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

by Peter M. Bracke

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  I don't like to show a blueprint for murder, and I try not to get into the mind of the killer. Jason is a dark, evil, unstoppable force of nature. So I was really torn. I thought that if you're going to do a kill, it has to be an event. It's not necessarily the body count. It has to be a moment in the film that makes people go, "Wow." And because, at the time, and probably still today, the ratings board doesn't allow you to do anything extraordinary, I felt we would need to rely on other things to create a visceral impact.

  My first sense of the picture was to go more surrealistic as opposed to all-out blood-and-guts, as I feared it would be removed anyway. It was, however, decided through various meetings to go more for the traditional stalk-and-slash. And I endeavored to do everything I could to make that work. Because if I was going to do one of these things, I was going to do it Re-Animator style and go for broke, hopefully to the point where it's so gratuitous that it would become funny, as opposed to down-right serious, stark reality.

  Unfortunately, some of the stuff I wanted in the script was excised early on. Tina had these dream-like states where she had flashes of clairvoyance. I thought this would be a terrific opportunity to do some surreal moments, just like the Freddy movies. For example, when Tina flashes that her mom is going to die, she should see something symbolically representative of that. In the movie, it's just Jason stabbing her mom. I thought it'd be cool to see Jason as a little boy holding Betsy Palmer's head, and the severed head saying, "Help me, mommy!" But the response was: "It's too over the top, people won't get it." As far as I'm concerned, that's what these movies are—they are over the top, and that's why you do them. And I know I could have gotten that past the censors.

  Ultimately, I didn't get to fully go with the more surrealistic approach I wanted, but what we did strive for—extremely heavy and grisly on the effects, and huge on mechanical stunts—didn't work, because the ratings board would not allow anything like that onscreen. Subsequently, this is the most bloodless Friday the 13th ever seen. Horror is pretty much like telling a good joke—it's a build-up and a punchline. My punchlines were all removed by the MPAA.

  BARRY ZETLIN:

  I remember the morality bothered the ratings board the most. Have sex—get killed. Do drugs—get killed. They were specific that you couldn't cut directly from a sex scene to a murder—you had to cut to something else and then come back. We could show a couple skinny dipping, but then had to go back to the house party, and then cut back as Jason comes and kills them. Or, you could see a couple in bed, but then you had to interrupt it with other people talking before you could cut back as Jason comes in for the kill. There were all sorts of strange things like that.

  The whole situation became comical. We'd try all sorts of ideas to make it work for them, then go back, and still it wouldn't pass. And it always perplexed me, because you're making this film for a specific audience that wants to see it—they want to see what Jason is going to come up with next. A part of me agrees with trying to keep the world more civilized, but part of me says, "Come on!" I get annoyed at the whole concept of censoring and editing a slasher film—even saying the words "editing a slasher film" sounds like an oxymoron.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  I will say it. I will call them censors—not the ratings board. Because that's exactly what they do: censor. The MPAA is a group of housewives in Encino that basically decide what you can and cannot see, and ultimately we as artists are bent to their whim. I had a feeling they'd want to go after the film, and particularly me, who's known specifically for doing makeup effects. They had their eye on me. The movie got seven X ratings! I felt my film was castrated. If you go to make a horror film and it's about people dying, the event is the death. You can spend a lot of time setting it up, fixing anticipation, filling in the red herring and being tense, but without the punchline it falls flat.

  It's not an issue of fairness. We were in a rush to get it out, so we didn't fight—we just acquiesced. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom had someone ripping hearts out of people, but that was a big union Paramount movie. I don't think that anyone will recognize it as a serious depiction of reality. It's a big fantasy, it's a romp, it's a rollercoaster ride. Temple of Doom made no special contribution to society by virtue of its great story. They just spent a hell of a lot more money. And they got a PG! And I have nothing against it. I don't necessarily say that all movies have to be graphic and intense, but in some situations, they do. Steven Spielberg's been getting away with this shit for years. He doesn't call them horror films, he calls them war movies. Saving Private Ryan—give me a break man, that's one of the most horrifying movies I've ever seen. Of if you've seen Gladiator, you've seen more makeup effects in that movie than 10 Friday the 13th movies combined. There is a double standard.

  FRANK MANCUSO, SR., President of Production, Paramount Pictures:

  You can't make seven films in a series that are all basically the same in terms of content and not expect the MPAA to quickly and acutely become aware of what the films were attempting to do. But did I, personally, ever think the MPAA were unfair? Probably not. I am sure the filmmakers feel otherwise. And I am sure if you ask my son if he felt they made him cut too much out of these films, he would feel otherwise as well.

  But, heavens, no—we never thought about releasing the films unrated. Paramount was and still is a signatory member of the MPAA. So we couldn't. It was never a question of not supporting the filmmakers or being embarrassed of the films. We simply did not have that option. It just was never a possibility.

  Gallery: Filming the final fight.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  So many of the effects got cut. For the "ax through the face" gag, we had a geyser of blood that shot out. And the guy's head that gets squeezed? Well, Jason eventually smooshes it down to the size of a walnut, and there's blood all over the place. It was really ridiculous. The death of Melissa, we must have shot that 50 times. We did it every which way—we smacked her in the head with a rubber ax, then we cut off a rubber ax and stuck it on her head, and did several reverse shots of that. We even hit a rubber head with a real ax a few times. It was all about trying to get the most effective hit. But what ultimately got in the final film was only a brief part of the impact, the rest was cut out by the censors. The final result was a composite of three separate angles—one of the real actress at the door, another of a young stunt lady getting hit with an ax, and then finally a shot of the stuntwoman being thrown across the room and landing behind a television set. I think the one that was probably hurt the most, though, was the death of Dr. Crews. He was so vile that the audience wanted to see him dead, and they knew that eventually there was going to be a confrontation between his character and Jason. To pay that off was a thrilling moment in the movie for me. Unfortunately, the impact of his death was greatly minimized due to the ratings board. We even had an intestine and a stomach that was pulled out and wrapped around the blade—you didn't get to see it. There is so little onscreen now that it all falls a little flat.

  DIANE ALAMEIDA:

  When we were shooting the scene when Jason killed my boyfriend, Ben, Jason put one hand on top of his head and one hand beneath his head, and just squeezed it to a pulp. I remember looking at Craig Thomas, and just seeing his face, with fake blood pouring all down it, and Kane smooshing it for real. All I could wonder was if he would actually survive. I don't think I've ever seen a killing like that before in a movie.

  KANE HODDER:

  There was one version that John shot of Melissa's death, where right next to the camera we placed a big block of solid wood. So that, in the shot, I could take a real ax and just go "Clunk!" And it made such a realistic sound—just like a real skull cracking. I was hoping it would be left in. But of course they cut that, too.

  BARRY ZETLIN:

  My fondest memory of the battle with the ratings board was the sleeping bag death. In the first cut, we'd crack up at how many times we had Jason banging this poor girl a
gainst a tree. And by the end of the process, it was down to one whack. It always came back with, "Just cut one more bang on the tree."

  KANE HODDER:

  The sleeping bag, that is the one rare case I'm glad they did cut, because I think it was better with one simple hit. It was bang, boom! Even though it was more gruesome with the rest of the impacts. And to this day, I have never seen a scene have such an effect on an audience. At the premiere, when the sleeping bag kill came up, I'm not exaggerating—the whole fucking theater stood up, cheered, high-fiving each other. I had no problem with the violence of Friday the 13th, and I never have. It is a certain type of movie that appeals to a certain audience. I've just wanted to make those people happy. Because if you cheer someone getting slammed against a tree in a sleeping bag, you're just enjoying the craziness of it. They are cheering Jason and not taking it seriously.

  DARYL HANEY:

  I still get people writing me and asking, "Dude! Did you write the sleeping bag death? That's my favorite!" I used to shove my brother into a sleeping bag when I was a kid. And I once had a fantasy of killing my kid sister the same way. Maybe that's why fans like it so much—they can relate to it. It seems to be one of the more popular deaths in the series.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  I ended up shooting all these big makeup effects, and hardly anything got in. Eventually, I went back and added some reveals of some of the kills, because so much had been cut out. When Tina finds all the bodies in the forest, I added that because it gave a more visceral punch. I also added more scares, like the cat jumping out of the closet, and a little more of Jason stalking in front of the house. And that 3-D-like shot, where you see Jason throw this tent spike into the camera. Anything I could to make up for what we were losing.

  LAR PARK LINCOLN:

  We had to go back several months later and shoot all these inserts in L.A. I had to drive from the Valley all the way out to this horrible place in Compton, in this area they tried to make look like the swamps of Alabama. And a lot of us looked a lot different by then, with different hair color. Thank God they kept my same ratty clothes. It was pretty silly but a lot of fun. I can remember having to stand and scream at dead bodies that weren't there, all to the tune of traffic driving by a few blocks away.

  BILL BUTLER:

  The most terrifying thing about doing that reshoot was not Jason Voorhees or the Karo syrup all over me. It was the lime ticks crawling through the trees. I just remember being such a wimp hanging there in that tree, thinking I was going to have lime ticks all stuck in my scalp.

  Director John Carl Buechler's original design for the character of Tina's father (John Otrin). According to the director, the makeup was eventually vetoed by the film's associate producer, Barbara Sachs. "That original design was very profound," explains the director. "I wanted this ghastly vision to come up, grab Jason and pull him under the water. Barbara thought it was too monstrous and too fantasy-oriented. But it would have made a heck of a lot more sense than what we ended up with, which was just the actor wearing a straight makeup."

  ELIZABETH KAITAN:

  My death scene in the film was actually the second one we did. Originally, we shot a scene when we were in Alabama that was the same basic scenario but it played out completely differently. It was a whole different kind of chase scene. Jason comes in holding a decapitated head, and it ends with him killing me in the bedroom instead of me being thrown out the window. They made a prosthetic body for me to wear under my nightgown, and Jason took a big sword and basically chopped me in half. But after we returned to California and they saw it on film, it looked really phony—my whole fake torso had shifted away from my legs. So we returned to Topanga Canyon, to some cabin that they had used for the previous movies, and we reshot it.

  KANE HODDER:

  The smallest, weirdest things stick in your mind. My favorite shot I ever did as Jason was in Part VII. It was done in pickups out in Malibu. It is when I first stand up out of the water, newly resurrected, and the camera is behind me. It is very simple and quick, but it's my favorite because of the way Buechler shot it, the way I performed, and the music that Fred Mollin put in there. I just love that so much—it's like his first breath of real air. It's what I like so much about Part VII—Buechler really concentrated on making Jason look really scary and cool. And he really directed me, which I needed at the time.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  We also filmed a different coda to the movie that never made it. After the ambulance goes away, we had a shot pushing into the lake. A fisherman pulls a fish out and suddenly the boat starts rocking, and Jason comes out in a big splash of water. The end. They didn't want it. It was excised for reasons I still don't understand.

  DARYL HANEY:

  Frank originally wanted that. It was kind of a motif with these movies where, once everything seemed to be fine, something would come flying out of the water. What's funny is that while we were working on Part VII, Fatal Attraction had opened and it was huge. And at the end of the movie, Glenn Close comes flying out of a bathtub. I remember Frank came in one day and said, in a very loud voice, that he had seen a screening of it with a bunch of other executives, and at the end of the movie somebody leaned over to him and said, "Who produced this movie—Frank Mancuso, Jr.?!"

  BARRY ZETLIN:

  Near the end of post-production they came to me and said they wanted a recap of the previous Fridays at the beginning of Part VII, which I guess is a tradition with the movies. I had never seen a Friday the 13th film so they gave me six VHS tapes to watch. I sped through them and marked down any cool scene I saw. "Oh, the wheelchair guy is going down the stairs! Oh, Corey Feldman!" I just built a wild montage of all these great moments, which was actually quite fun in the end because I got to show all the choicest bits from the series.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  I wanted that opening montage. I think that's needed to get the audience up to speed. Particularly, I think you had to see the outboard motor chop up Jason in Part VI, so you knew why he looks the way he does and why he's chained to the bottom of the lake. I thought that was really important.

  DARYL HANEY:

  I was out of the country when the film finally was released, but a friend of mine wrote me a letter and he said, "The best part of the movie is when this incredible Psycho-like music is playing and there's this prologue." I actually hear the prologue is pretty effective—it's probably the best part of the movie.

  FRED MOLLIN, Composer:

  By the time Part VII happened, I had already been doing the music for Friday the 13th: The Series. Barbara Sachs, who was also involved with the TV series, then got involved in the movies. And I think on some level, I deserved some kind of good merit medal. I also think they paid Harry Manfredini either no money or very little money, and were just going to use his existing scores from the previous movies. But they ran out of music after about half the movie. That's when Part VII producer Iain Paterson called me and said, "Listen—how about scoring the other half?"

  HARRY MANFREDINI, Composer:

  I was working on another film at the time for Sean Cunningham called DeepStar Six. As I do not "farm out" music; I am only able to do one movie at a time. And I think the post-production schedule on Part VII was not flexible enough for me to come in. And what is strange is that at the same time I was also being offered a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. Anyway, I chose to work with Sean, and did not contribute anything new to the score for Part VII at all. And I still have never even seen the film.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  It was all an issue of money, honestly. I said to the producers, "Fred's stuff sounds too synthy. It's okay for TV, but this is a movie. Let's make it bigger and more dramatic." And I think they eventually saw the logic of my reasoning. I wasn't crazy about Harry's music, either. Although, in the end, actually Manfredini's stuff was great, but Fred's stuff was kind of weak. It just wasn't rich enough for me. It seemed too sentient.

  One thing I didn't like at all was the
score for the opening credits—it doesn't sound like music. It's not a good introduction. You want something driving, dramatic, and that just wasn't it. But Fred did do some nice things. He created a theme for Tina, which was good, and that John Carpenter-ish, Halloween type of music later on. But that had to be mixed with Harry's stuff, which was obviously more dramatic and bigger and orchestral and fun. So it all sort of clashed.

  From left: Domestic one-sheet; German video cover; Japanese video poster.

  FRED MOLLIN:

  I don't remember getting too much direction from John. In fact, I don't think I ever met him. By the time I came on board, Iain was so involved in doing the final post that he and Barbara Sachs just felt comfortable knowing that I would deliver and liked what I did. And it was a ridiculously crazy deadline, although I'm used to that. I think it was about three weeks, which is really not that bad. And it was only half the movie—the other half of the score was Harry.

  I didn't have any trepidation. I had never seen the other Friday movies so I didn't have any baggage, and I didn't have a working knowledge of what Harry had done. I feel like I didn't step on his toes because he was still half the composer on it. But I'm being bone-honest here. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and say I was wonderful. I don't think I did that great. I think I did the best job I possibly could have in trying to marry Harry's live sound with my electronic sound. I don't think you spend too much time in the movie listening for which are Fred's cues and which are Harry's cues.