actually called the shots. Steve Miner got more involved as the story went on. Everything that was going into this was so far beyond Steve. Steve worked with the actors. I don't want to say anything too negative about Steve—it wasn't like he was a bad person. He just didn't know what the fuck he was doing. He wasn't on the set directing. It wasn't his movie. There were so many people and everybody kind of kept to their own thing. Steve would set up a shot and say, "This is what I want to do. I want to have these guys run to the camera with the camera stationary." We'd say, "Steve, you can't do that in 3-D." And he'd say, "That's why I didn't want to shoot this movie in 3-D!" Then they'd call him over and say, "Mellow out—we're doing it in 3-D. It's too late. Just get on with it. Become part of the program." Then we'd try to meet and say, "This is kind of what Steve wanted. With that in mind, how to we get this shot?" It's a shame about Steve, because Steve ended up doing one good film in his life—Forever Young.

  PETER SCHINDLER:

  I really don't agree with that. I think Steve Miner knew very well what he was doing. Steve had the film pretty well storyboarded, too. He was really very meticulous.

  GEORGE HIVELY:

  One of the problems Steve had with the 3-D was the polarized filters, they used to just eat light. They ended up taking the grip truck and emptying it—there would not even be a flashlight in there that was not being used. As a result, a lot of times Steve would shoot something and just let it play, rather than thinking about going back and getting coverage because that meant turning the whole thing around and lighting the other side. And that is one of the things that, today, you can see affected the pace of the film and how scenes were blocked.

  Steve, I credit him, he did a good job working within the structure he had to. He knew when there were places where he absolutely had to have coverage and he made sure we got it and then places where he thought he could just get away without it. But the way Steve shot it, it all went together. Steve is one of those directors who has a window in his mind and he can see the screen, if you will. Too many directors, especially new directors, see everything and they keep forgetting about that it is all going to be in a little window. He had that cinematic sense.

  PETER SCHINDLER:

  One night we were lighting the lake and the lodge all the way up until one o'clock in the morning so we hadn't gotten a shot off. We start to rehearse the camera blocking, and I'm looking at my monitor as we pull back, the shot starts to expand, and all of a sudden you're seeing the lights in the frame. So I got back in the truck and I said to the crew, "Hey, we haven't shot anything yet and now we're seeing lights! What are you guys doing!?" Steve Miner was in the back; he came out and yelled at me, "What do you think we're doing, just fucking around?" And I'd just about had it by that time. I was totally pissed at Steve and everything that had been happening. I'd had it with working on this thing and trying to keep everyone up. I said, "You know what? I don't need this." I put down my radio. Steve said, "You fucking amateurs couldn't film this thing with a phone book!" Then he ran over and bashed a chair to pieces.

  Eventually I came back and I cooled down, and so did Steve. Steve's a great guy. It's just very hard to shoot nights. And it's particularly hard making a horror movie.

  GERALD FEIL:

  We did our best. Peter Schindler was very good—he kept it all going on the organizational side. It was right that he went on to be a noteworthy producer. And Steve had the patience of a saint. I think it is both to Steve's credit and Peter's credit to running a set that was plagued with great difficulty and great pressure and things that took a tremendous amount of time, yet still had a good spirit.

  Steve Miner was a terrific director. He did his homework and supported all the people who worked with him on the movie. Steve, in many cases, had a very specific vision on how he wanted to cover something. But he was always open to suggestions. In some cases I had a specific way that I would either put forward or set up for him, but a director is the captain of the ship, and if the director and his D.P. work well together, then that is the ideal collaboration.

  MARTIN JAY SADOFF:

  It was fucking unbelievable. The shoot was just so hard. I remember I couldn't wait to get on that plane at the end and get the hell out of there. I look back, and I don't know how I ever survived that. It was not a happy time in my life. If I had to live it over, I would love it, but I didn't love it at the time I was doing it. Here we were shooting this giant movie, and it was really like 3-D film school. "How do we do this?" Nobody would get that opportunity again. Ever.

  Filming the finale.

  If the extended production of Friday the 13th Part 3 had been fraught with technical difficulties, personality clashes and flared tensions, post-production would provide a brief reprieve from the madness, with editing and scoring being completed on time and on budget. And an even more pleasant surprise awaited its makers, as the MPAA ratings board, after riding roughshod over Part 2, was comparatively easy on its follow-up, requiring only minimal trims to the film's graphic content.

  Not that completion of Part 3 was completely without controversy. No less than three separate endings would be concocted for the film. Part 3 remains unique among the Friday series in that it is the only installment whose characters never mention the name "Jason"—leading many fans to wonder just who Dana Kimmell's character Chris thought she saw coming out of that lake in the film's released ending, which features her being pulled down into the watery depths by an apparition of the late Mrs. Voorhees. The discarded original ending, and the first to be filmed, instead saw Chris decapitated by a machete-wielding "Jason" in a dream sequence. This alternate ending, long thought lost, remains unreleased on DVD or video. And yet a third, different ending was scripted but never filmed, though it can be read in Michael Avallone's 1982 novelization, now out of print. (The item remains a highly sought-after collectible on the online auction market.)

  The first film in the Friday series to benefit from a marketing promotion that included tie-in products, Part 3 would see its novelization quietly followed by the first official Friday the 13th soundtrack release, a 1982 Gramavision compilation LP that combined selected highlights from the scores of the first three films. The soundtrack LP also spun off one of the rarest of Friday collectibles, a promotional-only 12-inch single of Part 3's disco-infused title theme.

  STEVE MINER:

  The MPAA was rough on Friday the 13th Part 2, because the basic feeling was that the original film should have been rated an X. They were extremely unfair at times, and very subjective. But I think they eased up a little on Part 3. We submitted Part 3 to the MPAA twice, but the cuts were actually not that severe. There were only a couple of gore scenes trimmed down, and even those cutaways were rather quick. I feel, ultimately, they actually made the scares more effective.

  GEORGE HIVELY:

  After we did the first cut, Steve Miner and I spent a few weeks trimming, tightening and trying alternate takes. The cuts were actually not that severe. What often happens is you begin to lose your objectivity because you have seen it so many times. It has no shock value. There were a couple of gore scenes where I may have already cut away from something quick anyway, only because I felt it was more effective to do it that way. It
was right on the borderline of what would get you an R rating in 1982. Nowadays, it would probably get you a PG-13. And we never discussed re-cutting the picture for an alternate "flat" version, without shots of people sticking things into the camera and such. We always felt that if the film worked in 3-D, then it would work flat.

  We also played with the way the film ended. There was one version where Chris dreams that she gets her head cut off by Jason, and then there was one with Jason's mother grabbing her out of the lake, which is what we ended up with. Because I think we all felt that you had to leave somebody behind—that the first ending might depress people.

  STEVE MINER:

  Every story is left open just because of the greed factor. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not.

  LARRY ZERNER:

  The ending actually changed a few times, in terms of both what was shot and what was originally conceived. The very first ending in the original script is that, the morning after her ordeal, Chris wakes up in the canoe, then goes into the barn and finds everyone's bodies. She then decapitates Jason with a sickle. But that was never filmed. Instead, they first shot what became the alternate ending. I was there—I saw it. Chris wakes up in the canoe and hears Rick calling to her from the lodge. She paddles over to the shore, jumps out and runs to the porch. We see Rick running inside, and Chris running in tandem, and then she gets to the door, opens it, and Jason is there with the machete. He chops her head clear off. Dana even had this wig and fake head. I remember watching that and thinking, "What a great ending!" And they didn't use it. I'd love to see it.