The development of the screenplay for The Final Chapter was collaborative, if occasionally contentious, yet through it all the filmmakers remained focused on what they believed counted most: the characters. To the delight of its fans—and the ire of its detractors—the Friday series has always been about, and created for, teenagers. While the films are not dramatic enough, or comedic enough, to be considered "teen films" such as those popularized in the 1980s by filmmakers like John Hughes, the series still depicted what was arguably the widest cross-section of young adult characters of any of that era. Perhaps that is why, in large part, the franchise has been able to simultaneously retain a nostalgic appeal for those who first saw the films upon their initial release, while remaining relatable for today's generation. The series certainly has avoided the trendy and provincial: despite their occasional sartorial mistakes or utterances of dated slang to give them away, part of the enduring appeal of the teens and 20-somethings depicted in the Friday films is that they could be found anytime, anywhere, in just about any town across America.
Enter a pair of young Los Angeles-based casting directors, Fern Champion and Pamela Basker, who, fresh to the series, were able to bring a cooler, more colorful sensibility by throwing a wider net than Friday the 13ths past, attracting an ensemble that included not only eager new talent but semi-recognizable faces from film, TV and music—among those cast were no less than an Australian pop star, an eccentric artist, an ex-teen heartthrob, a passionate thespian, a budding child star and even a set of former "Doublemint Twins." It was a noteworthy group of actors who were sexy, appealing and funny, while still remaining relatable to the audiences of 1984.
BARNEY COHEN:
I wrote the script in about three weeks, then a re-write process of two periods of three weeks each. The original outline had the basic story, the basic killing of the kids. I remember adding the family. And we changed all of the kids' characters. When I started writing, Joe said to me, "Don't try to think of any new ways to kill kids, 'cause people have seen everything. Just make them real, like your Afterschool Special kids, and whatever we do to them will be horrific." And Joe was right on the money there. I had liked the first two Friday films, because they created characters that, for the most part, you understood and you cared about. Part 3 was a trick movie—they killed all these kids that were better off dead anyway. So we strove to make loveable, real-world teens—even if Jason never showed up, it was still American Graffiti, you know? Because when you kill kids like that, people really get freaked out.
A new group of vacationers arrives at Crystal Lake. From left: Camilla and Carey More as Tina and Terri, Alan Hayes as Paul, Judie Aronson as Samantha, Lawrence Monoson as Ted, Crispin Glover as Jimmy, and Peter Barton as Doug
JOE ZITO:
I thought the films were getting stale. All these teenagers going out of the house, and on page one, Jason gets up and chases them and they're having sex and he kills them. I was looking for people we could care about. I think Barney accomplished that with the screenplay. I don't want to build it up as more than what it is, but at least with ours there was some differentiation of character.
We really took pains to cast as best we could. It is Friday the 13th, so and you're limited in terms of the number of people who want to be in it. And we weren't offering it to movie stars. But I really strained through the casting process to find the best people I could. And the casting team, Fern Champion and Pamela Basker, were terrific.
FERN CHAMPION, Casting Director:
Pamela and I had a relationship with Frank Mancuso, Jr., dating back to when we did a movie for him called Off the Wall, which was one of Rosanna Arquette's first movies. We really got along very well with Frank, and it was just a natural thing that he asked us to do The Final Chapter, and we ended up doing the next two Friday the 13th films, too. We were known at the time for largely doing comedies, like the Cheech & Chong films and things like that. Frank just said, "How do you feel about the horror genre?" We were excited to be offered something different. And as a casting director, it's so much more fun to find fresh, real people, as opposed to talking to their lawyers. That's what made doing the Friday the 13th films fun. There was no reason to have a star in it because it was an ensemble piece. Who cared about anybody but Jason? He was the star. So you weren't really going after the A-list. You just wanted to make it believable, and you wanted good actors. And we had a solid director. Joe Zito really he got in there—the casting eventually took months, at least 10 to 12 weeks of interviewing different young talent. Which was great, as I like seeing people.
What was difficult was that everybody, by that point, was obviously already familiar with the series. Everyone was also very familiar with the gads of money that it made. And for the actors, these were not big-paying jobs. Their agents are saying, "How come my actors can't get more money?" while the producers are puffing on big cigars up in the Hollywood Hills. So that was not necessarily the easiest job in the world. But we didn't do too shabbily, did we?
LAWRENCE MONOSON, "Ted":
A couple of years before The Final Chapter, I got the lead in The Last American Virgin. That was huge, a really big event in my life. I went from complete obscurity to being kind of a teen star. It was overwhelming for me, being this kid from Yonkers—it was difficult to deal with. I wasn't all that aware of Friday the 13th; certainly I knew of them, but they were not and aren't the kind of films that I like. But I think the only thing I was concerned about was, at the time, I was going to UCLA, and I was getting ready to take some exams, and I think I had to miss finals for the film. And I felt a certain pressure after Virgin, because I hadn't worked in a year or something.
PETER BARTON, "Doug":
I started acting in 1979. By the end of '80, I was under contract with NBC. Then the teen magazines were so hungry for the next heartthrob that they pummeled me. I was on the cover of Tiger Beat, 16 Magazine, all of them. Then, just as my contract was running out, under obligation, they cast me in a series called The Powers of Matthew Starr. Amy Steel was in it. By the end of '83, it had all dried up. That whole experience—I was going up and down, like on a rollercoaster. I was on such an incredible high that when I came out the other side I crashed. That's when I wanted to give up acting, and that's when The Final Chapter came along.
I had just been talked into doing this movie called Hell Night with Linda Blair. I didn't even want to do it—they had to get me drunk to convince me. So it was a miserable time, and it was a great time. When The Final Chapter was offered to me, I was like, "I don't really want to do Friday the 13th." Eventually, I only did it because of Amy Steel—she talked to me about it. And I thought it was really cool because it was The Final Chapter. In my mind, I thought, "Oh, I'll be in the last one. That's kind of cool. These things are famous." Little did I know.
CRISPIN GLOVER, "Jimmy":
I'm definitely a cinephile. I'll see a lot of old movies, all different kinds. And while there are some horror films that I think are good films, it's not a genre that I've ever sought out. Friday the 13th, that would be the only one I've done, before Willard, that you would call that genre. Although River's Edge has probably a lot more creepy feelings to it than Friday the 13th. So it was funny when I did The Final Chapter—I knew even at that time that it would be something to look back upon, on some level, with a sense of humor.
BARBARA HOWARD, "Sara":
I grew up in Chicago, and I moved to L.A. in March of 1983. My agent called me about the audition for The Final Chapter and I did not want to do it—am I allowed to say that? I wanted to do The Hours. My background was in classical theatre, and I wanted a career that was really quality films, not Friday the 13th. But my agent's like, "Go to the audition—it's Paramount! It's Frank Mancuso, Jr.!" Of course, when you're not interested, you're completely relaxed and you audition really well. I ultimately had two callbacks. And my character didn't have a whole lot to say, did she? It was a lot of inner work—I just tried to make her a real, three-dimensional person,
one who you know is going to go bad and get killed. In that way, I think I was very right for the part. And I think Joe Zito saw that in the auditions.
JUDIE ARONSON, "Samantha":
Right before The Final Chapter, I had actually gotten leading roles in two other movies, both in production at the same time. I ended up turning one down and accepting the other because it was a huge Universal film, a potentially Academy Award-winning thing. Then after a week of rehearsals, they asked me if I would change my name—they were having some problems with the society for Hispanic actors, because I was a non-Hispanic playing what was supposed to be a Hispanic role. And I wouldn't do it, so they ended up letting me go. I went back to the other film and said, "Okay, I'll take it," but by that point it was gone. One minute I had two big films, and the next I had none.
When The Final Chapter happened I was very excited. And everyone was aware of Friday the 13th. Of course I had concerns, like, "Is this going to be bad for the rest of my career?" It's a B-movie, a slasher film, and there's nudity in it, so it was very scary. But it was really exciting because it was my first movie. I was 19 years old.
Carey More's Photo Album #1. A budding photographer as well as actress, Carey More spent much of her free time on the set of The Final Chapter snapping pictures of her co-stars. More currently owns and operates her own studio, Carey More Photography, based in Los Angeles, California. These images come from her private collection.
CAMILLA MORE, "Tina":
I actually went in to audition for the same role that Judie Aronson ended up getting. It was a fun reading because I thought I was doing rather a good job at it. I was a bit nervous about the nudity, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to do Friday the 13th, but there I was. And all of a sudden, they stopped me in the middle of the reading, and the casting agents said, "Hang on a minute. We're looking at your resume. Do you have a twin sister?"
CAREY MORE, "Terri":
Camilla and I were, in fact, Doublemint twins—if you're in the acting profession and you're a twin, one day you'll be in a Doublemint commercial. And it just ridiculous how that excites people—their mouths drop! They always go, "I've seen that one!" Anyway, Camilla came home from her audition going, "Oh, God, they loved the idea that I was a twin, and so I think they're going to be writing a part in it for you!" This has happened to me a lot, in regards to acting. Being a twin, it was almost like I would get roles just by looking like Camilla. Although I had taken some acting classes, so it wasn't as if I had no experience.
The funny thing about the audition was that I didn't have to do anything. They gave me literally one line to read. I said something like, "I don't know." And they said, "Oh, fantastic. Fantastic!"
JOSEPH ZITO:
It was not easy finding twins. I think I saw every single one of those Doublemint girls…
BONNIE HELLMAN, "Hitchhiker":
I had known Fern Champion from New York—she had given me my first job after I got my SAG card. And she requested me for The Final Chapter. Then my agents came back to me and said, "You won't want to do this. There are no lines." I went, "It's a week of work! It's a major feature film!" I went in and I met with Joseph Zito. Now, Joe is very energetic, and he talks very fast, almost stream of consciousness. And this is how he explains the scenario to me: "You're standing by the side of the road and people are going by and you're trying to hitchhike and nobody's picking you up and you get disgusted and you start to eat and suddenly you realize that there's someone behind you and you look around and then you're stabbed and you die!"
So I just went for it. I'm hitchhiking, writhing on the ground, acting all crazy. Just totally going for it. I don't know what other people do in their auditions, but I think with this kind of film you just have to be willing to go all-out.
ERICH ANDERSON, "Rob":
The only other movie I had done was this really cheap little flick in Idaho, but it was a disaster—I can't even remember what it was called, and it was never released anyway. And then I played the over-the-hill, right-handed pitcher on Bay City Blues, the Steven Bochco show.
I came in to audition for The Final Chapter on a total whim. It was a Friday afternoon in the summer of 1983, August or sometime. The audition was over at the Mutual of Omaha Building on Wilshire and La Brea, in a big conference room. And at that point the casting directors had gotten to calling Joseph Zito "Francis," as in Coppola, because he had seen like, I don't know the exact figure, but like 300 guys for the part of Rob. I think Fern and Pamela were exhausted, but they loved Joe. Anyway, I knew it was Friday the 13th but I didn't really know that much about it. I had never seen any of the other movies. I had no knowledge of it at all. But it came down to the job being offered to me. And whatever snobbery I had disappeared in about a millisecond when somebody said, "You got the part."
JOSEPH ZITO:
The casting of the lead, Trish, probably took the longest, because I wasn't looking for a certain type. Despite the way the parts are written, I'll ignore that and try to find someone who just has that special something, that makes you respond to them and want to care about them. It's something that is very, very difficult to get your hands on, but when you see it, you know it. You're not looking for that "damsel in distress" vulnerability, necessarily—just someone that will not drive the audience away from the screen but pull them in. And I felt Kimberly Beck had it.
KIMBERLY BECK, "Trish Jarvis":
I had a very unusual upbringing. My mother remarried and moved us to Australia when I was 12 years old. I wrote and recorded a song there called "Let's Take a Walk," and it was a huge hit. It was number one for 26 weeks. My stepdad, Tommy Leonetti, and I sang it and he became such a huge celebrity that they offered him his own TV show. He was like the Johnny Carson of Australia—they even had an ice cream named after him.
I came back to America when I was 15 and I started acting again and was under contract with Universal. By the time of The Final Chapter, I had just left a soap opera called Capitol that I had been on for two years. I had never seen any of the Friday films. And I didn't want to see any of them. I still have never seen any of them. I just don't like that kind of genre at all. And this was not even a B-movie, it was really just a C-movie.
I had friends who were famous actors saying to me at the time, "Why are you doing this movie?" But they were not humbled enough to know that you do what you can. You don't do porn or anything like that, but you do what you have to do to sustain the lifestyle that you've created. For me, I owned a home, and I had just divorced a really wealthy man and took nothing. I was struggling just to support myself and retain my dignity. It wasn't like I could be picky. And I had to fight to get that part. I had to go in and read a million times. And that, to me, is respectable.
"We didn't work on a soundstage at all," recollects Tom Savini of his happy days working on The Final Chapter. "Our effects workshop was in the 'war room' at Zoetrope Studios, which Francis Ford Coppola used as his headquarters while he directed a film. Zoetrope was exactly what you imagine Hollywood to be—all these people wandering around in period costumes, fantastic wigs and makeup. Mr. T was shooting a commercial there, Loni Anderson was doing a TV special, Kenny Rogers and Van Halen were shooting videos—I'd be whistling 'Hooray for Hollywood!' while I worked."
JOSEPH ZITO:
There wasn't any prior Friday the 13th film—or any slasher movie that I can think of, actually—that also made a kid the protagonist. It was a fresh idea. I thought that by having a family, by putting a child in there, and having a relationship between the child and his sister, and turning the mother into a victim, that we would really be making it more about people. I was trying to make something that at least had more human drama outside of just the kids in a cabin in trouble. And this young boy would, of course, end up being the hero.
I had read a lot of kids. Corey Feldman was wonderful. You could look at him and your eye stayed with him, you cared about him. As a kid, Corey was a star. Of course he was already an experienced actor, so he
was professional. And there was a chemistry that I thought was very good between him and Kimberly. But his agents were trying to negotiate. Corey kept saying, "I'm gonna do this! I want this! I'll do whatever I have to do!" He was a great fan of Friday the 13th. He loved the idea—we couldn't contain him. So that sort of hurt their position. And we got him.
COREY FELDMAN, "Tommy Jarvis":
I was always an avid fan of Halloween—Michael Myers was a hero to me. So when they asked me to be in this movie I was flabbergasted. Then I was told it was actually Friday the 13th. I said, "Is that the one with the guy with the baseball thing?" So I went and watched Part 3, which I wanted to see anyway because I was a tremendous fan of 3-D. And I loved it. I went in and auditioned, and got a call a week or two later, saying, "We loved Corey, he's great, but Joseph Zito is a little bit concerned 'cause Corey is a small guy, and he doesn't look like he'd be able to lift the machete to whack the guy." I said, "Listen, I am an actor. I will act like I'm big enough to pick up the machete." And they listened to me.
JOAN FREEMAN, "Mrs. Jarvis":
I've always enjoyed acting. It's been a wonderful career. But I was more successful early on and as I got older—not that older women don't have careers that start later in life—but there were fewer and fewer things I was able to get, let alone even read for. You get to the point where you say, "Maybe I should start considering something else."
The Final Chapter would turn out to be the last film I ever did. I had never seen any of the other Friday the 13th movies. But I liked that Corey Feldman and Kimberly Beck were going to be my children. Corey, he was full of energy, and I had worked with Kimberly once before, years back. I liked her a lot. And my character was sizable enough so I felt there was enough to work with.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 30
