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

by Peter M. Bracke

  DICK WIEAND, "Roy":

  I had been out in Los Angeles for a little while, done some television, done a couple of movies, then Fern Champion and Pamela Basker talked to my agent about Part V and I got the interview. And with Fern and Pamela, you felt that they weren't going to get you into something really raunchy or that's going to hurt you or your career. And I needed a job—I was a nobody.

  I auditioned for Danny Steinmann and Frank Mancuso, Jr. I had to read the scene where Roy discovers his son—or who we will discover is his son—has been murdered, and he pulls the blanket over the body. It was all about making a transition from knowing that my son had died, discovering him, and then kind of going a little bonkers, which is what Roy does when he becomes "Jason." I even had to cry. All because of the "twists and turns" in the script. They said they couldn't just have a stuntman with a machete going around lopping off breasts. It required more than that. They needed an "actor."

  I never saw a finished script, and usually that's the first thing they send. I didn't even know what it was a Friday the 13th—even after I accepted the part, I didn't know what it was. All Fern and Pamela said about the role was, "All the children will love you."

  Principal photography on A New Beginning began in early September, 1984, in Camarillo, California, and in and around the rambling orange groves of Thousand Oaks. Part V boasts the largest cast of any Friday film up until that time—and certainly the most varied in terms of age, ability, temperament and attitude. Some of them came for the paycheck. Some as a lark. Some wanted to gain experience and hone their craft. While others freely admit they just came to party. It was a markedly distinct and disparate batch of personalities that, as the first few weeks of daylight filming progressed, often mirrored the madness that was happening on camera—and the looming tensions going on behind it.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  We started creating fake titles for the Friday movies around Part 3. Most of the time they were old David Bowie song titles—just innocuous enough that the unions would leave you alone. Because a union was far less likely to go out and try to bust a movie called "Crystal Japan" than they were Friday the 13th Part 3. They knew that the train went back to Paramount and they knew the Friday the 13th films were successful, so they would come at you much harder. As for "Repetition," I just thought it was a funny joke.

  RON SLOAN:

  I accepted the role of Junior Hubbard in a movie called "Repetition." And it was a closed set, so I didn't know, nor did most of us know, that we were actually in a Friday movie. Then the stuntman who played "Jason," Tom Morga, walked by the cast on the first day of shooting, in full costume and in character, and just stopped and looked at each one of us. Only then did we realize it. We all got excited, yelling and laughing— "We're in a Friday the 13th!"

  TIM SILVER:

  We actually spent a little more money than we wanted to on Part V. The budget was a little over $2 million—less than The Final Chapter, where they had helicopters a lot more than we did. I don't even think they intended to spend that much on that picture, but Joe Zito had the capability to push for that. I even actually ended up housing the crew in a Motel 6 when we were out at that house—and I'm pleased I still remained friendly with most of the crew after putting them up in such a cheap place!

  Budget limitations played a very big part in how we selected the locations. We wanted to limit the company and not move around a lot, so we wanted to find a farmhouse and a barn that's production-friendly and that's fairly close. In fact, we tried to go a little further from L.A., but it became too big of an issue. Eventually, we found the farmhouse location out in Thousand Oaks, and we shot in a hospital that had been shut down.

  Tiffany Helm's photo album. Clockwise from top left: Tiffany Helm (right) and Juliette Cummins sport their best '80s fashions; Cummins and Helm flank producer Timothy Silver; Director of photography Stephen Posey (left) and director Danny Steinmann with Helm; Steinmann takes a break between setups with the crew; Jerry Pavlon shows off a mean machete wound; and Cummins takes the director's chair.

  STEPHEN POSEY, Director of Photography:

  We shot in Camarillo and everybody lived in Hollywood or on the West Side. And because of the hours we were shooting, we were going to work at four o'clock in the afternoon and driving home from work at seven o'clock in the morning. And because it's L.A., we were in rush hour traffic all the time. So it would take us like two hours just to get to and from work. So we said right away, "This is too much! We want to be put up in Camarillo." Because we knew we'd burn out—you can't do that. But of course they didn't want to pay for it. And that was one of the few times that Frank Jr. came out on the set. And he finally did agree and put us up in the hotel.

  CAROL LOCATELL:

  You want to know how cheap it was? There was so little make-up—they just put some base on me, and that was it. I looked at myself and I thought, "No! I wouldn't look this neat and clean." So I went out to the road and picked up some dirt and just smudged it all over my face and my neck. That was my makeup! I even ended up wearing the wig that I auditioned in. I had just done Sharky's Machine, and Burt Reynolds had given me this wig as a gift. So I plopped that thing on my head, pulled my hair up inside it, and went in. And the make-up person, I remember really vividly, she said, "We'll have to keep the wig in case we need to do any retakes, but I'll give it back to you." And I'm still waiting.

  MELANIE KINNAMAN:

  Frank Mancuso, Jr. picked my wardrobe, which was atrocious. Horrible. I was in giant clothing; big giant pants and this shirt that opens and an ugly sweater. At least get clothes that fit! But at the time I was nice about it. I said to the wardrobe girl, "Can we do something about this?" And she said, "No, just wear it." I said, "But the character wouldn't wear this." She was like 21 years old and was clueless about fashion—she had me in all these funky jewelry, and that thick eye shadow. Frank was sitting right there, and he said, "I don't want you looking sexy." The point was, they didn't want me looking good until they hosed me down. Which I guess was smart, because I did only good in the rain because, finally, the makeup was toned down and I had normal hair.

  JULIETTE CUMMINS:

  When I did Psycho III it was a studio movie with a big lot and a big crew and my own dressing room. You're treated like a queen. On Part V, I had to share a dressing room and it didn't seem like a big-budget movie at all, because all our shoots were on location and it was sparse. A few trucks—10, maybe. Most movies have 20. Granted, I'd never done anything prior to Friday, so it still seemed like a "real movie" to me. And even though people were often tired and tempers flew between the crew sometimes, I don't remember ever not wanting be on set. Everyone was so helpful about what to do. We were so young. Sometimes, we didn't even know where to stand.

  TIFFANY HELM:

  I was already a troubled teen, so I didn't need to do any prep work for my role. Well, I wasn't a teenager anymore by that point, but I had been such a good girl as a teen that when I hit my 20s I became a bit of a rebellious hellion. To be honest, at the time, partying was my priority. All of us cast did quickly form our own little "cliques." The only people I ended up really hanging out with were Juliette, Jerry and a couple of the crew people. I was really more interested in going out, so I was lucky to be working at all.

  RON SLOAN:

  For me, the vibe was great. One of the funniest memories I had was in the first days of shooting, and meeting all the cast members, with everyone asking each other the same question, "How do you die?" Then shortly after the first week, we started to ask each other, "Do you get killed today?" By then you definitely didn't want to die, because it meant the fun, and the job, was ending.

  DICK WIEAND:

  It was a strange shoot for me. The kids were in their own little camp. I spent most of my time in my trailer. There was nobody to have fun with, there was nobody to joke around with. I thought, "Maybe it's the character and they don't want to be around me." I still don't know. Nobody was friendly. And because we
shot most of it in Thousand Oaks, they would have us all meet in one place, and put us all in a big truck so we would ride back and forth to and from the set. Then I remember I drove out myself for the night shoots, because they didn't even bother to pick me up after that.

  The death of Joey proved to be a tense on-set moment for actor Dominick Brascia. "I kept asking the actor who was going to kill me to let me check his ax, because the real one and the fake one looked so alike," laughs Brascia. "I was scared he might pick up the wrong one by mistake."

  DOMINICK BRASCIA:

  Mark Venturini and I really bonded. We really got to like each other and we hung out for a few years afterward. And when I heard he died of cancer, I just couldn't believe it. I was really shocked. I thought, "Here's a guy in perfect shape, and I'm the little tubby guy still kicking along." And the ironic thing was, during the filming of Part V, Mark and I shared a dressing room for a couple of days. And I hated it! I thought, "He has to kill me—we aren't supposed to be buddies!" I kept asking him to let me check his ax, because the real one and the fake one looked so alike. I was scared he might pick up the wrong one by mistake…

  JULIETTE CUMMINS:

  There was a little subplot in the script, that Joey had a little bit of an infatuation for me. But that never made it. I guess having one guy, Jake, infatuated with Robin was enough. It was all about Joey and his food—his candy bar.

  MELANIE KINNAMAN:

  Mark Venturini had been a friend of mine. One time my car broke down, and he drove me to and from the set. He didn't live in my neighborhood. We were shooting in Agoura Hills, and he'd drop me all the way in West Hollywood and then go home. He was very sweet.

  DANNY STEINMANN:

  Recently, I learned that Mark Venturini, who played Vic, and Vernon Washington, who played the caretaker of the halfway house, have died. They were good men and fine actors. My regret is that their parts were too small, as were almost all of the other actors'.

  BOB DESIMONE:

  Part V was a set that was riddled with cocaine. It was funny, my scene in the car right before I get the ax in my head, that was basically improvised. The script just said, "Billy pulls up and waits outside," no dialogue or anything. Danny said, "Why don't you just get high in the car and do what you want?" So there I am, at three o'clock in the morning, snorting this baby laxative called Mineta, which they use to cut cocaine. And I think I was the only person on that set not snorting the real thing.

  However, on most sets at that time there was cocaine. I'm not speaking for the huge films, but from what I heard it was all the same. We didn't think much of it at the time, because there is a strange lure that says, in your mind, and in most of the kids' minds I knew at the time, that the drugs were there for a reason. There was always someone on the set who had it, because it keeps you awake. They were there to help us through the night. It became part of the whole routine.

  In the 1980s, it was also a signal that you had made it, or that you were on your way, even though you were making a B-movie. It was like a validation. Back then, there was still an innocence. There was a part of you that said, "This is cool. I've kind of arrived. I'm with the movie people and I'm doing this stuff and it is great." You thought it was all just temporary. You never realized that it could really be your demise.

  DOMINICK BRASCIA:

  It all runs together for me. I don't even know what decade we're in now. I know some of my friends—the two Coreys, Feldman and Haim—that was their high time and they were still trying to relive that. That's kind of sad. On Part V, I hung out with John Robert Dixon, who played Eddie—we both had the same manager—and Mark Venturini, who would invite us out to all these cool parties. There'd be the best pot and the best coke. Although I didn't do coke; I'd only smoke a joint every once in a while. Anyway, these were very cool parties.

  STEPHEN POSEY:

  Drugs were a presence. That was part of the lifestyle in those days. It was flamboyant, decadent. I remember when John Belushi died, that was when it really started to turn around. Because the industry was getting out of control. Not just in the film business but the entertainment business in general. It was common knowledge that drugs were being provided on sets like a reward, to keep people working. Some people that I was fond of during that period crashed and burned and never recovered. Luckily, for those of us who lived through all of that… it was amazing that we survived.

  TIM SILVER:

  It could be hard to get good crew for a Friday the 13th. When I was hiring people for this show, there were a lot of talented people with good reputations who, when they found out what the material was, said, "I don't do movies like that." I remember understanding how they felt, but I also thought that was a bit puritanical. Though maybe in hindsight some of those people did make the right choices—some of them went on to work with people like Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg.

  With nearly two dozen onscreen kills, A New Beginning boasts one of the highest body counts of any Friday the 13th film. Among the casualties are Crystal Lake greaser punks Vinnie (Anthony Barillo, top) and Pete (Corey Parker).

  JOHN SHEPHERD:

  The problem with a horror set is that it's very undisciplined, and the actors are all partying. It's hard to make it really good if people aren't into it. I was really into it. I said to myself, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to take it seriously—I'm going to be the best Tommy Jarvis yet." And I had a buddy at the time, Michael Hitchcock, who is now a pretty successful writer and who has been in Christopher Guest's movies. He was like, "If you're going to do this, you have to take it seriously. It's your first job." He encouraged me to take a volunteer position at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital, which I did for a couple months before we shot the movie. It was a lot of internal work. Tommy was also supposed to be into masks, so I would visit creature shops and comic book places. I also looked at Corey Feldman's performance in The Final Chapter, and decided I'd part my hair on the other side, because it would look a little more all-American—I felt a little off-balance combing my hair this way so that's why I got that weird haircut. I was working out hard, too. For every scene, I'd go do push-ups and sit-ups and I'd run and I'd get worked up, and then I'd just let my body sweat. And I wrote a backstory for Tommy, because that's what I was taught at Strasberg—you tried to really become the character.

  The problem was, maybe there came a point where I really thought I was the character. My girlfriend was in a sorority at UCLA, and one time I got up at 6 a.m. and stood outside her apartment, looking up at her window, and she happened to get up and come out and there I was in a raincoat and makeup. She must have thought I was nuts. And when I got on set, I realized that if I were my usual, jovial self, this wasn't going to instill fear in any of my cast members, because we were all young and wild. So I decided I wouldn't talk to anybody unless I absolutely had to. Even Shavar, who was a good guy—I remember kidding around with him a little bit, but I tried not to. I was really faithful to my code in not speaking with anyone so they would look at me a little askance. They'd think twice before talking to me.

  But the hardest times were traveling to and from the set. Because the teamsters were not favorable to a non-union shoot, we had to park somewhere out in Calabasas, and then they would shuttle us in. And when I got on the bus with everybody talking and laughing and bonding, I'd just have to zone out. I didn't even listen to music. I was just so isolated.

  DOMINICK BRASCIA:

  DebiSue and I had a total argument one day. She was very protective of John Shepherd and she was pretty upset that I was complaining that he was "method." She just lashed into me, like, "That's the way he is! Stop complaining! Why are you always talking about him?" I was just like, "Don't worry about it. I just can't talk to this guy!" After that, from there on out, she was a little cooler to me. But I was pissed off—"Why does he have to be doing that? Just talk. Get over it!" I just didn't get him at all.

  MELANIE KINNAMAN:

  The conditions were bad. It was
a low-budget film. They were supposed to provide us all transportation to the set, and then they didn't—only a couple of times did they send someone to pick me up. And the night shoots were killing me. I would be shooting from 4 p.m. in the afternoon until 7 a.m. in the morning. Then I had to drive back. So I asked Tim Silver, who was very nice, "Could I be put up in a hotel? It only has to be for the days when I'm doing night shoots. And it doesn't have to be fancy." And I didn't think that was an unreasonable request. Simple decency. Meanwhile, John Shepherd was sitting across the room watching this. And Tim still said, "No, we can't do that." But John stuck up for me. And they still said no. Later, John said, "I knew the answer was going to be no." I said, "Why?" He said he just knew.

  John and I really bonded after that. We both came from the theater, and were method actors. He was really easy to work with, and very committed—one of the only of the cast that was. He was always in character. Everyone else, oh my god, it was all partying. All the kids stayed away from me, too—I was kind of ostracized. They didn't like me, but then they weren't supposed to. It was cool—I kept that going. I said, "I'm not here to make friends."

  JOHN SHEPHERD:

  About halfway through the shoot, I blew my cover. Dick Warlock was our stunt coordinator, and he had this young guy working who was supposed to be my double. Well, Dick Warlock was the nicest guy I ever met, so it was just so hard not to talk to him. He would always try to have conversations with me and I would just grunt a "Yes" or "No." I finally made the mistake of saying, "How do you know Eddie?"—my stunt double. Dick says, "I met this guy in Phoenix. And I'm a Christian and Eddie's a young Christian, and I'm trying to help him in his career. So I brought him out here, and here we're doing a horror film, but it's been really good for him." And I had been counseling kids at this junior high church, and so I said to him, "I have faith. I go to church." And Dick just lights up. "Are you kidding me? Hey, Eddie! This guy's a brother in Christ!" He yells this across the set, in front of all these people who think I'm psycho anyway, because I haven't talked to anybody in weeks.