Hasitha Fernando looks at the story behind Friday the 13th as it turns 45…
Although heavily criticized upon its release, the influence Friday the 13th had on the horror film landscape is undeniable. As the iconic slasher classic hits 45 we take a look at what when on behind-the-scenes during the making of the franchise-launching 1980 movie…
The filmmaker had confidence that the title itself would sell the movie
Originally titled “A Long Night at Camp Blood”, writer Victor Miller’s script was heavily inspired by John Carpenter’s Halloween, the blockbuster 80’s slasher and Meatballs, a teen comedy set in a summer camp. Miller wanted to create a low-budget horror film that had low-risk and high-financial potential in order to entice potential financiers.
Sean S. Cunningham, who had worked previously with Wes Craven on The Last House on the Left, was collaborating with Miller on a few projects when he proposed changing the title of the script to Friday the 13th and introducing some additional alterations to the narrative. Cunningham was dead certain about the title that he took out a full page advertisement in Variety using the Friday the 13th title and sure enough it succeeded in attracting Phil Scuderi, the financier behind Cunningham’s previous movies.
The finale’s jump scare was inspired by Brian De Palma’s Carrie
Make-up artist Tom Savini was one of the first crew members to come on board because the producers revered the work he’d done on 1978 zombie feature Dawn of the Dead. Apart from his brilliant contribution in the make-up department for the film, which included crafting the effects of the arrow penetrating Jack’s throat and Mrs. Voorhees’s gruesome decapitation, Savini was also the person who came up with the idea for the finale’s jump scare.
In the original script the movie ended with Alice floating on the lake but Savini felt that they could add something more by giving one last electrifying jolt in the form of Jason’s sudden appearance from the lake. During an interview Savini stated that, “The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen Carrie, so we thought that we need a ‘chair jumper’ like that, and I said, ‘let’s bring in Jason’”.
The movie was shot at a real-life boy scout camp in New Jersey
Friday the 13th was shot in the vicinities of Hardwick, Blairstown, and Hope, in Warren County, New Jersey. An actual Boy Scout camp in Blairstown, New Jersey called Camp No-Be-BoSco doubled as the infamous Camp Crystal Lake, where all the bloody shenanigans transpire. To this day the camp still stands and continues operations as a summer camp. It even boasts a wall filled with Friday the 13th memorabilia to honor the movie that was shot there. During filming whilst most of the cast and crew stayed over at local hotels or motels, some of them including Tom Savini and Taso N. Stavrakis, stayed at the actual camp site, binge watching movies such as Barbarella and Marathon Man on Savini’s Betamax VCR to entertain themselves.
Kevin Bacon was an unknown when he was cast in the horror flick
That’s right. In case you’ve forgotten the legendary Footloose actor was part of the cast of Friday the 13th before he made a splash and became a household name. During an interview Cunningham revealed that he was looking for “good-looking kids who you might see in a Pepsi commercial”, so the New York-based firm headed by Julie Hughes and Barry Moss went about finding eight relatively unknown, good-looking actors to play the camp’s staff members and came up with – Kevin Bacon, Adrienna King, Laurie Bartram, Peter Brouwer and Harry Crosby.
Betsy Palmer only accepted the role of Pamela Voorhees to buy a new car
Betsy Palmer was an established actress with a career in Broadway, television and movies when she landed the role of Pamela Voorhees in Friday the 13th. Estelle Parsons (Bonnie and Clyde) and Shelley Winters (The Diary of Anne Frank), who both won Academy Awards in the past, turned down the offer citing the film’s extreme violence. Even Palmer herself was initially turned off by the contents of the script but the veteran actress was in a desperate need of money to buy a new car since her old Mercedes-Benz broke down.
So, a reluctant Betsy Palmer signed on to play Mrs. Voorhees for 10 days work at $1,000 a day, but regardless of her distaste of the production, Palmer approached the role in a very method acting fashion and added layers to the character in order to make it more realistic and believable. With the passage of time Palmer’s opinion of the effort took a more positive turn and she came to accept and celebrate her contribution to the iconic horror franchise.
Adrienne King retired from acting because of an obsessed Friday the 13th fan
For the role of Alice Hardy the producers of Friday the 13th went for an open casting call in an effort to attract more attention to the project. At first the producers wanted the critically acclaimed Sally Field to play the character but quickly realized that they couldn’t afford such high-profile talent on a shoestring budget. Because of that the casting directors went for relative unknowns who were more budget friendly. The film’s unexpected success was at first a blessing for the young up-and-coming actress but it soon it spiralled into an inescapable nightmare when an obsessed fan started stalking her.
Disturbed and terrified by what was happening she even asked for her role in the Friday the 13th sequel to be reduced considerably and after concluding the shoot for Part II, King retired from acting for 30 years and honed her skills to become an ADR looper. In 2010, however, she broke her long-standing hiatus and returned to acting with the low-budget horror flick Psychic Experiment.
John Williams’ Jaws was a major influence on the film’s score
When Harry Manfredini was hired to craft the musical score of Friday the 13th, the musician didn’t want to use his music to “manipulate the audience” and instead opted for a minimalist approach inspired by what maestro John Williams did for Jaws. Similar to the famous man-eating shark, which remains unseen for a major portion of the movie and is only hinted at through suspenseful music, Manfredini also sought to create a motif that would accomplish the same result.
Director Sean S. Cunningham wanted Manfredini to compose a chorus but the movie’s budgetary restrictions didn’t allow it. However, while listening to a musical piece by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, Manfredini was inspired by what he heard and sought to recreate a similar sound. It was then that the talented composer came up with the uber-creepy “ki ki ki, ma ma ma” sound using his voice which was run through an echo reverberation machine.
The MPAA insisted that the movie’s violence be scaled back for the sequel
Inspired by John Carpenter’s Halloween and his work on Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, Cunningham wanted to make Friday the 13th a rollercoaster ride with high-shock value. And in order to accomplish this objective the filmmaker didn’t scale back on the gore factor. Whilst the movie’s violence is fairly tame effort by modern standards, the MPAA advised the producers to reduce the gore for the sequel because the original received quite a backlash upon its release. This is why Friday the 13th Part II had less bloodshed than the original.
Friday the 13th was the first independent horror acquired by a major studio
Friday the 13th was the first indie-horror flick to be acquired by a major motion picture studio and the acquisition of the IP was the result of a highly competitive bidding war which took place between Paramount Picture, United Artists and Warner Bros. in 1980. Paramount Picture ultimately won the bid, by purchasing the domestic distribution rights for Friday the 13th for the princely sum of $1.5 million. Additionally the studio spent approximately $1 million on advertisements to market the film.
Box-office success, unfavourable reviews and the launch of a franchise
Made on a production budget of $550,000 Friday the 13th went on to make a whopping $59.8 million at the worldwide box office. Although the movie faced stiff competition from the likes of The Shining, Dressed to Kill, Prom Night and The Fog, the indie slasher possessed the potential to become the 18th-highest-grossing film of that year. Unfortunately, upon its release it received a heavy backlash from film critics who criticized and found fault with the violence in the movie, often comparing it unfavorably to John Carpenter’s Halloween which inspired the effort.
Gene Siskel was one of the film’s most vocal detractors who absolutely abhorred everything about Friday the 13th, even going to the extent of calling its director, “one of the most despicable creatures ever to infest the movie business”. However, in spite of the negative reception the first outing was able to make a killing at the box office, which naturally prompted the studio to green light future sequels and as of writing, the original has spawned ten sequels including a cross-over movie with A Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddy Kreuger.
With the passage of time contemporary film critics have come to recognize the importance of the film in initiating the “stalker” or slasher sub-genre and how ahead of its time it was by having a female villain in the form of Pamela Voorhees. In 2022, a Friday the 13th prequel series titled Crystal Lake was announced with Hannibal alum Bryan Fuller and A24 producing but in the wake of the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes the multiple delays nearly derailed the entire production. As at present, the prequel show appears to be alive and well with a new showrunner (Brad Caleb Kane of Welcome to Derry) in place and Linda Cardellini cast in the role of Mrs. Voorhees.
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SEE ALSO: Every Friday the 13th Movie Ranked From Worst to Best
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
