Today, I do have warmer feelings about Friday the 13th. I was the lead, I got to do a lot of things, and how often as an actor—unless you're in the theater—do you get to work six straight weeks? I am still startled by the popularity of it. Everyday, people still write to me online. And they're rabid. And these are not all crazy people. I remember at one of the conventions, some kids from Yale came to meet me, and they were really intelligent and so passionate—they really wanted to hear everything I had to say. I still don't think what I have to say is that important, but I realize it is really important to the fans.
DEBISUE VOORHEES, "Tina," Part V:
I stopped acting in my early twenties. I was going to auditions, and I started to see all these women in their forties who were showing up for the same roles I was. They'd had breast jobs, were wearing too much makeup, and would put baby oil all over themselves and glitter in their hair. I just thought, "I don't want to be that woman. I don't want to be so afraid of not getting the next part that I'm cutting up my body." You can't stop aging. It's a reality. So I came home, went back to college and graduated with a Journalism degree in the top 10 percent of my class. I'm really proud of that. And I've been working now in Texas for 10 years as an entertainment journalist.
I look back on Friday the 13th with fondness. Even when I did Part V, I knew I wasn't doing a serious film. Was I entertained by it? Yes, because I knew the people and kind of laughed at it. Personally, I don't think it was a great film or anything. And I'm not sure I understand the popularity of Friday the 13th. But it is kind of neat that so many people do really enjoy them. What I take the most pleasure from now is talking to the fans. You don't know how sweet some of them are—they'll write me these letters and send a picture for me to sign. Some of them even say, "Oh, you're such a big movie star!" I'm like, "Well, not exactly." But to them, I am. It's just so cute.
Just one of the many officially-licensed extensions of the Friday the 13th universe, Friday-inspired comic books continue to be top sellers. The franchise has gone onto spawn popuar comic series by such companies as Avatar and the DC Comic imprint WildStorm.
TIFFANY HELM, "Violet," Part V:
I think one of the biggest thrills in my professional life was a couple of years after I did Part V. I was working for designer Stephen Sprouse and I got the opportunity to meet Iggy Pop. I was totally tongue tied. But instead of me having to embarrass myself, he said, "Wow! You were in a Friday the 13th!? How cool!" I was totally shocked. So I am quite proud to have been a part of classic American camp.
JERRY PAVLON, "Jake," Part V:
I am actually now a fourth grade school teacher at a private school on the upper west side in New York. And recently, one of my students had surfed the Web and hit the jackpot. He came into class one day and said, "Mr. Pavlon, I understand you were in Friday the 13th." And of course, upon hearing this, my entire class went berserk. Every single one of them freaked out in excitement. They asked a thousand questions. That is something of a testament to Friday the 13th. And tells you a lot about their success in this culture, I guess.
DOMINICK BRASCIA, "Joey," Part V:
I have friends that work at video stores, and they tell me that every year on a Friday the 13th, and on Halloween, that their Friday the 13th videos are all gone—the shelves are empty. People have little marathons. So I'm actually happier to have been involved with a Friday the 13th than if I had been in some movie that was really big for a few months and then just disappeared. It's exciting to be involved with a phenomenon that constantly rejuvenates itself.
SHAVAR ROSS, "Reggie," Part V:
This thing is still popular. I get emails from people all over the world who love it, which is amazing because Part V wasn't a big blockbuster. Yet I still have people recognize me on the street. They say, "Dude, man, I remember you! You're Reggie the Reckless!" Then there are people who review the films and send out questionnaires. Or send me lots of drawings they have done of me. Don't ask me why. It's just really weird!
VINCENT GUASTAFERRO, "Deputy Rick Cologne," Part VI:
I still have people who write to me and ask for autographs. It's bizarre. I mean, if you saw this movie in theaters you have to be forty years old by now. But I don't care. I'll always respond and send a signed picture.
I also have two teenage sons now, and their friends come over and want to watch retro horror movies. Then they find out I was in Jason Lives and they're like, "Oh my God—your dad was in a Friday the 13th movie?" They think I'm the coolest guy alive.
GABE BARTALOS, Special Effects Makeup Assistant, Part VI:
Part VI happened very early in my career, so it didn't specifically lead to other things. And I was just a crew guy. The front credit on the film—the banner credit—is really Reel EFX, and it's really Martin Becker. And that's the way it should be. So for me, at the time, it was more personal satisfaction in being attached to Friday the 13th. But I think as the years go on, fans are interested in everyone who was involved in some capacity with the movies. Especially since a boss man is not always doing the hands-on stuff. He is usually smart enough to hire specialists who can excel in different areas. So when the fans really begin to scratch the surface behind these movies, it does lead to a lot of questions and excitement being directed to those of us who were involved in it. So it's a nice thing to be a recipient of.
CJ GRAHAM, "Jason Voorhees," Part VI:
There is probably no horror character in this world right now that is more well-known than Jason. I can walk up to anybody, and they will go, "You played Jason? You've got to be kidding." You have more notoriety playing that part than any horror character you can think of—maybe even Michael Myers, maybe even Freddy Krueger, certainly Leatherface. Trust me—if you say you played one of those parts, they may not know you, the person, but they definitely know who you were in the movie.
One of the more beloved pieces of official Friday merchandising amongst fans, SEGA's videogame adapation of Friday the 13th was one of the now-defunct console's most consistent sellers. Not based on any specific entry in the film franchise, gamers piloted an intrepid Camp Crystal Lake counselor as they searched spooky cabins for campers and avoided the machete-wielding Jason before, eventually, doing battle with the disembodied head of Mrs. Voorhees herself.
JON KRAHOUSE, Director of Photography, Part VI:
I think digital technology is a wonderful tool, but an awful lot of kids today don't understand the visual grammar and storytelling methodologies that have come before. I think the heyday of Friday the 13th was the end of the era of the practical, onscreen magic trick because, sadly, that's not what sells tickets anymore. Although I will say that I think the success of movies like The Sixth Sense and The Others is heartening. It shows people have brains and the patience to enjoy a good story, and that if you make a movie that respects the audience, they will still turn out. At least, that is my hope.
BRUCE GREEN, Editor, Part V & Part VI:
What's interesting about the whole backlash against Friday the 13th is that these movies should actually be embraced by Christian Fundamentalists. The formula is: teenage couple has sex, teenage couple dies. They should be shown in every church in the Midwest. Seriously, there's no violence against women in Friday the 13th. There is only violence against teenagers. There is not a specific misogyny. You don't watch those movies and say, "That director and that writer hate women." Frank Mancuso, Jr. told me that the purpose of these movies is this: opening weekend, teenage boys want to see them on their own. Then the second weekend, they bring their girlfriends, so they can be macho and not jump out of their seats. But the girlfriends will scream and jump into the guys' arms, and then the guy can cop a feel. As a guy, I think that's fine. Although, ask a teenage girl and see what she thinks.
DARCY DEMOSS, "Nikki," Part VI:
I think the people who rent these kinds of movies are responsible for themselves, and if that's their entertainment, so be it. Who am I to stop anybody from freedom of choice? I don't really have a
ny concerns. I enjoy what I do, I'm very blessed, and people seem to like the films, so why not? Go with it.
DAVID KAGEN, "Sheriff Garris," Part VI:
Kids feel weak in our society. They're in an adult world and they don't know the rules and they don't have control. So maybe to some extent, by identifying with superheroes or supervillains like Jason, they're responding to the idea of power. All the unpredictableness in these movies mirrors that loss of control, but then there is that relief when it finally works out in the end. When the teen hero finally prevails through all the madness, there's a sense for the audience that, "I too can prevail."
KERRY NOONAN, "Paula," Part VI:
Maniacs who come and kill teenagers in parked cars have been a staple of urban legends since the 1950s. And those are morality tales, too, because if they hadn't been making out, they wouldn't be in danger. I don't think Friday the 13th itself was ever an urban legend, but it certainly has created its own mythology and story that people recognize. People now say about a cliché or a convention in a movie, "Oh, that's like a Friday the 13th." I think the original blueprint of the movies incorporated certain motifs and themes in a powerful way, and they're still obviously speaking to people.
I think what the franchises that have been the most successful—Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street—have in common is a really scary killer that people find just plausible enough. They're not really believable, but people find them scary because we are of the generation who grew up knowing of faceless men who would kill you just as soon as they look at you. My mother always said, "Don't take candy from strangers!" These kinds of fears of serial killers were very much part of the collective consciousness of the time that created the Friday the 13th movies. I know that's what affected me as a kid. That was what I was afraid of. And that fear has not gone away, because it seems we have more people like that than ever before.
Jason Voorhees continued to make headlines when, on December 22, 1989, one of the original hockey masks he wore in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was stolen from the front porch of famous shock filmmaker John Waters. The director of such "trash classics" as Pink Flamingos and Hairspray, Waters received the mask from Friday producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., and it was intended as a Christmas gift for Waters' longtime friend Dennis Dermody (right). After a few fretful days, Waters eventually received a call from the police department that had retrieved the mask from a nearby mailbox. "I think it was a prank thing," says the legendary director, who listed the value of the mask as "Priceless" on the original police report. "There was a frat house next door to me, and when the story got in the papers, they must have freaked out. So they slipped it in a mailbox and anonymously called the cops. But there had been a rash of letter bombs at the time, so the police had to dismantle the whole mailbox just to get the mask out." For Dermody, an avid fan of Friday the 13th and a noted social commentator who has written numerous articles on the series for such magazines as Paper and Interview, Waters' gift was a dream come true. "Immediately after we got the call, John and I drove all the way down to the police station," says Dermody. "I sang 'Ki, ki, ki, Ma, ma, ma' the whole way. Then when we got there, the cops were all waiting for us because they were so excited. I pulled the mask out of the box, held it up high and they all cheered!"
TOM MCLOUGHLIN, Writer & Director, Part VI:
I'll tell you two different sides of the coin about doing a Friday the 13th movie.
A number of years after I did Jason Lives, I was watching an HBO special about teens who kill. They had this boy on there who was about 14 years old. They asked, "Why did you kill your friend's mom? What could have possibly been going through your head?" And he said, "Jason, man. I was thinking like Jason." It really affected me—could a movie like this truly influence somebody?
The other side of the coin was that I was once directing a play up in San Francisco, an all-out comedy. One night, after a performance, somebody was waiting for me, this very professorial guy. He says, "Are you the director?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "I noticed on your credits that you did one of the Friday the 13th movies." And I immediately started making excuses. "You know—it was a fun thing, blah blah blah." And he said, "I didn't see the movie, but I just wanted to thank you." I was stunned for a second, and then I asked, "Why?" He says, "Well, I'm a psychologist and we have a clinic up here in San Francisco where we work with disturbed kids. We have them put on these Jason masks and they take out their aggressions on stuffed dummies. By not being themselves and venting what they feel through this character, we've had a lot of wonderful breakthroughs. I just wanted to thank whoever is responsible for this." Boy, was that something I didn't expect to hear. I was just so blown away that somebody of authority and experience thought Friday the 13th was a positive thing.
JOHN CARL BUECHLER, Director, Part VII:
My argument has always been that what we do isn't new. You can go to any church across the world and see an effigy of a man nailed to a cross with a wound in his abdomen and a crown of thorns stuffed into his forehead. There is tremendous impact in creating visions of visceral horror, and you do it for that reason. The impact of images has sustained entire sects of religions for centuries. So to limit the artist is a false thing. Because if you legislate our ability to tell stories and take that away from us, then someone in another country, someone in the marketplace, is going to use those tools anyway.
We are artists who use this medium to tell stories, and even though they may be over-the-top, the horror film is the first true story—of the hunter who went out after the wolf. It was fraught with danger and anticipation. He struggled, he may have been wounded, but he won. Then he gathered the other hunters around the fire and told the story. It's not a bad thing to tell people a tale of horror.
When you talk about the Friday the 13th movies, when you talk about Nightmare on Elm Street movies, or Halloween movies, or Frankenstein or Dracula—they have all become icons. Think about it: after Jason Takes Manhattan, they stopped making Friday the 13th movies. They became "Jason" movies—Friday the 13th is not even in the title anymore. And people dismiss these movies out of hand because they are just little low-budget horror movies. But you know what? These are going to be the classics for a new generation, and they will live forever just because there are so many of them. I think that the Friday the 13th movies are a piece of history, and I am proud to have been a part of it.
LAR PARK LINCOLN, "Tina," Part VII:
I think Friday the 13th works in the same way that soap operas work—we crave a story that continues. You find a show that you love, then you follow it, it restarts the next year, and eventually it ends. Then eventually it comes back for the reunion special. And wouldn't it be neat if we could see where our lives are going to go, like it was an episodic television show?
BILL BUTLER, "Michael," Part VII:
One thing that is really cool about being in a Friday the 13th movie is that, inevitably, every actor in Hollywood has been in one, too. And when you run into each other, it's like there's this weird mind-meld. You just look at each other and go, "Oh, you were one of Jason's victims, too!"
BARRY ZETLIN, Editor, Part VII:
When people want to see scenes of stuff I've done, I still always include a scene from The New Blood. One, I think it was very well cut, and two, I think it's very recognizable and a film that everybody's heard of. I'm proud of it.
DARYL HANEY, Screenwriter, Part VII:
I had never looked up anything on the Internet about Friday the 13th before, but then one day I was just kind of curious so I logged on. I was really blown away by how many sites there were. I went to one of the message boards and it was all these really young teen and pre-teen kids. They were all flirting on the board. They'd be writing to each other about these personal problems in their lives: "I think I'm going to kill myself! My dad has grounded me for the next two months!" And they were naming themselves things like "Jason's Right Hand." It was kind of touching, actually.
I th
ink Jason's appeal to all these kids has something to do with sexual awakening and hormonal hysteria. About facing up to adult responsibility for the first time, and all the fears that go with that. That is a universal part of the human experience. Movies like Friday the 13th will always be there for that time in your life when you need something to help get you through it.
He's out there... somewhere. Can you spot the young Jason Voorhees in this 1957 Camp Crystal Lake camper group photo created by Crash Cunningham? (For more of Cunningham's Friday the 13th "fictionalizations," see the Galleries section at the end of this book.)
ROB HEDDEN, Writer & Director, Part VIII:
You can't please everybody. I got a hate letter for Jason Takes Manhattan. It was really scary. It involved having my balls cut off. That it was the worst piece of shit ever and I should be giving blow jobs instead of making movies. Then, at the end, it says, "But at least it was better than the last couple of Friday the 13ths..."
I learned many, many lessons, both personally and professionally, from Jason Takes Manhattan. Technically, I was allowed to try all sorts of things, with equipment and style and lighting. I also learned—through mistakes—how to communicate better with people. Actors as well as crew. I'd like to think that I learned from other people who were very talented, and it rubbed off by osmosis in some way. And it inspired me to continue doing what I do. I left that movie and thought, "There are things I'm very proud of in Part VIII, and there are things I think I can do even better. So I'm going to keep doing this for a living, I'm going to keep writing, I'm going to keep directing, and I'm not going to ever give up."
I thank Jason Takes Manhattan, because that was a major hurdle for me. It will always be my first movie, and I will always smile when I think about it.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 91
