Original subtitles

So you guys all know the story of Camp Crystal Lake, right?

I mean, come on, surely you have to know about the legend.

I don't want to scare anyone...

but I'm gonna give it to you straight about Jason.

It all happened at Camp Crystal Lake...

Camp Blood.

And Jason... was just a little boy at the time.

He drowned one night.

His mom, who worked at the camp...

she blamed all the counselors.

Said it was their fault.

She decided to kill each and every one of them.

Well, legend has it that Jason didn't drown.

He survived.

And he watched his mother get beheaded that night.

He took his revenge.

Every year, on Friday the 13th,

Jason would just keep coming back.

Now if you listen to the old timers in town,

they say that Jason's still out there.

Which means the Voorhees Curse is alive and well.

Friday the 13th is his day.

And Camp Crystal Lake...

is his domain.

We had this tiny little movie that cost $500,000,

which to date has grossed just under a billion dollars.

It's just an amazing phenomenon.

And not only were we shocked and surprised and pleased,

but amazed that we even finished the film.

I hear from people all over the world,

and I don't quite understand what the wonderful,

captivating thing is about this particular film.

I never dreamed when I was doing the film then

the effect it would have on so many people.

There's actually a lot of thought

and a lot of real talent that goes into these pictures.

"Friday the 13th" was one of the innovators,

I would say, of this slasher movie

but where the characters all represented people

that each one of us knew.

The best horror movies find a way

to tap into something that's truly human.

And there is something so compelling about the genre

that people will always come back to it.

I think that the goal is about scaring the audience

and fear and vulnerability.

We don't know why but it's something in us

that likes to be scared.

I don't watch the movie,

I pick somebody out in the audience,

and then watch the evolution of their heart attack.

It's not rocket science.

It's fun. It's exciting.

The fans so adore this character.

They like Jason more than they like the survivors.

They sort of brought a life to it,

that it would have never had without 'em.

That's where the power lies is Jason never dies

because the audience brings him back to life,

the devoted fans of Jason.

It's a great character to watch and see what he'll do next.

I don't think it'll really ever come to a complete end.

A lot of us relate to Jason because Jason is the outcast.

Like in school , either you're too tall , you're too short,

you're too heavy, you have buck teeth,

you speak with a lisp, we all tie in somehow,

going, "Oh, I understand that, I was the different kid."

It's just a basic part of the human struggle.

Jason represents that force that you're going to come up against.

You know, we all want to be that person

that feels like we can, you know, stop evil

and save the person that we love.

I think that we need these monsters, these bogeymen,

these characters who embody all evil

because we can't deal with the real evil

that we have to in our day to day lives.

If you can take that darkness out and look at it,

then you can conquer it, you can defeat it,

you can actually deal with it.

It's when we try and hide it from the light

that uh, it overcomes us.

In the early 1970's,

Connecticut-based filmmaker Sean S. Cunningham

was struggling to make a name for himself,

scraping by on a diet

of industrial shorts and commercials

and even the occasional soft-core porn.

Back in the early 70's, a big change was happening

in the movie business.

There had been success with documentary forms

and with hand-held cameras.

And there was a sense of anything was possible.

You know, just grab your camera, grab your equipment,

get in the back of the station wagon and go shoot it.

You can compete with the big guys.

He was making little movies.

There was a film he made called "Together,"

and it starred Marilyn Chambers

who went to the local high school.

It was a marital aid film

for couples who were trying to strengthen their marital bond,

as it would be, in the bedroom.

We had a mutual friend. His name was Bud Talbot,

who I was working with on a film.

I think he helped Sean raise some of the money,

and uh, this movie, "Case of the Full Moon Murders,"

and it starred Harry Reams. It was very soft.

In the soft core world.

7:35 A.M. We were shown to a bedroom.

A male corpse with an enormous erection

was covered with a blanket.

Our suspicions were immediately aroused.

In the mid-seventies, everybody said we need

nice, clean, wholesome films.

So we did two very nice, clean, wholesome films.

And they made absolutely zero dollars.

And now I had to get another job.

Somehow or other I had to get something going.

That something turned out to be 1972's "Last House On the Left."

To avoid fainting, keep repeating:

"It's only a movie. Only a movie..."

The film produced by Cunningham,

and directed by Wes Craven,

who would go on to create 1984's "A Nightmare On Elm Street,"

presented a brutal portrait

of violence and visceral horror in small-town America.

Well , we were co-producers of "Last House on the Left,"

which I think was a very important horror film.

And it's still playing today all over the world.

Although none of Sean Cunningham's early efforts

achieved mainstream success,

his next brainchild, with a considerable debt

owed to John Carpenter's 1978 screen shocker "Halloween,"

would launch a whole new sub-genre of horror.

I had thought of this title some time ago

called Friday the 13th. And I said to myself,

'If I had a film called "Friday the 13th,"

I could sell that.

And Sean called me up and said,

"'Halloween' is making incredible

money at the box office,

let's rip it off."

That is keeping it real.

And I said, "Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna take out an ad in Variety,

and put at the top 'From the people who brought you

"Last House on the Left"

comes the most terrifying film ever made.

"Friday the 13th."

And that's all we had.

We really didn't know what we were going to make.

We just wanted to see if anybody would be interested

in buying it.

Cunningham was able to secure financing

for "Friday the 13th" through the same trio

of east coast investors

who funded and distributed

"Last House on the Left."

Robert Barsamian, Stephen Minasian, and Philip Scuderi,

owners of the Esquire Theaters chain,

and who, under their Georgetown Productions banner,

were ready to make their mark on motion picture history.

But first, they needed one thing: a script.

The longest part of the process

of creating the first "Friday the 13th"

was figuring out the venue.

So I had to find some territory

that was adult-free, more-or-less.

Camp Crystal Lake is jinxed!

Oh, terrific.

So we came up with summer camp, Sean said , "let's go with it,"

and that was that.

The thing about the story in "Friday the 13th,"

is that it's so profoundly simple.

I think part of that had to do with the fact

that we had very little time to waste

on conventional things like character and plot.

We had this notion that these kids

would be out at a summer camp,

and would be threatened by some kind of serial killer,

and we would then be surprised to discover

who the serial killer was at the end.

Who are you!?

I thought that basically what I had done

was I had taken mom and apple pie,

and the clean, wonderful, let's have a ball Pepsi generation,

these clean cut kids who are out having fun

and unfettered by adult restrictions,

and stood it on its head.

And I just knocked them off one-by-one.

By the fall of 1979, with a script in hand

and a production budget of approximately $550,000,

Cunningham and his protégé Steve Miner

began searching for the ideal location

that would become the cursed hamlet of Crystal Lake.

The film was shot in a small little Boy Scout camp

called "Camp No-be-Bo-Sco."

It was off-season so all the kids had gone home,

and we were able to take it over.

So it was a standing, working camp.

And , it was a whole bunch of log cabins and all that stuff.

It was an archery range, it was a lake, it was everything.

It was just a little bit colder

than it normally would be in the summer.

Like most tales set at summer camp,

"Friday the 13th" begins around a campfire.

It's Friday, June 13, 1958,

and lovelorn counselors Claudette and Barry

soon find their late-night tryst interrupted

by a murderous stranger,

making them the first on-screen victims

in what would become one of the biggest body counts

in film history.

Fans have often asked if we planned to shoot

a more gruesome on-screen death for the character of Claudette.

There are even photos that show her throat being sliced open

by a machete.

I think it was Savini, you know,

fooling around in the makeup room,

because we didn't have time to shoot

that kind of a big production,

As I originally laid out the character of the killer,

and the clues as to who the killer was,

in the original scene, you saw a missing finger.

And so that every time you saw this hand without a finger,

that would be your clue that this was the killer.

And for time and budgetary constraints,

that got dropped out.

As the film shifts to present day,

we are introduced to a cast of fresh faces

culled from New York's thriving theater scene.

And as would become the rule for all future Fridays,

the young, would-be victims had to be likable,

and they had to work cheap.

My partner at the time, Julie Hughes and I,

were pretty much the major

casting people on Broadway.

But we had done a few films.

So we looked forward to doing this,

particularly with the idea of finding all sorts of new talent

for the young kids in the film.

Julie Hughes had said , "You know, you're not right for this,

but they're doing this movie, and they need camp counselors,

and you would be perfect."

So then they sent me to meet Sean

and audition for "Friday the 13th."

Hi, I'm going to Camp Crystal Lake.

You have to figure out as many different ways

of making the teenagers dumb without being really stupid.

Uh, I think we better stop.

Because the audience has got to be saying

as they sit there as part of this roller coaster ride,

"Don't go in there, girl ! Don't go in there!

Oh, no!"

To play their heroine, the filmmakers required

a resourceful and intelligent young actress

who could not only fight back

against the machete-wielding killer,

but could also hold her own against the amorous advances

of doomed camp owner, Steve Christy.

Do I really look like that?

You did last night.

My back story to Alice was she was an art student,

art major, psychology minor,

and she had gotten her job through a friend of a friend

who knew Steve Christy.

Give me another chance.

He obviously had the hots for her.

Alice was big on space, you know?

She needed lots of elbow room . She had to think things out.

She was very confused.

I'll give it a week.

And who knows, maybe at the end of the summer

something would have happened.

But he was gonna have to be patient.

And he didn't seem like the patient type.

Well , there's no crazy people around here!

In the role of resident prankster Ned was Mark Nelson,

who had recently starred on Broadway

with his "Friday the 13th" co-star Jeannine Taylor,

whose happy-go-lucky character Marcie

was given a fitting posthumous surname.

The character wasn't named Marcie Cunningham.

She didn't really have a last name at first,

and later on , after we wrapped,

Sean Cunningham decided, I guess, to adopt me,

because I ended up with his last name.

For the role of Bill, the proverbial "good guy"

who proves to be a contender for Alice's affections

as well as a potential suspect, the filmmakers cast the son

of one of Hollywood's most beloved legends.

Harry Crosby was the son of the legendary singer, Bing Crosby,

who was a popular singer in the 30's, 40's, and 50's.

He had so many great stories about his dad,

who had just passed away,

so it was probably kind of emotional for him

to share much about his father.

How can you guys eat that stuff? It looks like dead animals!

Playing the nurturing and animal loving Brenda,

who learned just how dangerous and deadly

an archery range could be, was the late Laurie Bartram,

who sadly lost a long battle with cancer in 2007.

Laurie Bartram, we miss her so dearly.

She was truly the heart and soul on that production.

I remember her, she was who you saw.

You know, worried about everyone.

I was really shocked and upset to hear she'd died so young.

Beautiful person, inside and out.

But the young man whose fame

would far surpass six degrees of Friday the 13th

was, at the time, a struggling New York actor

whose biggest film role to date

had been in the blockbuster 1978 comedy, "Animal House."

I was surrounded by terrific young talent,

and particularly Kevin Bacon.

I just thought he was so good and so professional.

I remember when I called his agent

to see if I , if he would do "Friday the 13th."

The agent said , "Well , what does he do in the film?"

I said , "Well , mostly he just, you know,

makes love to a lot of girls."

And the agent said , "Well , Kevin loves to do that."

"Footloose" was his breakout moment.

Let's DANCE!

And of course he skyrocketed,

but it was very obvious to me

that he was going to be a star.

One of the most memorable characters in "Friday the 13th"

was Crystal Lake's resident "prophet of doom,"

played by veteran actor Walt Gorney,

who passed away in 2004.

I know a lot of the fans of "Friday the 13th"

love and admire Crazy Ralph.

It's got a death curse!

And this sounds strange, but it's the truth.

I thought that Walt Gorney really was crazy.

He kind of frightened me.

And I realize now he might have been a little eccentric,

but he was just a very, very fine character actor.

It's so sad that he wasn't here

to share all this acclaim over "Friday the 13th."

He would have loved it.

As filming commenced on September 4, 1979,

cast and crew experienced their share

of low-budget film making misfortunes.

And Cunningham's silent partner Phil Scuderi

remained dissatisfied with certain elements

of Victor Miller's script.

Enter Ron Kurz.

I was sent down there to do some rewrites and basically

to also see what was going on.

I don't want to say I was a spy, but...(laughs)

The only scene I had a problem with

was the inclusionary scene of the motorcycle policeman,

which really argued against the concept

that this was a geography

that was kind of off bounds for the police.

I had never been on a motorcycle before,

and in fact, I did fall on my ass. (laughs)

The motorcycle fell on me,

and course, Sean and Steve Miner come running to help me,

"You okay, Ron?" They lifted it off me I says, "I'm fine."

Although all of the human actors who met their on-screen demise

came out of the film unscathed,

one on-screen fatality was, in fact, very real.

I remember all of us playing the scene,

and the poor snake, it was a real snake.

And he was chopped into bits.

And for that, on behalf of myself

and anyone who's ever harmed a snake,

I would like to tell all snakes,

poisonous or not, I'm sorry.

Wanting to up the ante on "Halloween's" minimalist shocks,

Sean Cunningham needed to find someone

who could create the realistic, larger-than-life death sequences

called for in the script.

In the world of practical special effects,

a new Dawn was emerging.

When I decided to make "Friday the 13th,"

my job was to try to figure out

how to make something scary for very little money

and very little production value.

The original Friday the 13th came out

after "Dawn of the Dead."

And "Dawn of the Dead" was sort of the first film

that put gore effects really in the forefront.

Sean had seen "Dawn of the Dead,"

or somebody had seen "Dawn of the Dead" and said,

"You know you're doing 'Friday the 13th,'

you gotta get this guy."

And there were other make-up artists, you know,

but my effects had a reputation

of being more realistic. And that could be

because I was a combat photographer in Vietnam.

If the stuff I created didn't give me the same feeling I got

when I saw the real stuff,

then the fake stuff wasn't good enough, it wasn't real enough.

And I think that had a lot to do

with the reputation for my effects.

Up comes this guy in a BMW, and it's Tom Savini.

He comes in, he's got this script all marked up,

and he said , "Okay now, let's see.

We've got a hunting arrow up through the chest,

that's no problem.

I've got an axe in the face here on page 40.

Do you want a real face and a fake axe,

or do you want a fake face and real axe?"

It's porno really, isn't it?

So the money shot in these slasher movies

is the big kill.

Sean was very insistent that we borrow from Hitchcock,

that piece of "Psycho," which was to surprise the audience

within the first twenty minutes

with, "These people are not screwing around!"

People have said to me that my character was sort of

like the Janet Leigh in "Psycho,"

because I'm, I'm the set-up.

You know? I'm the set-up character to follow.

Excuse me, how far is Camp Crystal Lake from here?

It is a lot of fun being the first person killed

in "present-day" time of "Friday the 13th."

But I didn't last too long.

We did the little stunt, jumping out of the jeep

and running through the woods, and that was really,

that was really great fun.

You see her up against the tree.

And the knife comes up (makes a swish sound)

And passes through frame.

And she's standing there for a second.

She puts her hand up, and you're thinking,

"Oh, maybe she's okay."

And then the blood pours out.

The piece was very small that was on my neck.

So, there was already a slit in the piece.

And it was covered very well.

So, the tube, you know, just ran down my sleeve,

and Tom was right there working the blood.

Just right off camera. It really did look great.

The beauty of these movies

and kind of the slasher movie genre ultimately is,

you can go and just, if you want to go see people get killed

in a variety of interesting and compelling ways,

you can go and have that.

If you want a little bit of nudity,

chances are you're going to get that as well.

And I know as a young man, that's what I wanted.

I needed the T&A for me,

to hell with the audience.

You know, bikinis and swimming, and it's all just

young and hormonal.

Everybody wants to have sex with each other.

Oh my god! I actually took my clothes off!

Yes, it was for a great reason.

I got to have "screen sex" with Kevin Bacon.

Then , when poor Neddy is on top,

we don't actually see him killed,

but I thought that was so brilliant.

With the blood dripping down. It's like AHHH.

There you have Kevin Bacon all satiated and smoking dope,

and he gets an arrow through his neck.

I thought that was so creative and so brilliant.

Probably my favorite.

But I had done George Romero's "Martin,"

and in "Martin" the guy had to get a stick in his neck.

And in Kevin Bacon's case,

we put that wife beater on the fake body.

He's like on his knees under the bed

with his head here, and here's the fake body.

And me and my buddy, Taso, under there and you know,

I'm pushing the arrow through and Taso was pumping the blood.

But an accident occurred.

The tube separated from Taso's pump,

so he grabbed it and blew in it.

And that's what made the blood shoot out and gurgle.

Which was a happy accident, it made the effect,

you know, bloodier and grislier.

She screams and the axe comes up.

And you see the axe make contact with the light.

You know, that was completely Tom's idea,

as to make the audience realize that this axe is a real axe.

It has substance to it, and it's heavy.

I don't remember precisely what showed up on film,

but I do know that the scene was a lot longer

than what ended up in the final cut. No pun intended.

Sex is part of the driving thing.

There is this war between sex and violence that goes on.

Sex...die... You know, have sex, die.

That's the premise, that's the underlying thing, you know,

going through the "Friday the 13th" movies.

Is Sean Cunningham like a devout,

born-again Christian or something?

I don't believe "Friday the 13th" was a morality play.

Alice had sensibilities,

and she was not part of what I called the clique,

or the in-group or whatever.

The reason the girl who didn't make love survived

was that she was not distracted.

It's not that she was more moral than the others,

she just had had nobody to make it with

so she was not busy.

I remember one particular one

where Adrienne is in the kitchen.

And she thinks she's safe.

And there's a place where she just goes, (sigh)

And just as that happens...

WHAM ! Somebody comes flying through the window.

You didn't see Laurie Bartram die,

the girl on the archery range?

She was just thrown through the window.

It was actually me

in her nightgown and wig, going through the window.

But Cunningham's insistence

that he would not give the audience any clues

that would hint at the killer's real identity

resulted in "Friday the 13th's" penultimate surprise.

Where is the killer? Who is the killer?

And we bring in Betsy Palmer.

We cast Betsy Palmer.

And this was really my strong feeling for Mrs. Voorhees,

that she should be somebody warm and comforting.

So when that door opens,

and the audience sees it's this nice mother type.

I'm Mrs. Voorhees. An old friend of the Christies.

And you would think of her and be predisposed

to think of her as a nice person,

who then we find out is crazy.

I had heard, I think probably from Sean,

that Estelle Parsons had been offered the role first.

And because Estelle and I

are actresses of the same age and all ...

Because "Friday the 13th's" production schedule

got moved back, she could no longer do it.

So it was strictly a time thing.

It wasn't that she didn't like it, or they didn't like her.

By the way, when I read this script,

I said "What a piece of junk."

I thought, "This will come. It will go.

Nobody will ever know or ever see it."

So I run into Mrs. Voorhees,

thinking she is the one who is going to save me...

I felt, "Oh, this poor thing"

and she's telling me about all this disastrous stuff

that was going on...

They're all dead. They're all dead.

And then we find out that she had this kid ...

Did you know that a young boy drowned?

The year before those two others were killed?

Poor woman. She lost her son, Jason,

while the camp counselors were fooling around.

Jason was my son, and today is his birthday.

And this becomes, "Oh boy, look out now.

Now I get it."

You let him drown! You never paid any attention!

Look what you did to him.

In retrospect, I think "Psycho" got in

in a way that I was not conscious of at all.

Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.

I basically reversed Tony Perkins and his mother.

And I had the mother alive, and the kid dead.

She's revenging poor Jason's death.

And she believes that it's our fault.

All of a sudden, I hear the voice in my head saying...

Kill her, Mommy! Kill her!

There's another place where Betsy,

who's really an incredible actress,

she did a thing,

and I even pointed it out to her one day,

and when you say the line...

He wasn't... a very good swimmer.

And you smiled.

You're crazy, you know it,

and you don't care. (laughs)

And that's really scary.

I won't, Jason. I won't.

I came up with the idea for Jason's name

'cause originally I had called him , it was going to be Josh.

But the more I worked on the film,

and the creepier the whole subject of that got,

I stuck with the "J" and went to Jason.

And I knew a kid named Jason when I was, oh,

about 8, 9 or 10 years old.

And he was one of them sneaky little bastards,

who was always telling on people.

And he was a mean little guy.

And so I never really liked his name.

Despite having played arguably

one of the most demented villainesses

ever to appear on screen,

Betsy Palmer has amassed a large,

and largely-sympathetic, cult following.

When I'm doing the autographs, signing, conventions,

they put their babies in my arms

and this killer lady (laughs) holds the little child.

The little children come up and all.

I've said to people, I've said, "Why? Why do you love her

as much as you do,

when she's supposed to be this dreadful human being?"

And they say, "Because we understand

why you did it."

Mrs. Voorhees, is, to my thinking,

had every reason to keep a camp closed

because otherwise somebody else's son would drown

just like her little Jason.

And that's all she was doing,

was making sure that that never happened to another mother

ever again.

I've never felt that she was anything

but a mother who was trying to care for a poor,

wounded cub.

I mean I couldn't imagine. I'd just go crazy, myself,

if my grandson, who I'm raising as my son,

if something happened to him.

So I can clearly identify with Betsy Palmer's character.

Here's a child who's been ignored, neglected.

I honestly felt like, "Hey, here's one for all those kids

who have been set to the side because they were different."

Many years ago, with the help of a very fine psychologist,

I saw that Mrs. Voorhees is the mother I never had.

She is the mother who will kill people

to avenge her son's death.

Undeniably, one of the film's most memorable characters

is its iconic musical score.

And the now-infamous sound effect

created by composer Harry Manfredini.

So much of the delight of "Friday the 13th"

and the experience of it, came from the sound effects

and the music.

Somehow or the other, the music

had to evoke and point out the fact

that the killer was there.

It wasn't just the camera shooting,

it was the POV of the killer.

Harry's delightful signature piece,

the... ma-ma-ma-ki-ki-ki...

If you go to the end of the film,

you'll see a very close-up of Betsy Palmer's,

Mrs. Voorhees' mouth.

Where she's saying, to herself,

"Kill her, Mommy."

Kill her, Mommy. Kill her.

I just went, and I took the consonant sound of the "K",

"KI" from kill her, and "MA" from "Mommy."

I went up to a microphone and just went "k-k-k-, ma."

And we ran it through something called an Echoplex,

which was a gizmo back in the late 70's, early 80's.

And it ended up becoming "k-k-k-ma- ma-ma-ma,"

and that of course, became the instant sound

that I needed to bring the killer

into the first reel, and throughout the picture.

And I'm sure that without Harry's music,

and without the sound effects,

we never would have had the success

that finally happened.

I think the women were stronger in this film

than the guys were.

You know, look who it came down to.

The battle was between Mrs. Voorhees and Alice.

There was a sequence that I was to,

well, I'd begun to really lose it.

Smack her, you know, give her a hit alongside of her chops.

Stop!

Well, when we hit somebody on stage,

we hit somebody.

So I hauled off, and I gave her a smack.

Well, she fell to the ground crying,

"Sean, Sean, she hit me. She hit me."

And he came over and he said, "No, no, no, Betsy.

We don't do that in movies."

I said, "Well, what are we supposed to do?"

He said, "You'll miss her."

And he said, "We'll just bring in the sound afterwards."

Alice doesn't want to die. And she fights back.

And then they go through this incredible beach ballet.

We're, of course, pounding away at one another,

and I have her hair.

And then she goes at me with some sort of a boat oar.

My favorite kill of all, Mrs. Voorhees slow-mo.

It doesn't get better than that. The ultimate kill by Alice.

The assistant director came up, and said,

"Hey, we're gonna cut your head off."

He said, "Don't ya wanna see how we're gonna do it?"

I said, "You've got to be kidding.

I could care less how you're going to chop my head off."

Taso Strevakis was my assistant on that movie.

We actually made a cast of Betsy Palmer's head,

made a rubber dummy of it.

We decorated the inside so when it severed you would see

anatomically-correct gore in there.

It was Tommy Savini's assistant.

It was attached to him in some way.

And Tommy Savini is the one that cut it off.

What I did was I attached it with toothpicks.

So the toothpicks were just kind of holding it in place,

knowing that when I whacked it with that machete,

it would go through the toothpicks.

And I wanted to whack it so the head would spin,

which luckily it did in the first take.

Oh, I mean, I don't have hair on the back of my hands,

you know, like he did.

I thought that was a little weird in one shot.

If you watch the movie when Betsy Palmer is decapitated,

her hands come up into the frame,

in kind of like grabbing air.

They're Taso's hands with hairy knuckles.

It's not Betsy Palmer.

It's these big meat puffs that he's got as hands.

Even after the dramatic death of Mrs. Voorhees,

a final, crucial scene remained.

One that would prove to be Cunningham's master stroke,

and a defining moment

that would, unbeknownst to anyone at the time,

spawn a franchise.

You know, in talking to Sean about the ending,

They really didn't have an ending so,

and I had just seen Carrie.

You know in Carrie they did a beautiful job.

Brian De Palma convinced you the movie is over.

She's walking around in the graveyard,

the hand comes up and grabs her.

Scared the bejesus out of me,

and I'm sure anyone else who ever saw it.

So I said to Sean,

"Why don't we have Jason jump out of the lake, you know,

and attack her?"

"But Jason's dead," he said.

And I clearly remember that, you know, if it's a dream,

you can get away with anything.

You could call it an homage,

I call it a theft. You know, grand theft cinema.

I mean everybody, including the special effects man

(laughs) to the girl who typed up the memos,

to the girl who went out for lunch,

claimed to have written this scene (laughs).

But, I wrote it.

At first, they were thinking

of having Noel Cunningham, Sean's son, do it.

But his wife would have none of that.

My mother said, "You're out of your mind

if I'm going to let my kid spend four hours in a lake

in the middle of fall in New Jersey

to be in your stupid movie."

Were it not for her, I would have been Jason.

I would have been the first Jason.

And I'm not bitter...

Prior to that I had been in "Manny's Orphans,"

and I played this kid Roger,

who was like a slightly sex-obsessed little kid.

So Steve Miner just kind of said,

"Hey, let's get Ari to do it."

My investors in Boston

wanted to have it more extreme and seaweed,

and maybe he could be deformed a little bit,

and Tom Savini said, "Oh, I've got a great idea."

And he started to make his head lopsided

and put a weird eye on him.

And it just became more and more extreme.

We dredged up part of the pond

and Tom Savini used real swamp muck for that.

I came upon a picture in this group of Polaroids

and I said, "And who's this?"

And he said, "Oh, that's your son."

And I said, "Well, why does he look so strange?"

And he said, "Well..." he said, "he's a mongoloid."

I said, "He's what?!"

I said, "That wasn't in the script!"

That's a nightmare Jason that comes out of the water.

The real Jason was probably just an almost ordinary child.

And so that part is a total dream,

or it was in my mind.

We wind up having this gorgeous, idyllic setting.

You know, on the lake, in the canoe.

I did everything I could to tell the audience

that it's okay now. You can relax. It's over.

But the strongest aspect is Harry Manfredini's soundtrack.

That was really the first time in the film

where the music stopped being the music for the killer

and started to really manipulate you.

It's over. The police have come. The cavalry's here.

It went on so long that even the people

who were positive something was going to happen

pretty much gave up that something was going to happen.

Alice has this look of hope.

And she's just trailing her fingers in the water.

And BAM!

And it was a wonderful addition.

I mean I think that Sean's idea is right.

That it really wasn't finished until that.

One of the really delightful things that we could do

is go to a screening and watch the people jump at the end,

because for whatever reasons, this ending got 'em.

I'm telling you, people just flew out of the seats

and ran out of the theater

and Sean was just like a little kid going,

"I got 'em, I got 'em all!"

I think without that single moment,

I don't think "Friday..." would have been half as successful

as it was.

Because the people got to leave, strangely enough,

with a smile on their face.

They got tricked, and they loved it.

And then the next scene Alice wakes up,

and they tell her no one else was found.

It was only her. Everyone else is dead.

I remember the scene in the hospital vividly

because, when I sort of ask,

when she asks me about the boy and I go,

Ma'am, we didn't find any boy.

And she says...

Then he's still there.

And he certainly was.

I knew that we're looking at a Part 2 here.

Those little drops at the end,

Those little ripples in the water at the end.

It's like, well , was it a dream, wasn't it at dream?

Were those raindrops, or were those air bubbles?

And I think now we know the answer.

In early 1980, the film was picked up

for domestic distribution by Frank Mancuso, Sr.

VP of Paramount Pictures, who planned a national release

and a multi-million dollar marketing campaign.

The risk paid off, and for Paramount,

Sean Cunningham and Georgetown Productions,

"Friday the 13th" was about to become

their lucky day.

Frank Mancuso was head of distribution at Paramount.

And he had the idea of treating this little movie

as if it were a real movie.

And had no stars, and nothing recognizable

except this sort of strange, superstitious title.

And went out and sold it like crazy.

One

Two

Three

Friday the 13th. You may only see it once.

But that will be enough.

"Friday the 13th" opened on May 9, 1980,

eventually taking in $39.7 million at the U.S. box office.

If the reason behind the film's immense popularity

was lost on mainstream critics,

who not only hated the film , but eviscerated it,

no one was more stunned by its success than its creators.

For better or worse, "Friday the 13th"

would change their lives,

and the horror genre.. . forever.

When it first started, it was repeat business

that made it successful.

It was teenage girls going to see it

and then bringing their girlfriends,

and then dragging their boyfriend to see it.

It was all this repeat business.

Before "Friday the 13th," maybe the most successful

quote-unquote horror movies

were handled on a very limited basis,

like "Halloween" or even "Carrie."

They weren't treated as major motion pictures.

The fact that that one became so wildly successful,

the producers jumped on it as this is an opportunity

for us to sell this off and make more and more films.

You also have to remember this was back in 1980.

This was before cable TV. Before the internet.

Before VHS really. Before DVD.

So if you wanted to get anything that was really titillating,

horror was the only place you could go.

There was something, um, exciting about it

'cause it was breaking new ground.

And of course your parents didn't want you to see it,

which only made you want to see it that much more,

and made it that much better when you did see it.

The modern horror movie was kind of born,

because it now became a possible player

in the mainstream distribution of movies.

It's like "Night of the Living Dead" with Romero.

Those guys involved in that all had careers after that.

I thought it was a piece of crap.

And I, truthfully, didn't care if my name got on it or not.

At that time. (laughs) And then when it opened,

(laughs) My god!

The critical reaction to "Friday the 13th,"

was so abysmal that I knew we were going to be a success.

I mean, there was one critic who wanted us all arrested

and tried for horrible crimes against humanity.

I'm convinced it has something to do

with the growth of the women's movement in America

in the last decade.

I think that these films are some sort of primordial response

by some very sick people, of men

saying "Get back in your place, women."

And I was upset by all of the terrible publicity,

and the scorn and the ridicule.

Gene Siskel gave us this scathing review.

I think he even may have published Betsy Palmer's address

saying, "Write to her nasty things

because she's a terrible person."

"How dare Betsy Palmer play a role like this

in 'Friday the 13th,'

when she has made herself so lovable,

on 'I've Got a Secret' all these years,

and all the television shows she's done.

How dare she play a role like that,

and insult her viewing audience?"

And I thought, "Well, those who can, do,

and those who can't, criticize."

The first of the slashers

were to reflect the changing attitudes and ideas

about women and what they could do.

I think we go back to Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween,"

Sissy Spacek in "Carrie."

Sigourney Weaver.

Alice, all of a sudden, is the sole survivor.

And I believe it was a direct reflection

of what was going on in the world.

And I think "Friday the 13th" really empowered women.

So after "Friday the 13th" was released,

there spawned a whole new industry

of teenage horror films based on holidays,

or based on a serial killer,

based on very low budgets and low writing.

Strangely enough, I think that people often sort of imitated

my mistakes rather than the stuff that I got right.

Well , "Friday the 13th" was the greatest experience for me

up until the point of after it opening.

It was huge. It was fabulous.

It was an actor's dream come true.

It certainly was for me.

And then, slowly I realized I had a stalker.

Stalking was not taken seriously back in 1980.

And it wasn't, it wasn't something

that everyone was aware of.

I was starting to get phone calls back then,

it was so easy to get phone numbers.

He, he got into my apartment.

For over a year, I didn't know who my stalker was

and what happened was, he befriended me,

he actually worked his way into my life

so I was actually giving him information

about my stalker.

I had an ordeal with him up close at one point,

which in itself, is a horror movie.

Eventually, I had a gun to my head.

And I was able to talk the fan down.

It really took its toll for a while.

But, it's all okay now. It's all good now.

And having three generations of fans

from around the world that fly in to wherever I am,

at a city or a convention,

that really talk to me and care,

and tell me how much it affected them

when they found out.

It's just a gift. It's a beautiful thing.

And, I thank them.

I've turned around my thinking about it.

I think it worked out just the way it was supposed to.

And I have never felt that I damaged my career.

If anything, there are people that would never know I existed.

We had this tiny little movie that cost $500,000,

made in a boy scout camp in New Jersey.

I (laughs) just cannot imagine how we got here from there.

It kind of launched the whole mythology.

And, uh, it wasn't by accident, but it was kind of good fortune.

By the end of 1980, "Friday the 13th"

had already unleashed a slew of imitators,

throwing open the floodgates

for fledgling independent distributors

and major Hollywood studios

looking to cash in on the new slasher film craze.

With each film seemingly made faster,

cheaper and gorier than the last.

With Paramount Pictures pushing for a sequel,

Sean S. Cunningham grappled with the question

of what to do when virtually the entire cast

of your film and its villain - are dead.

So, now this phenomenon takes place,

and "Friday the 13th" opens around the world,

and it's a big hit.

And the powers that be said,

"We have to make a sequel."

And I'm saying, "Why would you make a sequel?"

I didn't think there was going to be any others

after the first one.

We were never led to believe that.

Mrs. Voorhees is dead,

and the image of Jason in the lake

is completely a fabrication of the mind.

I don't know what in the world we could do for a sequel.

Let me make one thing totally clear.

At the beginning of my movie

Jason is dead. There's no two ways about it.

Jason is totally, unalterably dead.

They offer me Part 2, and then I got the script,

and Jason is running around.

I thought, What are you doing? There is no Jason?

You know, the mother is the killer.

Jason was the kid that drowned in the lake.

Oh oh, we're going to change all that.

Well, they never did. So I chose something else.

I chose "The Burning, which is sort of a rip off

of "Friday the 13th."

I understand that it would be very expensive

to bring Mrs. Voorhees back to life,

especially after we cut off her head.

So, we had to go somewhere, and of course

Jason was the most logical place to go.

Part 2 was basically his journey

of seeking revenge of the death of his mother.

And that's a very basic foundation of storytelling.

Legend has it that Jason saw his mother... beheaded that night.

If you try to track that on any kind of a timeline,

it makes no sense whatsoever.

He just shows up some X number of years later.

And I don't know if I'd want to try

to fill in the blanks of what happened

in between all those years.

If you listen to the old-timers in town,

they'll tell you he's still out there.

He didn't drown in the lake.

The mother thought he drowned in the lake.

So what happened to this child? He was young.

He kind of found a way to survive,

and he grew up in the woods.

Surviving any way he can.

So what is he?

Is he living off crayfish by the pond for 35 years

and nobody saw this weird kid out there, you know?

The first film was obviously a thriller.

It was, you know, almost a murder mystery.

Who's doing all this killing and why?

Oh, my sweet, innocent Jason...

So the notion of having a surprise

as to who it is, or what it is, changed completely.

So, what the stories became

was sort of a ritualized telling

of a group of young people who go someplace

where they shouldn't go.

You change the characters a little bit,

but it stayed inside of a very deliberate form.

While Cunningham ultimately went on

to pursue other projects,

including "A Stranger is Watching,"

"Spring Break" and "Deep Star Six,"

his 29-year-old protégé, Steve Miner,

was given his first feature directing assignment

on "Friday the 13th, Part 2."

Steve Miner was definitely up for

"Friday the 13th" Part 2, for directing it.

He and probably with Sean's help, cast it.

They found the location.

They did all the preliminary work on the show.

And I know that he was involved with some of the writing of it.

Steve had been around all of us for many years

so that... actually was so young at the time,

they called him 'The Kid."

That was his nickname.

By the end of September 1980, a mere four months

after the release of the original film,

Steve Miner and his crew were already back in production

with "Friday the 13th Part 2.

Code-named "Jason."

New to the team was 22-year-old

Frank Mancuso Jr.,

who would become the driving force

behind the "Friday the 13th"

franchise for many years to come.

Frank Mancuso, Jr. called me up before the show,

and said that he was going to come down

and be a P.A. on the movie.

I knew, of course, by this time

his father was the president of Paramount Pictures.

I got involved in "Part 2" when I was just graduating college.

And my dad knew the guys from Boston,

Phil Scuderi and Bob Barsamian,

who sort of initiated the first movie.

He, you know, went to work with us

and was treated like a member of the crew,

became a member of the crew.

Those kinds of experiences I really feel helped, you know,

kind of form what I became as far as having, you know,

a keen understanding of what everybody does,

how they do it.

And he was really just there to learn, I think.

And that's how it started. He quickly caught on.

And a couple of the people

that were above the line weren't working out

so they were getting rid of some of those people,

so I kept on, like moving up the food chain

kind of strangely.

And I think that that can only happen on that kind of a movie.

"Part 2" picks up two months after the events of "Part 1,"

with an extended prologue that would see the return

and the demise of the original film's traumatized final girl.

The fans have told me at convention after convention

that they felt, quote-unquote, ripped off

about the way Alice died in "Part 2."

I do, too.

I mean she was such a tough cookie in "Part 1,"

and then (throat cutting sound).

That was pretty much a necessity.

I think originally she had been approached to star in "Part 2,"

but her agent, as I understand it,

just wanted too much money.

So, she was basically written out.

Honestly, when I got on the set that weekend,

I didn't know it was over for Alice until I got there.

So, surprise!

They never gave me a script for "Part 2."

They said, 'Oh, it's just gonna be improv.'

I'm not kidding you. This is how it happened.

They, "Slam-bam-thank you, ma'am?"

Roll around on the bed for a while.

Intercut. Okay, go to the door,

that whole phone conversation...

I just have to put my life back together,

and this is the only way I know how!

Not scripted. All improv. All improv.

After Alice's discovery

of Mrs. Voorhees' decomposing head in her refrigerator,

she is confronted by the vengeful, and fully-grown,

Jason.

I shot that scene in one night.

And it was a prop man I met,

one who didn't check his props.

And so the first time the ice pick went into my temple,

it did not retract.

Yikes!

After an explosive main title sequence,

the story jumps ahead five years in time

as another group of unwary counselors

arrives at Crystal Lake to open a new summer camp

headed by the enterprising Paul Holt.

I'm also sure there's one thing I don't have to tell any of you.

Being a counselor isn't the gravy summer job

everybody thinks it is.

And I was a little older than everybody

because I was the head camp counselor.

He, you know, thought he was somewhat older,

and knew more than these people,

he was a little prissy and stuffy or something.

You know I thought that would be kind of a funny thing to do

with the character.

Assisting Paul is the spunky and intelligent Ginny.

Who would become one of the most memorable

and well-regarded characters in the "Friday the 13th" series.

To know that I did one of these films

where they get all these women in that are so vulnerable,

and to be the one that people think was strong

and intelligent, it just, it feels good.

There's always the last damsel in distress

who, you know, summons up the courage

to fight back.

And then I guess with my character,

it was pretty great because somebody who was strong enough

to fight back and kind of stay present

in the face of danger.

And I was so young that I didn't create

a whole other life

'cause I think that what was really called for

was exactly who you were as a person,

to bring that to screen.

Her character was written for her,

and it was written well.

She was very, very well liked on the crew as well.

Amy slept with everybody in the entire crew,

the actors and most of the people in Kent.

I'm just kidding.

Well , there's something about the chemistry

that we both have a very similar sense of humor.

It's a little bit sarcastic.

(laughs) So we could look at each other and kind of laugh.

I think that's why it might have worked.

PAUL: Ginny, I was starting to worry about you.

GINNY: Bullshit, Paul.

We actually stayed in a camp

that was no longer in use because the season had passed.

So we were in these big barracks.

I mean, it was insane.

Basically, it was a children's camp,

and we wanted to keep it that way.

We didn't want anything to stand between

the good feelings that people had about the children

and a healthy environment, which was a little bit different

than the Jason environment.

It was cold. Everybody had heaters and stuff.

And it was pretty basic.

It was like living at night for two months.

You just start getting kind of creeped out.

You know, everything looks so calm down here.

I'm looking pretty closely, I don't know,

it would be amazing if all of a sudden Jason just popped out.

They weren't sure which role they wanted me to play,

so I wound up auditioning but I think there was a point

where Steve said, "Hey Stu, tell a joke."

I did, I told a joke.

They wound up, in the movie, using jokes

that I had invented like this...

TED: What's brown and sits on a piano?

VICKIE: Your face.

TED: Beethoven's last movement.

There was a sign on the side of the road

in the beginning of the movie,

but we do have that sign as a remembrance

of that particular scene.

We come back to Crystal Lake to open up this camp again,

I thought all of us would have been smart enough

not to go back to a place like that.

But here we are going back to a place

where all these people were murdered.

The first night that we're there and everybody's gathered,

and everybody's made it to the camp,

Paul Holt basically scares the shit out of everybody.

I don't want to scare anyone...

but I'm gonna give it to you straight about Jason.

I had never been to a camp in the country,

so while he's doing that monologue,

little Lauren-Marie Taylor is thinking inside her head,

"Ahhh!" For real.

I thought that John did a great job of, you know,

kind of, in the scene, of building the tension,

you know, then to break with Ted, you know,

jumping out and scaring everybody.

[Ted howls and Group Screaming]

And we just think it's going to be a regular summer,

the kids are going to arrive.

And then these horrible, horrible things start happening.

And one by one Jason Voorhees kills us

and continues to do what he does best.

With the departure of gore wizard Tom Savini,

another renowned Hollywood special effects artist,

the late Stan Winston, was initially brought on

to create the film's bloody set pieces.

Due to scheduling conflicts, however,

Winston was forced to drop out of the project,

handing his duties over to up-and-coming

special make-up effects designer, Carl Fullerton.

But a key casting decision still needed to be made.

Who would play murderous mama's boy Jason Voorhees?

That question would , like the character himself,

grow into the stuff of legend.

They give me a black script.

It said "Jason" on the front of it.

"Well, we like you , you know, for this counselor role."

I guess this was the role that ultimately John Furey got.

And so then they said, "Well, would you like to be Jason?"

Well, sure, yeah (laughs),

I'd love to do anything you want me to do.

I could never figure out the deal with Jason.

They had a guy for a while.

I believe his name was Warrington.

And then he didn't seem to like doing it,

or he didn't want to do stunts or something.

And then, he didn't stay for the whole movie...

I got a call from Cliff Cudney,

who happened to be the stunt coordinator

on "Friday the 13th 2,"

and he had called me and said,

"Listen, I'm up here in Connecticut doing this film,

and the guy that they hired to play Jason

can't do his own stunts. We got big problems."

He says, "Can you get up to Kent, Connecticut?"

I know that the rest of us on set,

we knew that there was stuff going on about Warrington

and Steve and in terms of who was doing what.

If you had asked me who was Jason,

I would have said Warrington.

Warrington Gillette was my Jason Voorhees.

He got all the hoopla, you know,

for everything that I did.

Cliff Cudney, the stunt coordinator, said to me,

"You're the guy that was the Jason.

Tell your story. You did all the work."

Ironically, neither actor played Jason the first time

the character appears on screen.

For the film's moody opening,

Jason was played, for the first and only time

in the series' history by a woman.

Costume designer Ellen Lutter.

It also fell to Lutter to come up with a disguise

for the hideously-deformed Jason.

One that could only be called a first step

in the evolution of one of horror's most iconic faces.

It was through Steve, I remember him and Sean

having these talks up in Sean's office

and coming up with designs

for you know "Part 2" with that canvas bag.

Instead of using an ugly face or an ugly mask for Jason,

he would just cover it completely

in a sack or a bandage, or whatever.

And everybody in the audience would have their own images

of what is the most horrible person they can think of.

And it worked pretty well.

The movie, "The Town that Dreaded Sundown"

had a serial killer wearing a potato sack,

and so I think that could have been, you know,

an idea that was definitely well utilized.

The costume designer was the one that brought us

the pillowcase to cover Jason.

I didn't like it at the time.

But, I know why it was chosen.

It was chosen because it was an artifact

that was readily available.

That was the bridge to the hockey mask,

which became the icon, and it was a great icon.

Once I put the bag over my head, and I ran in the woods,

I couldn't see anything 'cause the bag flopped

back and forth.

We'll put double face tape,

and we'll hold it right close to your eye.

This way you'll see where you're going.

And it worked marvelously. It was terrific.

But to me, you know, the real talent came in

with Carl Fullerton trying to create this face...

that was pretty... pretty intense.

And yeah, you would get in the makeup chair at noon...

they'd be ready to go at seven.

So it's a process.

Another notable character from the first film

would also meet an untimely and early demise in "Part 2."

I told the others. They didn't believe me.

Walt Gorney was just there for a very short time

at the beginning of the movie,

and at the beginning of our production.

I'd say near, between the American flag

and that stop sign,

that's where they had the phone booth.

And the actor came riding through on a bicycle

when they were in the phone booth, and said,

'You are all Doomed!'

You're all doomed.

Amazing guy.

I remember Walt being sort of quiet, but very, very nice.

Very... and very, very kind of elegant.

A really good actor.

It was interesting, when they did set up that booth

in New Preston,

they took a break for lunch, and while they were eating lunch,

two young girls came and they tried to use the telephone.

And of course, it was a dummy phone,

and everyone was just hysterical watching them

trying to use it and coming out angry.

Crazy Ralph was choked.

He was, I believe, the first death

in "Friday the 13th" Part 2.

Yeah, yeah, I killed Ralph with a garrote and a thin wire

and you take his head like that.

What are you kids doin' out here?

I'm proud to be known as Deputy Winslow.

In the original script, I wasn't named.

I was just kind of an officer of the law.

But in the book that followed, I was given a name,

and the name was Winslow.

An interesting anecdote is that I was hired as this cop.

And I had to drive a police car.

Now, I've never driven a car in my life,

before or since.

And for a time they were giving me some lessons,

and I almost killed more people than Jason.

Now if you were a policeman, and you were doing your job

and you came driving down the road here,

and you saw a shape rush across the road into the woods,

you probably would do

what that policeman in "Friday the 13th" Part 2 did.

He pulled over, got out of the car and ran into the woods,

chasing the figure.

Unfortunately, the results weren't so good to him.

In shooting that death scene, Jason has this hammer.

The claw end of the hammer

went right in the back of the cop's head.

Before we started to shoot,

I went to this make-up place

and they made this exact replica of me.

And they put some blood bags in there,

and they were gonna smack me in the head and (raspberry)

Everything was gonna go like that,

and they never used it.

It intrigued me that we killed Walt and the sheriff so early.

And I think it was just to remove any possibility

that the cavalry would come over the hill and save the campers.

So you knew that they were in jeopardy,

and that there was just no turning back, or no help

from the outside going to come.

So there I was, sitting in this fast food joint.

I think that Muffin was,

I don't know if it was someone's personal dog,

or it was actually a trained performing dog.

It was very likable, very friendly.

I think it actually got its name above my name

in the credits.

Do you want to dance?

No, thank you.

My character, you know, was just striking out

with women and with the girl he was after.

But the dog, she showed me a lot of love in that movie.

One of the cuts that I love from "Friday the 13th Part 2,"

is the camera is on the dog and all of a sudden

it cuts to hot dogs on a barbeque grill.

And it's just funny, and Steve is like that.

He has a sort of like a very wry sense of humor.

Well, I think that if Muffin was still around,

you know, we probably would have stayed together

and... but I don't want to get too specific about that.

(laughs)

One of the actresses went swimming in the nude,

and of course that was a big talk in the group,

and everybody volunteered to come there

and help with the scene.

They were looking for a towel boy.

Somebody who would wrap towels around,

I believe it was Kristen

who would come out of the water in the nude,

and everybody volunteered.

Looking for something?

I was so innocent. You know, I don't know why I was killed.

I don't know why Jason had it in for me. It's crazy.

My mother calls me the night before and she goes,

'"Do you die today in the movie?"

I go, "Yeah."

She goes, "Why are they saving that to the very end?

Is this a snuff movie? Are they going to kill you?"

I said, "No, I don't think so, Mom.

This is Paramount."

The snare was attached to a sapling tree.

And when he cut the rope on the sapling tree,

it pulled the rope up, which would have the victim's foot

in the rope and he'd be hanging upside down.

AAAAHHHHHHH! AHH! HELP!

In effect, it worked perfectly and nobody was hurt.

My head gets pulled back by Jason, and he slits my throat.

First they put the machete against it,

and then he would pull it and as he slit,

it looked like he was actually cutting it.

But they used the dull side of the machete and many times

people have said to me, "It looks like you were cut

from the wrong side of that machete."

And it's quite true.

The role of wheelchair-bound Mark

was played by openly gay actor and model Tom McBride,

who sadly passed away in 1995.

I started flirting with Tom McBride very early

in the process.

And he finally said, "Lauren , not gonna happen."

And I went, "Oh, shucks."

He's actually the only one I flirted with,

but Tom McBride was great.

And he was just a sweetheart.

If you watch the movie,

the most uncomfortable moment I have

is when I look at Tom McBride in the wheelchair,

and I'm supposed to be smoking a joint?

And I say... Toke?

You can tell I have no idea what I'm talking about.

And everyone on the set knew it.

And they never let me forget it.

I was such a good Catholic Girl.

McBride's death scene in "Friday the 13th Part 2"

remains one of the series' most memorable and controversial.

I thought Tom McBride's kill was cool.

He got a machete in his head and went down a series of steps.

It was just, seemed so cruel.

You know, here's a guy in a wheelchair,

and you know he's got no way to defend himself really.

To me that's like, how could you

go much further than that? That's really far.

Actually, he had constructed a rail

for the wheelchair to travel on,

and to make sure that the actor wouldn't get hurt.

It was a tremendous amount of work put into it.

It was a fantastic, fantastic stunt

back down that staircase.

I don't know if you've ever tried

to go down backwards, on a wheelchair,

with a make-believe machete in your head,

but... It's a challenge.

Many of the film's most inventive murder sequences

were actually suggested by the late Phil Scuderi,

who never took credit for his creative contributions

to the "Friday the 13th" films.

Phil Scuderi was more, I would say,

like the architect of the series.

He came up with some great scenes himself.

I mean he, and it was embarrassing sometimes,

he'd get up in a restaurant and act them out for me.

You know, "This is what I want you to write," you know,

and he'd act a scene out for me.

Of course there was a couple in the bed having sex.

And we all know in a horror movie,

if you have sex, you have to die.

Because it's wrong.

Which is not the case in real life.

Oh, I thought it was great, are you kidding?

You know, I remember I was a young guy, you know.

You'd be able to, you know, film this, you know, love scene.

And then, and then get a spear. I thought it was terrific.

Essentially, there's a hole in the floor and both characters

were standing in this hole.

Carl Fullerton who was our make-up guy,

I had gone to his place in New Jersey

and they had made a latex back,

which actually you never see in the film.

So he was actually skewered on camera.

That spear actually went into his back on camera.

It was fabulous.

It was just really fun.

The sound guy at one point,

I'm sitting there on my knees and he comes over to me,

and he says, he says, "How are you? How you doin'?

Are you okay?" I said, "You know, yeah.

I'm alright, you know my, you

know I'm a little uncomfortable."

He said, "Open your mouth."

And he blows some powder into my mouth.

And I'm telling you , they could have filmed it 15 times.

I was having a great time after that.

Fullerton's human-shish-kebob

was one of the many graphic special effects

deemed too disturbing

by the Motion Picture Association of America.

To date, the scene has never been released

in its uncut form.

That skewering scene was actually really fun to set up

and really fun to shoot.

And what a disappointment that it all hit the floor.

When we were prepping "Day of the Dead,"

Carl Fullerton said, "Oh, do you guys want to see

some of the gags from "Friday the 13th" Part 2?'

We're like, "Yeah, of course. That would be great."

Before it got butchered by the ratings board,

the fact that the guy's on top of her,

and she sees Jason coming, and she's struggling

and she's trying to push him off of her

so she could get out of the way.

It was such an effective, disturbing sequence

that, to this day, I could, I still remember

exactly what it looked like.

For all its gory inventiveness,

the scene has been widely accused of ripping off

a nearly identical murder sequence

from Mario Bava's 1971 Giallo thriller,

"Twitch of the Death Nerve."

It was kind of fun after the fact

to discover that Mario Bava had made a film

called "Twitch of the Death Nerve,"

which I had never heard of and never seen

until long after the fact.

This is going to sound really, really weird,

but I was a great screamer.

I hope nobody takes that the wrong way.

But, I was. I could scream, I mean-- (screams)

I was really good at that,

and I think once they figured that out,

they decided, "Okay, we're gonna have her scream a lot."

So they made it really long.

And it started with just that little swipe on the leg.

Where he, kind of, missed whatever he wanted to cut off.

But then he kept, you know, it was like...

(makes Psycho sound effect)

They didn't use a dummy for that

when they dragged me down the stairs.

They actually dragged me down the stairs!

So when you saw my feet going blump, blump, blump,

that was a crew member dragging me down the stairs.

There was a scene later on, where everybody's at the bar,

and everybody's you know,

partying while the rest of us are getting killed.

Ginny: What if there is a Jason?

Paul: Oh, bullshit, Ginny!

Ginny: I mean, let's try to think beyond the legend

and put it in real terms.

I mean, what would he be like today?

The character of Ginny Field,

she somehow really understood

that there's more to a person than just the bad side.

You know, and everyone wants to demonize somebody.

And so, she had some kind of insight that this,

something had to go wrong somewhere in his childhood

or his upbringing.

He must have seen his mother get killed,

and all just because she loved him.

I think Ginny kind of understood that some,

that there's more to it than just this demon guy...

with a pillowcase over his head.

We went to that bar and none of those people,

I think, had ever seen a movie,

had been around a movie.

And they were all hired as extras.

And it was pretty funny.

And we actually started drinking a bit in that scene,

so by the time four in the morning came along,

we just kept drinking.

Arguably the luckiest character is fun-loving prankster Ted,

who decides to stay behind at the bar,

thereby escaping certain death.

I did another movie, a John Carpenter film, "Christine,"

and there's a scene in that where I got killed.

Where I got squished.

And they originally filmed it as me getting crushed

underneath a car coming down.

In the movie they wound up not using that scene.

And I'm convinced that it's because I don't die good.

(laughs) So I'm glad that they didn't try to kill me here,

'cause, you know, to make believe me dying as an actor,

has got to be one of the silliest things

for a grown-up to do.

This is the site of the old Lake Waramaug Casino,

and this burned down about a year after it was used

for some scenes in "Friday the 13th Part 2."

It starts to rain and Amy Steel and John Furey

are coming out of the bar.

And they're about to get into their,

her little red Volkswagen.

But I convinced Steve Miner

that I could run through the scene

in the parking lot.

As they're getting in the car,

you can see me running into the restaurant.

You can't even tell that it's anything

other than a body running through the rain, but it's me.

I come back from the dead.

Unaware of the carnage that has occurred in the main cabin,

Ginny and Paul make a gruesome discovery,

and the terrifying final confrontation with Jason begins.

When I'm down there waiting, and they're coming in,

and I'm behind the couch, I was like a little kid.

You know what I mean?

I was like, I couldn't wait,

I was, "Oh, this is gonna be good", you know?

Paul, there's someone in this fuckin' room!

Amy with the screaming, and the whole thing.

And that's when the chase scene started.

There was a lot of physical action in the film.

I had to jump out of this window.

And I remember the stunt guy said you know,

"Maybe you could get a stunt adjustment for that."

But yeah, it was a lot of running.

Splashing through the puddles.

Jumping, hiding, a lot of it was hiding.

I really like Amy, I mean, I always liked Amy.

She brought a great sort of buoyancy to whatever she did.

I mean, she came in, she was enthusiastic,

she was down with whatever the program was.

Here I am under the bed,

and Jason's walking around, and I'm scared to death,

and all of a sudden a rat comes right in front of my face.

I thought Ginny was so scared she peed her pants.

Maybe it was the rat, I don't know.

But it wasn't a large amount of pee for a rat?

I gotta give Amy Steel a lot of credit

because all during the filming Amy never spoke to me.

Off camera.

I didn't have much communication with him,

or I kind of kept him very separate.

Amy was non-existent. She didn't want to come near me.

She didn't want to know anything about me.

I respected that. I stayed away from her as well.

But mostly, you know,

they would shoot him and then shoot me.

So we were never exactly at the same place at the same time,

with the exception of the sweater scene.

That final scene we used to call Chez Jason.

Where Amy goes and dresses up as Mrs. Voorhees.

And Jason is somewhat stunned by, "Wait a minute.

This is my mom."

And she psyches him out.

In her only cameo in any of the "Friday the 13th" sequels,

Betsy Palmer appears to Jason

as the ghostly visage of Mrs. Voorhees.

They said, would I come and let them make up my head?

Again.

And that they needed that and do a few voice-overs.

And I said, Sure, I'll do that.

Which I did.

He's a tragic figure because he was looking for his mother.

Now here, after all this time,

Amy's in the lair, and she says--

Jason, mother is talking to you!

Jason, Mother is talking to you.

And when I listen to what she said,

that's when I did the, you know, the tilt the head.

Is that my mother? Is that my mother?

My heart broke. I really felt bad for poor Jason.

I felt what I was doing through the whole thing,

I really did.

That was the point of the film where I went,

"That's really where we're going.

That's what the sound of this is."

So there was a certain ethereal, sort of spacey,

kind of sound that permeated the picture from the beginning.

I have the machete behind my back.

And I'm instructed to pull the machete up.

And just as Mrs. Voorhees' face is revealed,

he's supposed to bring up this pickaxe.

And then that's when I bring the machete down.

There was a lot of discussion before that scene was shot.

It was ultimately decided that Amy could do it.

So Cliff took her, and he walked her through it

a couple of times, on what would happen.

"Make sure you hit the pickaxe in the middle,"

and so forth, and so on.

She is a great actress, but unfortunately that day for me,

she was trying to kill me.

So I guess I got really anxious,

and I brought the machete down

when he still had the pick-axe like this,

as opposed to this.

She missed the pick-axe, and she came down on my finger.

And I felt so bad.

But the actor who played Jason was really cool about it.

You know, he just said, "Hey, this is what happens.

This is what happens when you're a stunt person."

So then he goes to the hospital.

I think he had the machete through his chest or something,

and walks into the emergency room and they're like,

"Oh, my God!"

I come walking in with the machete

sticking out of my shoulder,

and everybody in the emergency room went...

And I walked up to the desk,

I says, Have you got anything for a headache?

I've got a very bad headache.

They stitched him up.

But, he was professional, he came back,

and they finished the scene with the bandage under the shirt.

And I have 13 stitches in this finger to show you.

It's right here, this, it's 13 stitches.

So, very apropos.

Muffin comes tottering in. (laughs)

"Oh, Muffin. You're alive!"

Come here, Muffin.

The scene where Jason comes careening through the window?

Look, you thought he was dead.

And it's the greatest shock.

I know that the Jason coming through the window

was a nightmare for me.

I had to do it three times.

And it was really scary.

And yeah, it's plenty scary.

The mystery of the unknown.

What is behind that potato sack?

We never saw the make-up.

And he didn't want me to see it.

And he wanted to look really real.

You know, because we could have walked up to the make-up area

and seen what this guy looked like

so we wouldn't have been as shocked, you know,

when he blasts through the window.

They built a platform outside the house.

The platform was probably 4 feet long.

So we coordinated how many steps it takes.

One, two three, bah, you know, through the window.

And at this time in my life,

I was not a well-seasoned stuntman.

So this was the first time I jumped through a window.

Steve was, he knew how I felt about that scene.

And I remember he was, you know he goes,

"Hey, let's go have lunch."

And he was trying to kind of play it really cool

and not let me know.

And then all of a sudden he said, "Guess what?

We have to re-shoot that scene again."

Ruined my day.

But anyway, look, the proof is in the scene.

Cause we got it right, and people are still talking.

Much like its predecessor,

"Part 2's" ending would ultimately pose more questions

than it answered.

Chief among them, what happened to Paul?

The end of "Friday the 13th Part 2"

is still one of the most confusing endings

of that series.

You didn't know what happened to my character.

Like she says at the end of the movie,

she says, "Where's Paul?"

And they said , "We don't know. We haven't found him yet."

So they purposely left it ambiguous.

And I'm not sure exactly what did happen to Paul.

Too bad he didn't come back in "Part 3." (laughs)

As noted, we've seen a dog that earlier in the film

it's suggested has been killed, shows up again.

There is, of course, some speculation

that it's a dream ultimately.

Maybe that's one of the good parts of the movie

is that you get to decide that for yourself.

I guess there was talk of an alternate ending.

It was not anything that was prominent

when we were shooting it.

At the very end, they zoom in on Mrs. Voorhees' head.

It was just sort of sitting there on the altar.

I know when they were shooting it,

I think they couldn't decide

whether the eyes should open or not.

I think that they did make her eyes go open.

Although the alternate ending of "Friday the 13th Part 2"

remains unreleased,

production stills have surfaced of actress Connie Hogan,

who played the decapitated head of Mrs. Voorhees

in the film's unused final shot.

In my world that was never a serious contender

for an alternative ending.

And we spent a lot of time getting it right.

And we did. It's a fabulous ending.

One of the guys came to me,

I was from the camp office. And he said, "Thanks a lot.

We left you a 'Thank You' down at the lake."

I came down there and what I found was a head

hanging from a tree in a little net basket.

And, I guess that was my thank you

for the courtesies extended to these guys and the cast

who were down there.

So I still have that head and I've had a lot of fun with it

over the years.

As a matter of fact,

I've had a number of people who wanted

to purchase that and the Crystal Lake sign,

but they bring back too many happy memories to me.

Paramount Pictures released "Friday the 13th Part 2"

on April 30, 1981.

Continuing the original film's winning ad campaign

highlighting the escalating body count,

PART 2 brought in a final domestic box office take

of $21 .7 million dollars.

Even if the sequel didn't achieve the monster success

of the original,

it was still a bona fide moneymaker.

If nothing more, it proved there was much more lifeblood

to be drained from Jason Voorhees.

The film came out, and it was amazingly successful.

We were all very proud of it.

We made it on a very small budget

and pretty adverse circumstances.

You know, somebody from Paramount called me up one day

and they said, "You're starring

in the number one box office movie in America."

You know, it sort of sinks in then.

And I'm glad that it's an iconic kind of horror movie.

I was shocked.

I had no idea that there was such a fan base

for this film, and for Ginny.

And everyone I've met has been excited

and just been nothing but gracious.

When I got involved in the second "Friday the 13th"

I had never seen the first one,

so I didn't know what I was getting into.

And I very quickly had to sort of get up to speed,

and I had to very quickly sort of had to assimilate myself

into a place that I hadn't been because of the opportunity,

and the faith that people had in me, that they gave me,

it turned out to be a, you know,

like a life changing sort of dynamic for me.

We were actually shooting the end of the movie,

and Frank comes up and says,

"Can I talk to you for a minute?'

and I said, "Sure." So he said, he said

"I have two job offers when this film is over."

He said, "One is I can be Robert Evans' assistant.

He's doing a film for Paramount.

Or, I can produce my own film.

Which do you think I should do?"

And I said , "You know, I think you should do your own film.

I think that that would be great for you.

I think you're ready to do that."

And I was just really thrilled that he asked.

And I had no idea what he was talking about.

And it turned out to be "Friday the 13th Part 3."

And off he went.

And he did a great job with the series.

I had no idea it was going to work the way it did.

In fact I really thought

it wasn't going to work the way it did.

And I'm delighted to have been so wrong.

Bolstered by the success of "Part 2,"

"Friday the 13th" managed to survive its sophomore slump.

A third installment seemed a foregone conclusion.

This time, however,

the previous film's surviving character

would not return to face Jason.

"Part 3" was going to have me as a trauma patient

in a mental hospital

and that Jason was going to come to find me

and now his focus of revenge was all on me.

And then he started offing all the patients,

and they were going to call it "Friday the 13th

Meets Cuckoo's Nest."

I was offered to write "Part 3" but I turned it down.

I didn't want to be pigeon-holed

as "Friday the 13th" guy.

I said no because I thought I was going to go on

to all these like other things, and I didn't have time.

But in hindsight I should have just done it

and had a great time.

Once again, Steve Miner returned to the director's chair

while script supervisor Martin Kitrosser,

along with his wife Carol Watson,

wrote the screenplay.

This time, the Boston-based investors

put the film into the hands of a young,

but extremely capable, new producer.

These guys in Boston were used to working

with people that they knew,

like they knew Steve Miner from the first movie.

He was a PA. Then the second movie he directed.

He directed the third movie.

So they liked sort of hanging onto people.

Despite receiving a serviceable first draft

from Kitrosser and Watson,

the producers ultimately decided that the script

needed more work before the project could be green lit

for production.

I was friendly with Frank Mancuso,

and he mentioned that they had the screenplay

in a series of horror movies,

it was called "Friday the 13th."

It's not a bad script, but it has to be re-written.

It has to have a different kind of atmosphere.

It has to be a lot more sinister,

a lot more menacing.

In addition to injecting the screenplay

with more horror and menace,

Steve Miner felt that "Part 3" could benefit

from the revival of a gimmick

that he hoped would draw audiences back into theaters.

And one that would make it possible for Jason

to literally jump off the screen.

"Friday the 13th Part 3" would be shot... in 3D.

Back in the early 80s, Frank Mancuso, Sr. and I

sat in an office in Toronto

and discussed the idea of really trying to do

something radically new in film

that would help the theaters out a great deal.

And what kind of a movie should we make?

Should we do something like "Star Trek 3D"

which is what was originally discussed,

or should we try to do something that's horror

and to try to really break the ground in horror films?

We spoke a lot about the horror films

that came out in the 50s in 3D.

I had not seen many 3D movies, maybe one or two only.

He took me to a 3D screening of "Dial M for Murder"

which was... he, Steve Miner was a fan of that movie,

and a fan of Hitchcock in general.

Frank Mancuso, Jr. really saw the idea

of what the potential was.

That whole idea of going to a theater,

putting these kind of goofy glasses on.

You want to have that fun and so, you know,

that was part of the charm, I think.

To help defray costs associated with the new 3D technology,

the production team moved to the west coast.

And by the spring of 1982,

the search was underway for yet another resourceful

female survivor and a youthful cast

of soon-to-be victims.

I sat in on the casting,

and I was surprised how different my ideas

of who should be the girl were

compared to who was selected by Steve Miner.

Well , I had done a film called "Sweet Sixteen,"

and I guess the producer/director

saw me in that,

And I went for an audition and basically met with Steve Miner

and that was it.

I didn't really have to do a whole lot of auditioning for it.

There was a group of us. There was the jock,

and the good-looking girl,

and the nerd and his good-looking date...

I don't think so.

And the stoners.

They didn't really tell us much on the interview.

It was very secret. There wasn't a lot talked about.

My mother was an agent at the time,

and I was getting ready to go to college.

I had been working as a child as an actress,

and it was time to go to college,

and I was excited about that.

My mom called my agent and said,

"There's an interview for a movie of some sort.

Crystal Japan."

But when we finally found out what it was,

oh, it was so exciting. It was wonderful.

Actor Larry Zerner was literally approached on the street

by the film's screenwriters,

who thought he was perfect for the role

of the overweight, insecure prankster.

Andy: Relax. Be yourself.

Shelly: Would you be yourself if you looked like this?

Shelly was unattractive and heavy,

and he just had very poor self- esteem

so he thought that if he had these little tricks,

that would bring attention to him,

which would make people like him.

Shelly: I guess I fooled you, huh?

He's a little misguided that way.

Vera: Why do you do these stupid things?

Shelly: I just want you to like me.

I think given Vera's character,

she did see the good in him,

despite the fact that she was supposed to be a babe.

And I talk to people who go, you know,

I really love Shelly or I love the character and I love you.

And then I do talk to a certain amount of people who go--

Hated Shelly. Worst character in the series.

After the dilemma

of finding a capable stuntman in "Part 2,"

the filmmakers decided they needed someone more agile,

more athletic and more powerful to play the savage killer.

I was actually working as a stuntman in LA.

My background is actually circus.

I spent most of my life as a flying trapeze artist

in the circus.

He looked like the boogeyman.

He looked creepy and scary

in the way that Richard Brooker had him moving.

There's a certain malevolent intelligence

to the character in "3" that's not

seen in the other movies per se.

I didn't get any direction from Steve Miner at all actually.

He actually came to me and said, you know,

"Don't ever come to me and ask me what your motivation is

because you have no motivation.

You're just a mindless killer, and you just go out and kill.

You're like the living version of "Jaws."

The creative choice that Steve Miner made

to keep Jason lurking and unseen,

I think was just a masterful creative choice

that added to the suspense.

Steve knew that it was better to try to keep Jason

kind of in the background as a shadowy figure

as opposed to, you know,

just turning around and having Jason stand there.

And he kept that going throughout the whole movie

so you really didn't know or see, you know,

how big Jason was until right at the climax of the movie.

Steve Miner was a very laid-back director,

and there was not a lot of tension on the set

so it was easy to work with him.

I had worked in the business since I was 2 years old,

and I had worked with a lot of directors.

And a lot of... in my mind, directors were grown-ups

and Steve was another kid.

Never difficult. Never hard on us.

Just a nice guy.

In an homage to his idol Alfred Hitchcock,

Steve Miner appears in an early cameo

playing the newscaster reporting on the aftermath

of "Part 2."

The whole community of

Crystal Lake was shocked today

with reports of a grisly, mass-murder scene.

Naturally, the ominous warning goes unheeded

by Jason's next batch of victims.

I have warned thee!

You know, a lot of kids don't listen to the news, you know?

They got better things to do with their life.

So I think it's understandable that all of us would be,

you know, heading up to Crystal Lake

to be with our friends.

The day after the events in "Part 2,"

so it's technically Saturday the 14th,

but don't tell anyone.

It was filmed at a ranch in Saugus, California.

They actually built the set there

so everything was in one location.

They built a little lake.

They built the barn.

They built the house and so everything was done right there.

Shooting was put off for a day or so

because there was an infestation of bees around.

So there were rattlesnakes everywhere

and some of the guys, some of the grips had guns

and then they'd hear this gun going off

because they were shooting rattlesnakes.

Here we are on the set of "Friday the 13th Part 3,"

In 3D.

Over here's the house that we used,

that unfortunately burned about a year ago,

but the fireplace is still there.

But this house was built just for us.

It was a great atmosphere.

Our producer was young. Our director was young.

The whole cast were a bunch of young kids.

And it was a very relaxed atmosphere.

Everyone having a good time, and everyone having fun.

Well , it was also the first movie with the 3D camera,

which was kind of exciting.

I mean, it was a very unusual camera.

This was the lens that was used

to shoot "Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D."

As you can see, it's really light weight and hand held,

and it permitted you to really make a horror movie

the way other horror movies are made.

We could do things like shoot long lenses with it.

We could do rack focuses with it.

Steve Miner did wonderful work with Gerry Fiel

by shooting a whole picture on a moving Louma crane.

The first feature film

to utilize the all-new Marks 3D system,

"Friday the 13th Part 3" encountered more than its share

of technical mishaps along the way.

The 3D was very difficult.

It was a brand new process. No one had ever used it before.

Today 3D, I'm sure, has come much farther

and is a lot easier to shoot.

Back then it would take hours to set up a shot.

There was a lot of time to just, as an actor,

to just sit around and wait.

That's what we did mostly.

And there was always something going wrong with it.

We were using at the time, which was very new,

a Louma crane.

And in the first run they did down the track,

it collapsed.

The whole thing went over.

So, you know, they had to start all over again.

And I remember the guy who ran it,

he showed up one day with a shirt that said,

"I Hate the Louma."

The first thing we shot was the scene at the store,

and they ended up basically throwing that away

because it was really just a test

to see if it could be done and then they revised it,

and we came back a week later and then we did it.

You had to do it exactly the way you were directed,

or the 3D effect wouldn't turn out.

So it was very precise.

Often times we would do additional takes

just because there were technical issues.

So as an actor that was a little frustrating.

When we're doing takes, you know,

I'm throwing the wallet at the camera in the store just...

it's just take after take

because you have to hit right to the camera

otherwise it doesn't work.

So things did take more takes than usual

because I had to be perfectly right into the camera.

You weren't really worried so much about your acting skills

as much as could you get that yo-yo

to go right in the lens.

That was more important than anything else.

Director Steve Miner focused on creating

a totally new look for Jason

and a host of gory practical effects

that needed to leap out at the audience in 3D.

Some of the good 3D gags,

he puts a knitting needle through a woman's mouth

so it comes out the front.

When it comes out her mouth,

it's actually a plastic version of the knitting needle

connected to the original one,

and it's actually behind Richard's hand.

She just has her mouth open,

and it's being fed down the side of his hand

and out through his fingers.

It's definitely a movie that should be seen in 3D.

If you watch it on DVD,

it.. .just a lot of the stuff just doesn't work.

When you watch it on 3D, it's like a whole other movie.

People who see it in a good 3D projection

do say it is one of their favorites.

"Part 3" had me at the credits.

When those credits came out part way and the whole music,

the whole disco thing,

and then they came out further, was so cool.

The creative force behind the film's now famous disco theme

was renowned music producer Michael Zager,

who shared credit with a fictional band

that he named "Hot Ice."

I'm not sure if disco was dead,

but it was certainly... It was still around.

Disco really never goes away anyway.

Once you hear it, you start to move,

you feel...you feel the groove, I guess, you know.

I had no idea that this would become such a huge

and popular thing.

For example, in all the discos, gay clubs.

I understand there's actually a tribute band

who plays that particular piece live which astounds me.

People just come to me and like,

"I just really love that tune."

Get yourself a little drum machine

and you're on your way.

You, too, can be "Hot Ice."

In one of the film's more memorable scenes,

Shelly and Vera are accosted at a general store

by a fearsome motorcycle-riding trio.

Hey, we're back in the store where we filmed the scene

in "Friday the 13th Part 3."

This is the Spunky Canyon Market.

It is located in Green Valley, California.

This is the scene where we go to the store to buy stuff,

and Vera goes to talk to the cash register girl,

and she says that famous line...

We don't accept no food stamps.

The other two members of the gang, Fox and Ali,

played by Gloria Charles and Nick Savage,

were great and I think that, very much like myself,

I don't think that that was their natural role.

Then they throw the condom thing in.

Is this your rubber?

I was more embarrassed than the character,

the other character was supposed to be

about someone talking about a condom.

Right behind me is.. .was where the motorcycles were.

There's that scene where the car backs up

and one time I did hit the motorcycle on accident,

and they were not happy with me.

One of the first things we shot

when we started shooting the movie

was the sequence in the Volkswagen

and somebody smashes the Volkswagen window out,

and Larry Zerner looks to the camera and said...

You went too far this time.

Shelly gets us out of there

and I think shared experiences, you know,

like that bring people together.

Shelly: I did it! Did I do it?

Vera: Yes, you did it. You were great!

So there was a scene that was in the original script

that we never shot

where the Volkswagen headed down that road

and then the motorcycle gang got on the motorcycles

and chased us down.

And Shelly had a champagne bottle

that he bought at the store,

and what he did is he popped the cork

into their face

which caused the motorcycle to fly off

and them to be able to get away.

And it would have been a whole lot of fun

but we never shot it.

And I don't know why.

One of my favorite shots in the movie

is when we're going to siphon the gas out of the van

and that great shot of Tracie Savage

that goes basically from her behind to me.

[BARKS LIKE A DOG]

I love the idea of siphoning gas

with a lit cigarette.

It's amazing. The barn's still here.

Right above is actually where my little body

was swinging back and forth.

The swinging part was the scariest part for me

because they had this harness on me inside my pants

that were way too tight.

I was absolutely afraid of heights.

And I took this as an opportunity

for me to just face that fear and say...

This feels good!

Inside is where I so stupidly walked in.

Amazing. That's where I was pitchforked.

The stunt coordinator had hooked her up on a wire support

to the rafters so she was already in position.

The fork was actually a real pitchfork

but had the two prongs in the center were collapsible,

and the hard part was for me to not giggle

while I was hanging there.

Same thing for the one biker guy who Jason stabs.

So we had to cut off the tangs in the back

and that welded to a plate and put that on his back.

We needed to get the impact of the pitchfork

and then be certain that the handle

was sticking at the direct point of the camera.

I didn't put up a struggle.

I didn't, you know... I just said

"Okay, it's my turn."

I was a fairly good juggler before being cast in the movie,

and originally they had asked us to do paddle balls.

No matter how good you are,

you can't get the ball to go into the camera.

The ball goes like that.

You can't... it won't go into the camera.

So it just wasn't working with the paddle balls.

Jeffrey could juggle a little bit,

and I helped him get a little better

and so me and Jeff did the juggling scene.

Later in the film, it is revealed

that Chris was attacked by Jason several years earlier.

But for actress Dana Kimmell,

the implication that her character may have been

sexually violated by Jason simply went too far.

He had a knife... and he attacked me with it!

I came on the set and Dana and Steve

were arguing about what the character should be like.

Steve was insisting for a sort of daring girl

and which she remained in the end.

But Dana wanted someone that had a certain kind of purity.

He ran after me.

He caught me, and he pulled me down to the ground.

As far as the monologue goes,

I don't remember all the particulars that go with it,

but I know I always wanted Chris to be portrayed

as a very positive character.

I don't know what happened after that,

I just don't know!

In fact, the revelation that she might have been violated

was the most shocking

because that scene was a sort of controversial scene.

"Should we have it, should we not have it?"

At any rate, it was something that she won,

so to speak.

Dana Kimmell

was and is the consummate professional,

and she worked hard.

I mean , certainly the movie had a bunch of goofy

sexuality innuendo in it as it was,

but I don't think it was hurt by that

if that was indeed the case.

The film's true defining moment saw the transformation

of Jason Voorhees from slasher movie footnote

into movie monster legend.

And no one would ever look at a hockey mask

the same way again.

In "Friday the 13th Part 3,"

Jason wears, for the very first time,

a hockey mask which he has taken from Shelly.

You just see Jason suddenly turn up in Shelly's hockey mask.

So you know that, you know, Shelly's dead.

He not only has the hockey mask,

he has another mask that he actually wears

earlier in the movie.

He actually thought to bring two masks up to Crystal Lake,

along with the spear gun and a wetsuit

and I guess a change of clothes, all in this little bag...

Vera: What do you got in there?

Shelly: My whole world.

This dock behind me,

this is where the legend of Jason was born.

This is the first time we saw him step out in the hockey mask.

The birth of Jason.

I was never a huge fan of the sack

because I just felt like

it didn't have any real substance to it,

and we wanted something that would mask Jason.

But at the same time, you know,

it had to have a level of menace to it.

Sam Winston made a latex mask.

And that's what I wore all the way through the movie.

For some unknown reason they didn't like the mask.

They thought it looked too much like a monster,

and so they came up with the idea to cover it

with a hockey mask.

I don't think at the time it really struck me,

when I saw the hockey mask,

that this was going to just go on and on

to "Friday the 13th Part 11" and so on.

But I can see why.

It did kind of create this imposing, ominous character.

I think the whole hockey mask thing was kind of a fluke.

I'm not really sure how it came about.

God , who came up with the hockey mask?

I don't really know.

My recollection was that, you know,

multiple kinds of masks were brought around

and so on and so forth,

and then somebody brought the hockey mask and said,

"Hockey mask, that's great."

I think it was Frank that brought the mask.

I'm sure it was Steven.

I mean , he was really thoughtful and really knew that genre.

The one thing that everybody likes to take credit for

is who put the hockey mask on Jason.

And I must admit, in modesty,

that I put the hockey mask on Jason.

Peter Schindler, Marty Becker

and Marty Sadoff were all hockey fans.

And it was their idea to come up with a hockey mask

to cover the face up.

Success has a lot of fathers,

and everybody's willing to take a little bit of credit for it,

I think, and maybe that's just the best.

Once we had the mask, it was sort of said, "This is it.

This is our...this is our signature piece."

It's part of the iconography of what this movie is,

and so I wanted to make sure that we held onto that.

With the look of its iconic character now fully realized,

Jason could get back to doing what he does best.

Hey, now cut that out right now. That's not funny!

When that spear comes out in the audience,

everybody is reflexively avoiding that.

I mean , that was awesome.

And there was a cable that was actually set up

on the post that ran across

to where she was standing,

and I basically think,

kind of was rigged in such a way

that I actually hooked the gun onto the cable

and shot it so it went straight down the cable.

And then we made an acrylic plate that fit over her eyeball.

We had to do it in one take

because the minute I hit the water,

the little prosthetic was kind of spongy,

and it would absorb the water and just kind of slide off.

But it was fun. It was really a lot of fun.

Andy: How do we do it?

Debbie: Well, first we take our clothes off.

For me, the most trying situation

about making this movie was that I was a kid

and this was the first movie I had ever done

without my parent on the set.

I was 18 and I had to do a shower scene

where there was some frontal nudity.

In the beginning, I might have been

a little uncomfortable with it but all these years later,

I think, "Wow, I had a pretty nice body." (laughs)

Jeffrey Rogers' part in the show

was he came walking down the hallway on his hands,

and he's basically wearing just a pair of jeans

and then Jason shows up with a machete

and basically splits him in half from the groin down

through his chest.

So he splits wide open.

I mean, that is horrifically gory

but it's classic Jason.

And we did a body cast of him in pieces.

They actually, in the house,

built a Plexiglas floor that the camera was mounted down inside

so we could do the shot through the floor,

up to the ceiling.

Then, of course, there's the next scene

where Tracie Savage sees Jeffrey stuffed up in the rafters.

Even actress Tracie Savage was unaware

of just how closely her on- screen death

resembled that of a certain famous, yet ill-fated, character

from the original "Friday the 13th."

I had no idea that Kevin Bacon and I have so much in common.

Another six degree separation from Kevin Bacon.

There you go.

We died the same way?

I was in makeup for 4 hours

so that they could glue this torso to my neck.

Then it was lighting for another 2-3 hours.

All for a 3-second shot.

And you had to get it right

because then , if you don't, you gotta do it all over again.

So we were all kind of on pins and needles.

I think that line...

Chris: We would have been there already

if some people didn't have to go to the bathroom

every five minutes.

Debbie: That's what happens when you're pregnant.

...was put in there just to make the teenage kids go...ooh.

And then when I'm killed make it even more grisly and awful.

This is a pregnant woman.

There was never a death scene filmed for Shelly.

It was always, that's exactly how it was in the script.

I guess you're supposed to think, well,

maybe he's joking again?

Nice make-up job.

Although obviously the audience knows he's not joking

because they've seen Jason kill a bunch of people.

I think I did the first take,

and I think I heard some people chuckling.

They were like, they were like, "That's bad."

I was like, that all got into my head.

It's not the greatest death scene in the world.

Well, I don't know what's going on,

but I'm gonna go outside and take a look around.

I think my favorite kill was probably

Rick getting his eye popped out.

They did change the name of the character.

In the original script it was Derek,

and the reason why they changed it

was at the end of the film when I go outside,

and I get killed,

and she comes out and starts yelling the name out,

that they wanted a monosyllabic name for her to say.

Rick?!

You know, of course,

the death that my character experienced,

me getting my head crushed,

was I mean, this was, yeah, that's historic.

I just remember when Paul's eyeball popped out,

the whole audience just screamed at that one and it was like,

Oh, that's great.

Technically, it was very hard to do,

and it was one of those things

you only had one chance of doing it,

especially the 3D effect.

Well , in actuality we did the Paul Kratka head twice.

I was actually playing with a bunch of stuff

trying to figure out how to make and collapse the head properly.

Anytime they wanted to, we could just pull the string

and the eye would pop out of the socket

and come straight down the line toward camera.

The last part of the filming was basically Jason and Chris.

(Chris screams)

And a lot of night shooting.

She runs up the stairs, and I'm at the bottom of the stairs

and she tips the bookcase up on top of me.

And I have to say that hurt like hell.

It's Dana who finds me in the closet later on

with the knife sticking out of my neck

after I've already been killed.

It was an easy day. I didn't have to memorize any lines.

When he's breaking down that door,

and the whole thing where he gets stabbed in the hand

and stabbed in the leg, those are intense moments.

I mean, those grip you

because then it becomes him not so much a monster

as a human who has monstrous capabilities.

And then I chased her up the stairs,

and she went in through the bedroom window

and went out the window.

Then she tried to run away in the car,

and the car ran out of gas on the bridge.

No!!

I think I kept in shape doing that film.

There were, there was a time or two

where I was running through the woods

right after the scene where he grabs me in the van,

and , you know, breaks the window with his head,

and I bolt out the other side.

There's a place where I run and fall,

and actually when I did that, I didn't get hurt

but people in the cast-- in the crew were just gasping

because they thought I had really fallen

and smacked my face.

So that was good.

When I went into the barn after her,

you know, it was.. .Steve and I had obviously spoken about it,

and Jason at this point is now really angry

because he hasn't managed to do what he wanted to do

and that was kill her.

And so, he just said, you know,

we don't need the barn anymore so just tear it up.

So I grabbed whatever I could and smashed whatever I could.

But then the scene in the barn on the beam,

I actually did that and shimmied out

and that was, you know, I don't know,

20 feet above the ground,

and I ended up with some bruises from that one,

but I turned out okay.

Jason gets pushed out of the barn,

and he's hanging and the mask has to come off,

and she sees his face for the first time

and recognizes who he is. - It's you!

We had a mold of Richard Brooker's head,

and we wanted the axe to be able to stick,

so that's why we used the rigid polyfoam

so the axe had something to stick into.

There wasn't that much makeup until the dream sequence.

I used to have to go in and do about 6,

sometimes 7 hours of makeup.

And it was 11 different appliances

that they glued to my face,

with the one eye lower down,

you know, and certain teeth and the whole thing.

It was awfully painful.

I mean, he had to be in that make-up for like 6 hours,

and it was hot and sweaty.

And you could see that he was very uncomfortable.

The bad part about it was that as soon as they finished,

it was usually lunch time, and I couldn't eat.

So they used to give me Tiger's Milk through a straw

so I would get some nourishment for the day.

We shot the ending twice.

We actually did another ending.

Dana Kimmell comes up to the door of the house in a dream,

and Jason comes through the front door and decapitates her.

And that was just an alternate ending

that somewhere along the lines somebody came up with.

It was a very quick thing.

It wasn't something that, you know,

we knew was going to happen in advance.

It was just kind of one of those added scenes

that they said let's just do this real quick.

It was only when we did the infamous alternate ending

that you really started to see his face

and that's what they didn't like,

and that's why the alternate ending

was totally scrapped out of the movie.

So we made the mask. We sculpted it.

Then they came up with the new dream sequence

that Jason's at the house,

and she sees him at the top window

and then comes down and blasts through the door.

Steve Miner said that he wanted this creature

to come out of the lake as if it was Mrs. Voorhees

who had been down there for awhile.

I have no idea how she got her body back,

but it's a dream.

They gave us Marilyn Poucher and just said,

"She's your guinea pig. Use her."

Little did she know what she was in for.

Once we started doing the makeup,

it took about 6 hours,

and I remember just sort of like,

falling asleep at certain times.

It was just downright horrible

because the water was just full of mosquito larvae

and baby frogs and tadpoles.

It was just like, oh, it was pretty nasty.

Covered her in river slime and vinyl worms,

and the rest is history.

[Chris screams]

So this is the actual mask that was done of my skin.

It's a little, a little, oh, here's a worm. (laughs)

Luckily they were able to cut it off,

and we peeled it off

because then I had to do the shot three more times.

While not as deliberately ambiguous

as the ending of "Part 2,"

the film's conclusion suggests

that the door has again been left open

for the return of Jason.

But what of the fate of traumatized Chris Higgins

who was never seen or heard from again?

I would say Chris has recovered.

Even though she drove away looking like she was losing it

there in the back of the cop car,

I think that she was strong enough

to recover and move on.

And that's the way I wanted to portray that character,

as a survivor, and I think Chris did that.

(Screams)

A new dimension in terror.

It will scare you!

"Friday the 13th Part 3" was released on August 13, 1982

with Paramount spending millions of dollars

to equip theaters with the new technology

required to show the 3D film.

Their investment quickly paid off

when the film managed

to knock the year's reigning box office champion,

Steven Spielberg's "E.T.," from the #1 spot.

With a final U.S. take of $36.7 million dollars,

"Friday the 13th Part 3"

ushered in a new wave of 3D films in the 1980s.

And remains one of the most profitable installments

of the franchise.

I believe the choice to do this in 3D

was really risky but, in retrospect,

it was brilliant.

"Friday the 13th Part 3" was the first big hit 3D movie

of the 80s and the audience was just screaming.

And we made our money back

before the first matinee show in Los Angeles.

And I find that very rewarding,

and it's been great being able to meet people

that appreciate and have enjoyed those films

from back then.

Actress Tracie Savage went on to a successful career

as a broadcast journalist.

Best known for her coverage

of the sensational OJ Simpson murder trial in 1995.

As a news reporter

in different markets all across the country,

people knew where to find me.

They'd see me on the air

and every newsroom I've ever worked in,

I've always gotten fan mail from "Friday the 13th" fans.

And I still do. I still do.

Part of the charm of the movies are, is that,

you know, it really invited people to engage.

It really invited people to go out, have fun.

And when we did that film, at the time

that was going to be the last "Friday the 13th."

At the wrap party, Frank Mancuso declared

that he was not going to produce another one.

This is the permanent death.

We're not going to do this again.

This is it. He's dead.

They really stressed the fact

that they wanted to make sure that I had killed Jason

because that was going to be it.

But, as you see, somehow he kept coming back.

When Paramount announced a fourth "Friday the 13th"

at the end of 1983,

producer Frank Mancuso, Jr.

Was feeling the critical backlash

against slasher films.

And "Friday the 13th" in particular.

He decided it was time to kill off Jason

once and for all.

When we got done with "3,"

I was like, "Okay,

what I want to do now is I really want to bring this thing

to an effective close."

With the departure of Steve Miner,

Mancuso and investor Phil Scuderi

set their sights on finding a new director.

Their search led them to Joseph Zito,

who had impressed Scuderi with his 1981 slasher film,

"The Prowler."

With an early draft of the script

written by the late Bruce Hidemi Sakow,

the filmmakers set out to make the best and "final" chapter.

The people at Paramount said this to me.

They weren't going to do any more films

and this was the last.

So I knew that it would be book ended

with a dead Jason and another dead Jason,

you know, at the end.

We'll do some things that refer to our past.

Jason's out there.

We'll bring this thing to its rightful conclusion.

Noooo!

And we'll be done.

So the idea for the last movie,

which we thought "The Final Chapter" was,

was just to resurrect Jason one more time

and then kill him in a way where the film grammar

said he's really dead.

I wanted to pick it up exactly where Friday 3 left off.

That he was on the ground just exactly where you had left him.

We crane down on a bunch of police cars arriving,

helicopter has a searchlight.

You know, gives you kind of a big-budget feel

and very dramatic opening.

I held off Jason coming to life for a long time

in the film.

The audience is continuously on edge through these kind

of languorous, elegant shots.

When is Jason going to re-awaken?

The audience certainly is not going to believe he's dead,

but they become co-conspirators in bringing him to life.

They start yelling at the screen for him to get up.

So instead of groaning that he gets up too soon,

and they say, aw, this is fake, they make him get up.

As Jason's put into the freezer,

we see a little puff of air so we get the first hint

that Jason is not dead.

Once again, the producers chose to recast the role of Jason.

This time turning to a rough trade Hollywood veteran

to don the hockey mask.

Regarding the actor to play Jason,

I wanted to go with a really experienced Hollywood stuntman

and Ted White was a very--

He had doubled famous, you know, Hollywood actors.

He was an older guy, way older,

twice the age, almost three times the age

of some of the kids he was killing.

I actually turned it down to begin with

and later on I did accept it.

After I accepted it, I did go down

and rent two of the Jasons,

and I watched Jason itself,

how he moved and so forth.

And I felt that I'd like to play him a little bit different.

I'd like for him to move a little bit different.

I didn't want that slow motion routine anymore,

and I thought that if this is the final chapter,

then that's the way I'd like to take it out.

He has a sense of dramatic timing

that other Jasons, you know, maybe didn't think about

in the same way because they didn't have 40 years experience

of being before the camera.

There was a nurse there that I'm supposed to strangle,

and when I shoved her up against the wall,

she had a button on the back of her cap,

and when her head hit the wall,

the button kind of penetrated her head just a little bit,

and she yelled out.

These are the times when you back up

and say you're not really Jason, you know.

You're just doing a thing here.

You're supposed to be making a few bucks and not hurt anybody.

You know, this is not a guy who was waiting his whole life,

he's not a fan of "Friday the 13th,"

and someone who was waiting for the opportunity

to be in "Friday the 13th."

It's a guy who came to work and had to put a mask on

and had to put fake teeth in that made him drool

and was embarrassed by the entire thing,

was happy that you couldn't see his face.

The job of creating the film's bloody make-up effects

initially went to future Oscar winner Greg Cannom.

But when Cannom left the project

due to "personality differences,"

director Joe Zito called upon the one man

who could rightfully be called Jason's father.

It's almost like I'm Dr. Frankenstein.

I created the monster.

Thank you for letting me kill the monster, which I did.

Tom Savini did a wonderful job, I thought, of makeup.

And that was a 4 1/2 hour makeup job every morning.

I actually replaced a makeup artist

on "The Final Chapter,"

and luckily, that's what they were doing.

They were designing the adult Jason

from my makeup design on the kid,

which is only logical I would think, you know,

so I was glad they were doing it,

but I had nothing to do with the design, you know.

They did a very good job.

It's funny that in all of our conversations

about Jason coming back to life,

nobody ever used the word zombie. Ever.

We never heard it.

We knew you couldn't exactly kill him,

and he would always be coming back to life.

So it's sort of like he just wouldn't die.

You can't be alive!

After escaping from the morgue,

Jason returns to his familiar slayground at Crystal Lake

Where he quickly sets his sights on the Jarvis family.

A recently divorced mother,

a pretty-yet-reserved teenage daughter,

and a very special boy named Tommy.

I remember walking into the casting office

and going "'Friday the 13th?"

I thought this was for "Halloween."

And they were like, "No, no, no.

It's "Friday the 13th."

And I was like, "Oh, right, of course. I knew that."

Corey walked in there, and he was so alive,

and so friendly and he and I, just we clicked.

I went, I did my audition and then at the end of it,

I remember my mom telling me like, "Okay,

they really liked you a lot but they have some concerns."

And I said, "What are the concerns?"

And she said, 'Well, they just think you're too small,

and, you know, it's not very believable

that this little tiny kid

is going to pick up the machete and, you know,

whack the hell out of this 6 foot 5 bad guy."

And I went, "Give me a machete. Let's give it a shot." (Laughs)

And I think that was the end of it.

You could see with Corey. You really could.

This young man was going to skyrocket.

And I remember it was a very big deal

because "Gremlins" and "Friday" were both coming out

pretty much over the same summer,

within a couple weeks of each other

from what I remember,

so that was very exciting as a kid

to have these two giant blockbusters coming out.

I think Kimberly and Corey and I got along well

because they're just nice people.

A Jarvis Sandwich!

I did a lot of work about the parents being divorced

and then I was going to protect my brother,

that I would take care of him emotionally,

and that, you know, we were going to make it as a family

without my dad.

Trish: My parents are separated. You know, middle-aged crazies.

And I do remember her doing a lot of, kind of,

looking after me, making sure that I was taken care of.

She was kind of the person

that I think I could probably relate to most.

I at least felt that it was a real connection.

As much as I could bring to that role,

I wanted to bring to it.

There was thought about making

the surviving characters outsiders.

So Trish isn't really one of the guys.

She's an outsider.

She's not ready to become part of the party,

or the party doesn't want her.

Tommy's an outsider, like Jason.

Tommy's a kid that doesn't fit in.

I argue that one of the reasons Tommy Jarvis

has been as popular as he's been

is because that was a very relatable character

to the core audience in these movies

that they could very easily see themselves in

and ultimately sort of the challenges that he has,

the kind of outsider kid who's a little bit freaky.

He's got hobbies that maybe not everybody approves of per se.

At a roadside cemetery, the grave site of Mrs. Voorhees,

and her first name, are revealed for the first time ever.

I found out her name was Pamela,

I guess about 10 years after I did the film.

I didn't know.

Of course we were aware putting a mother character in the film

that fans who knew "Part 1" would think about that.

That idea of Joe giving me a hint

that maybe I should look sinister

when I looked out the window

because of the mother being the one

that did the killing in one of the other movies.

Never occurred to me.

Never occurred to Joe, I don't think,

or he certainly didn't tell me that.

We didn't play it hard, and we didn't try to suggest

that she was going to be a villain,

but she does make a judgment on these kids,

and it feels like these kids are going to bring

trouble and bad stuff onto my kids.

And, of course, she's completely right.

With the events of "The Final Chapter"

picking up directly after PART 2 and 3,

fans have pointed out a number of holes

in the series' continuity and timeline.

My character, Rob, had a sister named Sandra

who was a counselor at Crystal Lake

in "Part 2," I think.

ROB: My sister Sandra was just a really great kid.

TRISH: But the man that killed your sister is dead.

We butt up against "Friday 3" in chronology,

yet Rob is doing some stuff that he hasn't been doing

since just a couple of days ago.

When I read it,

I did not connect that character

with someone who had died the same day

or the day before or a few days before.

So I assumed Rob had been searching

for a longer time than it turns out he was actually searching.

TRISH: What are you hunting for up here?

ROB: Bear. Anybody up at the lake today?

TOMMY: You can't be hunting for bear.

Zito said he didn't want to invent really cool new ways

to kill kids, although we eventually did.

He said, "All I want you to do

is make real kids that look like real kids

and whatever we do to them will be horrifying."

It would be nice to make them so likeable

that you were sorry when they got killed.

I wanted the kids to be a little more real,

and it took a lot of pain in casting for that.

It was not an easy piece to bring in "the names."

That's not what "Friday the 13th" was about.

I got lucky.

The people who were really the stars

were Peter Barton who had just come off a series

called "Powers of Matthew Star."

And the other one was Lawrence Monoson

who had starred in "The Last American Virgin."

I've been lucky in the sense

that I've had certain roles throughout my career,

part of these legacy franchises,

and this is certainly one of them,

and it's nice to be a little part of a big thing.

Arguably one of the most memorable victims

in the "Friday the 13th" series

was Crispin Glover's sex-starved,

yet hopelessly insecure, Jimmy.

The film marked the beginning of a long career

for the young artist,

who became known for his wildly eccentric behavior,

both on and off camera.

Crispin Glover and I had a love fest.

I adored him.

He was the most unique young man that...

he just really, you couldn't pigeonhole him at all.

On the set, he was always the oddball.

He was always the one that kept to himself.

He was always the one that was kind of like

in his own little world.

He's an eccentric. He's mysterious.

But he just walks to the beat of a different drum.

Crispin and I actually worked really hard on our characters

and the relationship.

And we both loved improv.

He thinks that's funny.

He thinks it's a funny thing he's doing.

And that stuff in the back of the van

when we're all driving, and I'm typing on the beer cans

and the "dead fuck" lines.

TED: It says you're a dead fuck.

JIMMY: A dead fuck?

Crispin and I made all that up, you know,

and they just let us have fun with it.

The two of them together really had a great thing going,

a really good rapport.

I think you should run that through your little computer.

And they were pretty good buddies on that set

and it did show.

It showed a relationship.

I think that's so important in these films

to have that.

In one of the film's more memorable sequences,

Jimmy decides to bust out his dance moves.

I don't remember what song Crispin was really dancing to.

I just know that he was dancing really crazy. (laughs)

In the way that only Crispin could be.

And it was just fun. It was just really fun and funny.

There's slightly the weirdest thing about our roles

which would first be the sexy girls

who were sort of coming, you know, from,

to join in with this other group of people,

and all the boys are madly attracted to us,

and we're dressed in these ghastly clothes!

Well, what about our hair as well.

Our hair put up in sort of little sort of librarian buns.

I mean, and the pants seemed to be too big.

Everything was just sort of big and bulky and very unsexy.

Yeah, I wouldn't bonk either of us.

The twins, you know, they were the Doublemint twins

and they were loads of fun.

The biggest thing for me was boobies!

You know, I was an 11 -year-old boy.

I'm like, I get to do scenes with boobies.

Whoa.

Not much has changed.

I have to say the skinny dipping was very equal

because when we were shooting it,

we obviously as girls had to have no tops on,

but then the boys go,

"We'll do it with no bottoms on as well,"

and there they are swinging off ropes.

So, you know, it was a cute group

to work with, that's for sure.

At the time, I was the kid who was like

always wanting to get up in everybody's business.

I was like, "Hey, let's all go out.

Let's go do this.

What do you mean you're all going to town without me?

Why can't I come too?"

I mean, like, I really wanted to be a part of that group.

The first day was Halloween actually,

and I took him trick-or- treating.

And we went out on the street,

and this street was like a festival

of guys in Jason's masks.

So ironic that we were there actually creating this stuff

and then this group of people

were actually out there having a great time with it.

I think everybody was very sweet to Corey Feldman.

I remember getting along with everybody on that set.

The only person that I didn't get along with

or was afraid of was Ted White.

Mean little devil. I couldn't stand him.

I wanted to kill him desperately.

There were times when Corey got close to me

that it took all my reserve to not just reach out

and grab him and give him a good spanking.

Ted was very respectful when it came to the fact

that I was a kid, and he knew to keep his boundaries.

But at the same time

I don't think that he was really very aware

of how to deal with children.

Well, I was a child actor

so I had a lot in common with him.

It's a hard, a hard thing, a lot of your... I mean,

you miss a lot of your childhood.

You could see there was a dark side to Corey.

Not bad but wanting to stay with the actors

as opposed to getting in the car and going home

to the so-called "real life" that he was living.

Frank Mancuso Jr. was quite helpful keeping him together

and happy.

Even after the movies, you know, Frank,

we all stayed in touch with Corey.

As with "Part 3," the filmmakers chose rural areas

of Southern California to stand in

for the fictional New Jersey enclave of Crystal Lake.

We shot in three different places,

Franklin Canyon in Beverly Hills,

north of Santa Barbara in a place called Zaca Lake,

and in Topanga Canyon.

The Jarvis house would later be featured

in such films as "Eraser," "My Girl 2,"

and episodes of the HBO series "Entourage."

But for the cast of "The Final Chapter,"

working on the set presented a number of physical challenges.

And we're at the house where we shot the movie.

Tommy's room was up there on the second floor.

And the kids' house is over here, right?

The kids' house was right over here.

We built the kids' house, the house where they have the party,

and the house where they get killed, right over here.

It was my idea, and I don't mind telling you

the studio objected a lot

to have the houses in real proximity.

See, the thing is when we built this other house,

it was an expensive thing to do,

building a house as opposed to finding two houses,

but we really loved the Jarvis house.

I really loved the Jarvis house, and I really pushed for it.

So the studio agreed to build this other house here.

But the thing is that we had a design for it

where it was a really good house to shoot in, a big house,

but as they started doing the numbers

and analyzing the numbers,

the house got smaller and smaller

so in the end it wasn't a great house to shoot in,

but it was a cool-looking house.

The young people we had in the cast

were some of the greatest kids that I've ever worked with,

and I've worked with a lot of young kids in the business.

But what they went through to make this movie

was unbelievable.

Shooting the movie was pretty horrible

because it was raining the whole time,

and it was freezing cold because it was dead winter.

I didn't read the script when I got the job,

and I didn't read the last 40 pages of the script

said night rain.

ROB: What the hell are you doing here?

TRISH: What are you trying to do, kill me?

What I remember the most about those steps right there

is that for continuity's sake

at the end of the movie, I had to be wet

because it was raining all the time,

so in 35-degree weather,

I was hosed down with water from a tank

that was sitting outside in 35-degree weather.

Just unbelievable what they went through

for the amount of money they were making.

It was, it was a trial in a good way.

I felt like a Marine after it was over.

Once again, the real stars of this "Friday the 13th"

were the elaborate death sequences

designed by effects wunderkind Tom Savini.

I had done a movie called "The Prowler."

It was mostly a lot of special effects,

really good Tom Savini special effects.

I think that's what audiences came to see.

How is the next guy going to get it?

So that's what it was about.

And it was almost like the latest exhibit

from your favorite makeup artist magician.

How is Jason going to kill these kids?

So we spent a lot of time talking about

how to kill people in interesting ways.

And that's the number one thing you do with Savini

because it's his favorite thing in the world to do,

is talk about how to kill things.

This just kind of crazy mind that was always creating.

It was a terrific honor to work with Tom

and especially to be a part

of one of his last great effects films.

The choice of name for the character of the kid Tommy

was a little homage to Tom Savini

who contributed so much to these pictures.

I was really kind of fascinated with the process

of how this was all going to be put together

at some point

and so I used to hang out in Tom's trailer all the time

and watch them do the rehearsals for the different effects.

(Laughter)

The kids would come up to us.

"How am I going to die? How am I going to die?"

The juicier and grosser it was,

the more they loved it, you know?

And even the kills that had conventional things.

Because we had seen in "Friday the 13th"

a blade coming through the throat before,

right, from the first one.

So we gave the girl a banana.

Mmm. I love bananas.

It's sort of a comedic kill in a way

and a comedic character, but it's awful anyway.

I mean, the blade comes through her neck,

but you're sort of watching her squish the banana.

I never really met Ted White who played Jason.

Tom Savini stood in for him

because you only see Jason from the waist down.

He's the one that grabbed my head.

He's the one that pulled the knife down.

And the direction he gave me was,

"Okay, now this is a real knife.

You're not going to get hurt.

Don't fight me, just let me move your head

where it needs to be."

That was the scariest thing of the whole shoot for me.

The way the thing worked,

I had a track around my neck with a flexible steel blade

that pushed from the back

and then a false neck over it,

which took hours to put on it.

And it also had a little tube for blood to squirt.

So there were like 3 people behind me um, um,

laying down behind the sleeping bags

and my gear to work the entire thing.

It was such a messy little death.

We did full-on special effects

that were extended and bloodletting

and actually terrific.

I mean, the one of Judie Aronson

when she's killed in the boat

with the knife coming through her body.

I mean, the original cut on that was really totally cool.

I mean, it was extended, it was horrible to watch

because you really believed she was dying in there

and in pain for an extended period of time.

Sam, Judie Arsonson, thank God I didn't get that role,

'cause what she had to go through but,

all naked on a raft, and then just, very vulnerable.

Kind of almost quasi-sexual.

Even now as I watch it, I just think, ew, God.

[screams]

Shooting my death scene was a bit of a challenge.

That's where the horror part came into the filming for me.

What they did was they made a fake body.

There was a raft with a hole cut in it,

and my body went through the hole.

I was upright in the water and from here up,

I was just leaning over.

I think this was in January, and it was around midnight

and it was either 22 or 23 degrees.

It was very, very cold.

And we were all sitting there bundled up, gloves, boots.

It was very, very cold, and the water was even colder.

It was hours and hours in the water.

And it became really difficult for me.

There were points where I just felt like

I couldn't go on any more.

I was shivering so badly.

She was freezing.

She was so cold her teeth were chattering,

and she asked to get out,

and they were reloading the camera

and the director said no.

They said, "No, we have to finish.

We have to finish."

I did everything to hold back from crying,

and I don't think I was successful.

This girl was actually turning blue,

and I went to Joe Zito and told him.

I said, "Joe, we gotta get her out of there

before she freezes up completely."

And he said, "Why don't you just do Jason

and I'll do the direct."

So that's when I got a little upset with him.

I said , "Well , either get her out, or I'll walk.

One or the other." So they pulled her out.

They took me into a trailer and heated me up

and got me back out there.

And it was great.

I warmed up, thawed out basically.

Joe, of course, was not trying to be mean.

He was trying to get a film made.

Whether he was going a little too far

with somebody else's feelings, I would say yes.

And it turns out that I had gotten hypothermia,

and I was quite sick for several days after that.

The other gruesome one really is, you know,

Sam being killed in the boat naked

and then her boyfriend coming

out and getting it in the crotch.

When you're looking, you know, for your girlfriend in a lake,

and you think she's probably naked,

you do not want to get speared in the crotch.

That is a bad thing to happen at that moment.

The guys certainly feel that one when they watch it.

Pretty much all the deaths were pretty graphic and grisly,

but you don't see the mother die.

In most of the Jason movies,

I think there is no parental supervision.

In ours there was

because we thought that made it scarier,

especially when the parents were made to disappear.

In filming that scene

where you see me come in from the rain,

and you see me turn around and the shock,

there was no other murder and mayhem

that you could put on the screen.

That was it. That one point.

Although Mrs. Jarvis's death was only implied,

a deleted scene

involving Trish's discovering her mother's corpse

was originally intended to be the film's final jump scare.

But I do remember that we shot a scene of her

in the bathtub all made up like a cadaver.

Kimberly comes in and she sees water dripping down,

and she goes upstairs and opens the bathroom door,

and you see me under the water, in the bathtub, dead.

It was really intense, that scene.

And I was surprised that they left it out,

but I guess it was just, it was disturbing,

and they didn't want it in there.

It was excised almost immediately.

I didn't want to dwell on it.

I didn't think it was good psychologically

to keep-- to make more of that than we did.

The main thing about my death scene

was really the sort of atmosphere,

it was the flashing of the lightning,

and the thunder, and the feeling of it being

very scary out there.

They put a big light behind me

so that I'm silhouetted against the side of the house,

and at that moment-- (Sound Effects)

You know the pitchfork goes through me,

and I get flung against the wall.

That is not me, you know. I'm just the shadow.

Crispin does a whole thing where he's so happy

about being successful with this girl in bed.

I think you were incredible.

You're incredible.

Which is what I say in bed to Crispin

when he's like uh-am-I-uh-uh.

Was I a dead fuck?

That was quite funny.

People talk a lot about the corkscrew

that gets Crispin Glover.

Hey, Ted, where the hell's the corkscrew?!

He's calling for a corkscrew and, wham,

right through his hand. The corkscrew nails him.

Jason's clever. He nails him with the cork screw

and then machete to the face.

I thought that was really creative,

and it came out of left field.

I just had an idea that we shouldn't use a weapon at all

in one of the kills with one of the twins

and just have this prolonged thing

of her at the window

and the hands come through the glass,

grab her and throw her out.

It was a pretty big stunt.

I actually don't know when it's gonna happen,

but what I'm told is Jason's going to come,

grab me and at that point, the only thing I have to do

is get my neck out of the window as it shatters.

After I've done that,

the stunt girl has to propel herself

out of the window.

That's her first shot.

And she landed on a car top.

We blew the windows out at the same time.

I thought that was a really neat stunt

and was well done and well thought-out.

I didn't suffer as much as other people did, really,

in terms of coldness and wetness.

One of the first sequences to suffer the wrath of the MPAA

was the death of the cocky yet ultimately rejected Ted,

who was left alone to spend the night

with a blue movie, a teddy bear, and a joint.

I remember in mine watching that sort of old-fashioned,

semi soft-core porn movie.

So the film breaks, the screen goes white.

Lawrence stands in front of the screen

and a knife comes through the back,

stabs him in the back of the head.

We're not sure exactly what happens

until we see the blood on the screen as he slides down.

I remember at first I had to go visit Tom Savini,

and I went to get my head created.

Tom rigged up a knife that was cut away

with a little pump that was pumping blood,

and you just looked at the dailies,

and it was just horrifying to watch.

I was a very young actor when I did this movie.

I think I was 20 or something.

Really committed, you know. What are you doing?

Real. Everything had to be real,

and so my character in the movie had to be stoned,

(laughing)

And so I thought, hmmm, wouldn't that be interesting

to actually get stoned

and see what that's like to actually be stoned

on camera?

I go to my trailer, and I'm like [sucking sound].

I'm smoking this joint, and I get stoned,

and I'm a very paranoid stoned person.

So it was the worst, worst idea I could have ever done.

I was unable to comprehend what the director was saying,

and I just was too paranoid to do anything.

It was terrible.

Actor Peter Barton, who had previously starred

with Linda Blair in "Hell Night"

and "Part 2's" Amy Steel in the short-lived series

"The Powers of Matthew Star,"

suffered perhaps one of the most brutal deaths

in "Friday the 13th" history.

My hands were my weapon of choice.

Once I got my hands on 'em, the killing was easy then.

I mean, he smashes, you know, a pretty guy's face

through the shower with his bare hands.

Breaks his nose with his finger, blood comes out,

and then smashes the head against the tiles.

Tom said to me, "Don't tear the head up.

This is the only one we've got. Be very careful with it."

Yet the director was just the opposite.

He said, "Ted, I want you

to really be physical with this thing."

That was the whole reason for having a stuntman in there,

to be a little more physical.

To me, that probably was my favorite kill.

To truly immerse himself in the role of Jason,

Ted White took great pains

to keep his fellow cast members at bay.

I think his way of keeping the character

was kind of separating himself from everybody else.

I stayed away from the cast completely.

I sat by myself on the set.

I just stayed away from everybody,

and I tried to keep in character as much as possible.

I just felt that Jason should not be sitting there

laughing and cutting up and kidding,

and the next minute turn into this horrible killer.

As the night of murderous mayhem comes to a close,

Trish and Rob are drawn into the empty house...

and Jason claims his last, though bloodless, kill.

He's killing me! He's killing me!

The 'he's killing me, he's killing me' thing,

that was something that I just reacted to viscerally

as it was happening.

That's sort of why it wasn't necessary

to do a big, bloody, gory kill

because it wasn't really about the kill.

It was about the horror of hearing someone being killed.

They had the rig for this effect.

They had the gardening tool with the blood spurting out.

They had all that stuff done, but it was never used.

And when Rob is getting killed,

Trish should get out of there,

and then she does get out of there,

and then she comes back.

Part of that was, I think, in the story making

was to get to the point where now you were left

with a 12-year-old kid and Kimberly Beck,

and that's all that was left alive.

The last part of it, we pretty much shot it in sequence.

The sequence involved Erich Anderson's character

being thrown through the window.

Jason comes and picks me up through the window

and scares the hell out of me

which still to this day was the most terrifying thing

I've ever shot in my life - ever.

Terror struck across my face, my heart,

my every nerve in my body was on end.

And I literally was shaking and crying in terror.

And I remember once we cut and that take was over,

everybody took me outside, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

"No! No, I'm not okay."

I was not okay, and I was not okay for quite a while.

I enjoyed chasing the girl.

I love the screaming and all the hollering.

All it did was invigorate me.

It was just grueling physically.

Well, the stopping and the starting,

and the cat and mouse with the girl

was not my idea or her idea.

It was our director's idea,

and he felt that that little play between us

built up the suspense, and I think it did.

Later on when I saw the film,

I thought it added quite a bit to it.

You know, he wasn't brilliant and cunning,

but he was smart, or he figured some things out,

you know, in an animal plus way.

I never thought of her as being a heroine

until, you know, you actually watch the movie

and you go, "Wow! She's kicking some ass."

But how are we going to get him in the end?

Are we going to use silver bullets?

Are we going to use garlic?

Are we going to use a stake?

Are we going to use any of the typical cliché ways

to kill a bad man? No!

We're going to use intelligence to outsmart him.

And of course, of course, there's an obvious relationship

between Tommy and Jason

when Tommy takes on the persona and impersonates him

as a weapon to undo him.

Jason!

I remember when I first heard this I went,

"Really? They're going to make me look like Jason?

How's that going to work?"

The choice was made to not go the truthful, honest,

you know, dedicated actor way and actually go for it

and shave my head.

Instead we were going to use Tom Savini's

great, illustrious makeup effects once again

and put a bald cap on.

We talked about so many ways to kill Jason.

There were so many death proposals.

They came from everywhere.

Of course, the producers would dream them up every night,

but mostly Tom would come up with really cool ways to do it.

And we described this elaborate thing with Tommy,

the effects kid, was also an amateur inventor,

and he's taken a microwave oven apart, you know,

and put a reflector behind it with a variat

that goes from 1 to 10.

On 1 he melts a toy soldier.

We thought, why don't, you know,

at the end he jams this thing into Jason's head,

turns it up to 10, cooks his head from within,

and his head explodes.

And the producers took it very seriously for a while.

And there were others, there were other things,

but they were generally clever things

that special effects guys can sort of laugh about

and high-five each other for, you know, in the lab.

But in the end,

give the audience a distance from what really was happening.

I remember thinking, "Okay, I've really got to show

how mean I can be, how tough I can be.

You know, that I'm this little kid,

but I can kill this guy.

I can do this."

Jason is about using a very simple weapon

to do awful things,

and it would be sort of nice

if we just use a very simple weapon

to do an awful thing to him.

A change was suggested to us

that Jason's head be lopped off top down,

not across the neck.

In other words, cut open from the top to the chin

like an artichoke.

And they suggested we didn't do that.

And we thought, hmm.

I think there's going to be a sequel here.'

You maybe were expecting something quick.

Tommy hits him in the head with a blade and, you know,

the end. No. He slides down the blade.

I came into the set with 101 fever that day.

I was very sick.

And it's the middle of the night,

and you're already sick,

and now you're sitting there using all of your energy

to kill this giant man.

And the fact that I was sick,

and the fact that I was so under the weather,

and I was like really fighting just to be there at that moment,

I think comes across in the look in my eyes.

Tommy!

Die!

Because you can see the desperation in my eyes

as I'm trying to take him down.

What happened with "Friday 4"

is that the Motion Picture Association of America

was really on us.

And it was kind of a game

where you would trim them down a little bit,

send it back, trim them down a little bit,

and they would wear you down, and you would wear them down.

We would keep trading off frames of everybody else's kill scenes

so we could protect as much of Jason.

The kills are all there but they were very fast.

But when Jason finally got it, you dwelled on it.

It made Jason's death more powerful.

This is the one you've been screaming for.

"Friday the 13th The Final Chapter"

debuted on April 13, 1984.

Although it still didn't win over any critics,

the film went on to gross an

impressive $32.9 million dollars.

As far as the filmmakers were concerned,

they had done their job.

Jason had left the screen on a high note

and was gone for good.

Or was he?

It really was this kind of renegade little group

that was involved in major motion pictures,

that, you know, would knock off big movies.

Clint Eastwood would do 7, and we'd do 9.

I mean, it would be like you know the people at Warner Bros.

Were cursing us up and down.

It's like, you know, "Those bastards

with the million dollar movie beat us!"

I remember in the New York Times,

I think it was Janet Maslin

wrote like an angry review about the film.

At least from this critic's point of view

it was actually kind of disturbing

to see people that you actually did create

some kind of relationship with,

you know meet their demise in the horrible ways

that we all did.

We had fun reading the reviews.

We know what they're going to be like

and especially if someone gets, you know,

particularly bitchy and clever. It's great.

I mean, in a way it's sort of like

the "Friday the 13th" movie itself.

If they're clever in the way they're trying to kill you,

you cheer.

At the time I was not really overly proud

of making the film.

You know, I was offered the 5th one and 6th one.

I could have done either one of them, and I turned them down.

I'm sorry now that I did turn them down.

We all just wanted to make it as good as we could make it.

We didn't want it to be campy and stupid.

As much as we could make it real and scary

and that we would be feeling the real feelings.

Everybody had the same goals.

We were already at that time talking about ways

to further the franchise, elongate the franchise,

bring my character back.

And when we did the end scene in the hospital,

to Joe and I, that was the nod,

that was the way to kind of set up the next film.

But I thought what a big win this would be,

you know, as a new director,

if I could make this thing live

and become something that fans can appreciate again,

and the studio was surprised,

and they go ahead and take it out and make more.

What we decided to do was make a statement about horror.

That horror is contagious.

The horror that Jason dispenses has been passed on to Tommy.

And maybe I was the next Jason.

Maybe it was The Final Chapter of this Jason,

but maybe "Part 5" was going to be

Tommy comes to fruition,

Tommy comes into his own as the next great serial killer.

And that was really the set-up

for where the franchise was intended to go.

If somebody had pressed me at that time

and said how about six more movies,

it would have been not the running Tommy Jarvis character,

but this contagion of horror

going from one person to the next.

And the look of Tommy in the end was, you know,

it wasn't an accident.

I mean, that was something that was hoping to give birth

to future "Fridays."

Few modern horror franchises

can commit cinematic suicide and return to tell the tale.

But the prospect of wringing a few more dollars

from one of their least expensive

and most profitable franchises

was hard for Paramount to ignore.

What else can you do with it?

We've just killed Jason.

We've just said that the series is ended.

You've gotta figure out something to do.

So everybody was trying to figure out

a way to break the "you're making the same movie

over and over again."

The title of "New Beginning," I think came from Frank.

I think it was how he was reaching around

for a way to let the audience know

that we were promising them something new

after having told them that it was done.

I had been an assistant editor for many years,

mostly for Michael Kahn who's Steven Spielberg's editor,

and I was an assistant editor on "Raiders of the Lost Ark,"

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,"

the "Star Wars."

And Michael said to Frank, "You should hire Bruce.

I can vouch for him,

and if he doesn't do a job that you like,

I'll come in, and I'll cut the film for free."

After "Part 4," I felt like, okay,

I need to take a step back,

and I need to find people to just sort of have their,

you know, imprint go on these films.

I'll make sure they come in on budget,

and I'll make sure we get people

that are placed in the right positions

so that they're not going to get screwed with.

But, you know, that creatively this is really going to be

sort of other people's stuff now.

With Frank Mancuso Jr.

Now taking on a more ceremonial role as an executive producer,

the job of finding a director for "Friday the 13th Part 5"

once again fell to the uncredited

yet always omnipresent Phil Scuderi.

This time, he chose a director

from the world of exploitation cinema and porn.

These guys from Boston

also did "Last House on the Left."

So before the film was finished,

they were going to Cannes to sell

"The Last House on the Left, Part 2."

And they offered me to write it and direct it.

And I said, "Sure."

Then it turns out that they didn't have their full ownership

of the rights.

Phil Scuderi, he somehow knew Danny Steinmann.

And thought that he would be a good choice

to direct the film.

And so, again,

I wasn't going to be in a situation where I'm saying,

"I'm not going to drive the bus, I'm going to take a step back"

and then say, "Oh, no, you can't use this guy,

and you can't do this, and you can't do that."

I wanted to say, "Ok."

And I knew nothing about

his past film making experiences at all.

He arrived pumped and full of energy

and ready to do another draft of the script,

which was what everybody had agreed needed to be done.

As far as the script was concerned,

after they discounted the fact

that Jason is going to be alive and kicking,

they thought that using Tommy as a new Jason

would be an interesting and fun thing to do.

Did Tommy do this? Did he not?

Was Tommy crazy?

These things were running through the script.

Unfortunately, Spielberg fucked up all our plans

because he decided he wanted me in a couple films.

I was forced, quite begrudgingly,

to participate in a little film called "Goonies"

and not participate, as I would have liked,

in the full version of "Friday the 13th Part 5."

So instead, a compromise was reached.

I would come do a cameo

to help buy myself out of the pre-made story

that we had all come up with years before.

To schedule to get him back was insane.

He was busier than anybody I'd ever met in my life.

So what we did, we went over to his house,

and in his backyard we put up bushes,

had the rain machine,

and did it all like in like an hour and a half, two hours,

and got him done that way.

And we used then a very small woman

to walk through the woods.

And I thought it was really actually brilliantly executed.

In casting Tommy, uh...

I wanted someone who was tall, of course,

had some weight on him,

and was good physically.

When I came in for the audition I again, I resolved

I'm not going to talk to anybody,

I'm not going to look them in the eye,

I'll answer yes or no questions.

And then when Danny called me in,

I just sat down and looked and stared,

and I started sweating. And it was great.

And he got it.

So it emboldened me to really become the character.

After being released from a mental asylum,

Tommy Jarvis is sent to live in a halfway house

populated by a group of at-risk teens.

Taking a cue from the plot of the original film,

the producers decided that the identity of the killer

would not be revealed until the final act.

"Friday the 13th Part 5" would be a whodunnit.

In a sense the whole picture becomes one giant red herring

because we're going to pull the plug on it

right at the very end of the film.

The guys who started the series

ultimately signed off on that idea, you know.

I mean, that was-- that came out of Boston

and that was okay, and everybody wanted

to sort of take this road and maybe thought it may be cool.

In "5", I actually played the imposter of Jason.

Dick Warlock, who is known for Michael Myers,

he was the stunt coordinator.

Part of that job was to bring in some guys

that could play Jason.

So I brought in three guys

and when I brought them in, I knew who I wanted.

I wanted Tom Morgan.

This guy's an exceptional stunt guy.

He's agile and, you know, and that's why I wanted him.

I knew that if Jason had to do anything at all

that Tom could carry it off.

My idea was that I was going to play the character

as Jason.

That's what they wanted.

And at the end they'd sort out what the answer was.

And I did have a couple moments

where I did play the apparition of Jason himself.

In the film, it was obvious they had to distinguish

in some way so they used the blue for the marks on the mask

for the imposter Jason,

where when I did the actual Jason,

I was wearing the real mask with the red marks on it.

There's a shot where the camera is looking out at Jason

right as he steps out from behind a tree.

I was just standing still.

I had nothing to do but to look up at the window.

I'm in the window upstairs.

And he was trying to make me laugh...

standing there in the mask.

I turned around and mooned him,

and he's laughing underneath the mask

trying to not do this, you know.

And I'll never forget the day we shot that scene

where I look up and in the mirror,

there's a guy with a machete and a mask on,

and I look again, and he's gone.

And is he real? Is he there?

Is he monster or victim? Well, he's a little bit of both.

And I find that when I look at the man in the mirror

that there's a monster there and there's a victim

depending on which day it is.

Call me Reggie the Reckless.

Shavar Ross was-- he was adorable.

Again, you know, a little, young talent.

Yes, Miss Osbourne.

There was many times on the set during "Friday the 13th Part 5"

where a lot of screaming,

and, "Hey, he's got to get off the set.

We ain't got too much time. He's got to go to school."

Solid.

In keeping with "Friday the 13th" tradition,

the services of a smart and resourceful leading lady

were required.

This time, however,

the film's final girl was anything but a happy camper.

John had a very heavy character

and mine was just dealing

with trying to do the best I could

under bad conditions because the conditions were bad.

Low-budget movie making is tough,

and it's tough on kind of everybody.

She was expecting to be picked up every day

and brought to the set

and, I think, in a limo or something to that effect,

and that's another world.

I don't think anybody gets above,

no matter where you are in the food chain,

nobody gets above the desire to do something good,

but the limitations of what you're dealing with.

Danny, you couldn't go to him.

And actors, especially when you're young and starting out,

you kind of look to the director as a father figure.

And I had a question , and he'd just say, "Just do it."

So from that moment on,

and that was about, I think,

the second or third day of filming.

So at that moment I said,

"Okay, you're really on your own here."

I'm sure that's an uncomfortable part to play,

you know, when you have a director

that isn't exactly gracious but you've got a role to play.

So I decided to just do what I set out to do,

to do the best job I could.

I understand to some people that Daniel was kind of coarse.

And kind of rough.

I can only say...

it wasn't that way when I was around,

but I wasn't really around that much.

In order to maintain the secrecy of the film's storyline,

the movie went into production with a befitting code title:

"Repetition."

No way did I know that this was a "Friday the 13th" movie.

So the first day we're sitting on the set.

There's this guy with a hockey mask and the blade.

He walks past us, stops and stares right at us.

We looked at each other,

and the whole energy just turned into excitement.

We're in "Friday the 13th!" We're in "Friday the 13th!"

I want this looney bin closed down.

You tell 'em , Ma!

I did a fair amount of ad-libbing as Ethel.

Horse shit.

Shut the fuck up.

You big dildo.

Lots of swear words came out.

Who the fuck are you? What the fuck do you want?

One of my favorite scenes

is in the kitchen with a chicken.

I'm gonna chop you

into itty bitty little pieces, my friend.

You know, the stew that Junior had to eat in the show,

it was foul only because it was cold Campbell's soup.

Best goddamn stew in the whole wide world, Momma.

I thought, you know, we're going to eat this for lunch.

Hey, Junior would eat anything!

[Stupid laughter]

I have a wig from a movie that I'd done with Burt Reynolds

called "Sharky's Machine" where I played a hooker.

You fuckin' low-life creep!

They loved it so much

that they wouldn't get me another one.

I had to use mine.

Eeeeee-yahhh!

Eeeee-yah!

"Part 5's" first turning point occurs when Joey,

a mentally-challenged ward of the state,

incites the wrath of the wood-chopping Vic Faden,

played by the late Mark Venturini.

Hi, Vic.

Get lost!

And then, like that, he flips,

and the axe is going, and there's blood flying.

The scene itself was pretty grisly,

and they did a lot of takes over and over and over.

Oh, god! [sobbing]

For the film's pivotal role

of soft-spoken ambulance driver Roy Burns,

director Danny Steinmann sought out an actor

who could project an aura of menace...

without tipping his hand.

Roy is called an ambulance driver. He's not.

He's a paramedic.

He had seen an awful lot of death

because this had been going on for a little bit.

So when it ends up being his son,

I think that's what pushes him over.

My character was, you know, a wise-ass.

My thing was I blew a bubble and looked up at them and said...

Bunch of pussies.

And then of course, the moral of the character,

of my character,

is be nice to your co-workers,

or you'll get your throat slit from ear to ear.

With nearly two dozen onscreen kills,

"Part 5" boasts one of the highest body counts

in "Friday the 13th" history.

The producers came up with the idea

that Tommy would be Jason and then every 8, 9 minutes,

there should be a kill or a jump, a big jump.

Come on , mother fucker, fix the fuckin' car!

The death scenes for Pete and Vinnie

were certainly gory.

I had the machete across the throat, of course.

And they also put most of their effort

into the gore and into the kills.

And most of that footage wound up on the floor.

I watched when they shot Vinnie's death scene.

They had made a cast of his face

and then made another face of his out of latex,

and then they took the road flare

and stuck it in his mouth.

You could see everything glowing.

It was horrific but at the same time, you know,

it was certainly an inventive way to bring about his death.

Crap my ass!

Just do it, man!

Some people have supposed that our characters

were the first gay characters

to be killed in the "Friday the 13th" series,

and I think it's an open-ended question.

I hadn't made that choice,

but who knows where it went with Pete,

and where it would have gone, you know,

if they could have lived a little longer.

Lana! Hey, Lana!

Sorry, buster, we're closed.

The original scene of Lana and Billy

were--I guess it was originally written for "Part 4,"

but for whatever reason , they didn't use it,

and they put it in "Part 5."

It just said, "Billy calls for Lana.

He's waiting in the car, and he starts doing cocaine."

(Coughing)

A couple weeks before that I had seen the film "All That Jazz"

about Bob Fosse, and

he would throughout the film say "It's showtime."

It's showtime, folks.

And so I came out of my trailer

and went up to Danny Steinmann, the director,

and I said, "You know, Danny,"

I said, "I'm changing in the dressing room,

getting ready for my boyfriend.

I said, What if I did something really cute and sexy

like... It's.. .showtime!

He was like, "I love it!"

Using an axe on a guy's head

almost looks for real when you're there

because you're looking at the head,

which is just this guy's head.

It looks just like him.

The dummy had a full head of hair,

and they were panic stricken because I had a bald spot

and then Jason was going to crash this axe

into a guy with a full head of hair,

and they had to take the dummy away,

get another head and, you know,

cut the hole but try and make it look real.

So they got the bald spot all set, made that up,

put the squibs under there and then wham.

And that was his target, the bald spot on my head.

Because I'm killed with an axe,

they built the cast with the axe actually glued to it

and then they put my pink dress over it,

and I'm covered with blood.

I kind of played along with it,

and I started walking through the street going...

...in front of the cars and people were just like,

"Oh, my God."

Because they didn't know a movie was being made up there.

So we had a lot of laughs with that.

I played along with that.

These kids, people were rooting for them to die.

Fuck you.

Exactly. Fuck me.

I don't know if they were degenerates,

but they were definitely...

not wholesome.

In my mind the movie was more like, you know, sort of

Fellini meets Hardcore.

I mean, it was just sort of bizarre.

I was certainly surprised by the sleazy quality

to the images.

Sleazy is a great word.

I mean, in terms of describing "Part 5."

Everybody was cast because of the size of their tits.

It was like a porn film in a lot of ways.

I did my first nude scene for Danny.

Sorry...(laughs) I didn't.

I just had to say that.

I think Danny Steinmann was bringing to it

what he thought would make it more urgent, you know.

More intense. Not as campy.

And some people found that sleazy,

Some people found that difficult to watch.

They obviously didn't appreciate not having Jason around.

Although the part of sex-starved Tina

was originally intended to be played by actress Darcy DeMoss,

who would later appear in "Friday the 13th Part 6,"

director Steinmann ultimately gave the role

to a former Playboy bunny with a familiar last name.

As soon as they saw my last name, Voorhees,

they said we absolutely have to interview this woman.

They told me I had the role and then they told me

I had to go meet with the producer

to audition three women.

Two of whom I remember, one of them was Darcy DeMoss,

who ultimately played in "Part VI"

and was a long-time girlfriend of mine after we met.

The other girl was Gina Gershon,

you know, "Faceoff," "Showgirls."

She's been in a lot of stuff.

She went on to do very well.

I went in for my audition and Danny Steinmann, the director,

asked me to lift my top up and show my breasts.

I wasn't prepared for that at all.

So I said "I have no problem with nudity,

but you need to contact my agent,

and have him okay it."

We made arrangements to get together

because obviously we had to shoot the woods scene,

the sex scene, like the following Monday.

The next day, I didn't have a part,

and the excuse was that I wasn't well enough endowed.

It was one of those things where the producer

had seen the one woman and then the director saw me,

and he decided he wanted me.

And if you look at the girl,

her breasts are absolutely enormous.

I did meet the guy, Eddie,

a couple days before we actually, you know,

shot the film, the love scene,

and I think probably one of the funny moments

was when we said goodbye and said,

"Okay, we'll have sex on Monday. Bye."

Okay, sugar.

And I get that all the time.

People will say, "Well, you know, you did this sex scene

with a Playboy bunny in the woods.

I mean, it must have been incredible."

And, it's like, well, you know,

it's not really comfortable at all.

You got 50 people standing around.

In the background off-screen

is Danny Steinmann, the director, yelling,

"Come on. Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her harder.

Come on. Come on. Grab her tits. Grab her pussy.

Grab her ass."

And I'm sitting there like dying.

And I'm not a prudish guy.

And I turned to Frank,

who looked just as dumbstruck as I did, and I said,

"What do you want me to do with this stuff?"

And he put his arms around me and he said,

"Bruce, make it look like a Pepsi commercial."

I do remember seeing the final cut and thinking,

"God, it looks like I'm like Quick Draw McGraw, man,

I mean like, in and done. Bang, you know,

it's like, "Okay, I gotta go wash up."

It's like, "Ah wait a minute."

Of course, I was the classic bad girl

so, you know, I had to die.

I think the garden shears through the eyes

was pretty bad when I went, you know.

And the way they did the little snap

where you could see the bone right there and stuff.

But at that point, once they put the mask on me,

they put the red blood in the eyes,

and I can't see at that point.

So I'm having to be led around in nothing but a robe.

And, you know, I have to admit that was a little intense.

Plus that stuff burned bad.

I mean, really burns the eyes.

In the end, you know, my death was very unique.

I mean, how many people have been impaled or hatcheted,

or, you know, meat cleaver in the head.

That's old hat.

You can't say another guy has ever had a horse strap

thrown across his face and crushed against a tree.

Some fans have pointed out that at one point

he's turning it clockwise and then at another point,

he's turning it counter-clockwise.

From my understanding,

my death scene was so gory

with the blood being pumped through the strap,

that they were able to use that as a bargaining tool

with the censors,

and they were able to get more nudity and less gore

based on my death.

There was a scene, there was Miguel Nunez,

who played my brother Demon ...

Damn enchiladas!

...died on the toilet.

I mean, that is not the way to go.

Just got killed in the bathroom

calling out his girlfriend's name and singing.

Ooh baby, ooh baby

ooh baby, ooh baby

Just spikes coming through the outhouse.

And his beautiful girlfriend got just jacked up.

My goodness. Terrible.

Shooting my death scene was pretty, pretty intense.

That's probably the only place where Danny

actually put a lot of pressure on me

because I'm riding a motorcycle through the woods.

And they have the camera mounted on the motorcycle.

(Screaming)

Danny said, "You dump this bike,

that's a $50,000 camera,

I'm going to kill ya.

So you will die before Jason gets ya."

Kept going around and around and the next thing you know...

(Swoosh)

The MPAA sent a long note of changes

that we had to make,

and one of them was when Junior's riding the motorcycle

and gets decapitated,

His head can only bounce on the ground once.

At the time this really did look real, you know.

It's cracking and yellowing and falling apart,

but it was pretty intense.

My death scene,

there was a shot where they used my prosthetic head

and had put an axe in the forehead of it.

I don't think the prosthetic piece with the axe

made it in the movie. I think it was "cut."

Tiffany Helm did the robot

to one of the greatest songs, I think.

I had never heard that song until she brought--

She brought it in herself.

There's a man with no life in his eyes

There's a man no life in his eyes

It was cool because it was the 80s, you know?

The kill scene with Tiffany,

they had an idea that they were going to use

a little more graphic kill.

They were going to take the machete

and actually stab her straight up through the legs

and pick her up and pin her.

She was like this, and Jason was

going straight for the gusto.

I remember hearing about it. I might have seen some stills.

I don't remember if they actually shot the footage.

It would have been pretty difficult to look at.

Couldn't show that. Couldn't show that back then.

That was cut. Rated X.

And they toned that down a little bit

and ended up sticking her in the stomach

and pinning her to the wall, which is probably as good.

You know, everybody was frustrated.

The editor, and Frank Mancuso.

The stuff that was taken out had a big, big impact

on the reaction to the kills.

You don't get to see the kills.

How they were set up, and how they were executed.

So that's what pissed me off the most.

From the point where I discover the bodies upstairs,

everything after that until the end of the film

was my best time.

I was just so excited to be doing it.

I just remember having a lot of fun,

running through the woods in the fake rain.

Where are you?

I just had fun.

And quite frankly, I think I only looked good

when they finally turned on the rain.

(Screaming)

So I was grateful for, as cold as it was,

I was so grateful because I said,

"Oh, God, at least I look good wet."

I didn't shoot a death scene.

It was shot up in the canyon.

I remember they had a rain machine.

It was cold that night. I nearly froze my ass off.

But what happened was every time they would open the door,

and my head would come back, the water would hit the blood

and so it didn't have as good of effect as it should.

You could tell it didn't slit,

but they could have done a better makeup job on that.

I lost my voice,

and I actually screamed like a girl.

I screamed like a girl,

and I still get people that email me

to remind me that that scream was so high.

The most shocking thing when I saw the film in the theater

was my pink sweater.

She's running through the forest

and in some cuts, she's got this pink sweater

which she wore all the time,

and in other cuts, she doesn't have the pink sweater.

I can't even look at it anymore because I just, all I see

is that pink sweater reappearing and disappearing.

The attitude usually in an editing room

when there are continuity problems

is that if there are people in the audience

that are noticing that sweater,

they're not really engaged in the story.

The bane of my existence of that film

is that damn sweater.

And I didn't even like it.

Pink thing.

And I think the thing with Reggie the Reckless was that

it was that red suit.

It was the red suit.

It was the blood of Jesus over Reggie.

And I think that helped me some, you know, throughout the film,

you know, to be able to have fun running him over

with a tractor.

When that front loader hit me,

that was probably the most fun for me.

I helped set that up.

It wasn't in cuts. It was a full hit.

And the distance I flew through the air

and hit the ground was all real.

So for me that was the most enjoyable stunt.

And the shooting in the barn, the infamous chain saw scene

which did take a few takes

because the first three I couldn't get through.

I was laughing so hard.

Where am I going to do a scene with a chain saw ever,

you know, except this film?

The killing that was the most memorable to me in "Part 5"

was, of course, me taking the machete to Jason's arm,

and him falling back out of the barn

and landing down on some kind of farming instrument.

Tom Morga, he called me,

he wanted me to come out and take his place

one night on the show.

If you watch the movie,

you'll see that the first guy that does the fall

coming out the door, is Tom Morga,

and then you'll see a guy fall through frame.

That's me.

I love the part where he just goes

right through those (laughs) spikes.

I did the graveyard sequence.

When the two guys come up to the, and dig the grave open,

I was lying down in the coffin.

They actually dumped nightcrawlers on top of me.

They had like five gallon containers,

and they dumped them all over me.

This is dick head.

They used this when Roy falls out of the barn

onto the farm implement.

It's really freaky, really strange.

Well , you know, in "Part 5,"

we didn't have the quote-unquote real Jason.

Jason was an imposter, as it turned out,

which was a disappointment to some fans

to find out that it was a human.

We got to the end,

and I found out it was the ambulance driver.

That just threw me

because I didn't know that was going to happen.

Another piece of advice:

Don't allow the overweight, mentally handicapped son

of the local ambulance driver

to get hacked to shit over a candy bar.

(Screaming)

Because chances are

that driver's going to turn into a Jason clone

and try to take people out.

Remains one of the least satisfying endings

in the history of film as far as I'm concerned.

So the sheriff, played by Marco St. John,

we're in the hospital.

He's now explaining the whole thing to me,

who was chasing me, and the motive,

and who this person was.

I guess when he was called to the scene,

and he saw that it was his own Joey

all hacked to pieces...

Jason was a good scapegoat for Roy

because he was in the papers. People knew who he was.

And he whips out these clippings

and shows me a mug shot of Jason,

like they got a mug shot of Jason?

And I ended up writing the last three pages of Tommy

in the hospital room--

And I brought it to Danny and I said, you know,

"Here's the ending."

And I remember him just x'ing out all the dialogue and going,

"John, you don't talk the whole movie

and all of a sudden you got like a 3-page monologue."

But he said, you know, "This is good,"

and he came back the next day and said,

'We're going to use that.'

But at the very end,

that's when the metamorphosis takes place in his hospital bed.

He comes to see Jason there

and then Jason kind of disappears

and then he gets out of bed,

opens the drawer and sees the mask.

He's in there freaking out. You hear a crash.

I rush into the room

because I think he's jumped out of the window.

And he's behind me with the Jason mask.

I become Jason and so in that sense, to me,

he's the most fearsome, awesome, indestructible,

mysterious figure in movie history

because you see a side of yourself

that could become possessed, if you will,

by this larger-than-life character.

Despite the backlash to Imposter Jason,

"Part 5" proved that audiences still had a bloodlust

for "Friday the 13th."

As the film grossed $8 million in its opening weekend

on March 22, 1985.

Frank Mancuso called me late that night,

2, 3 o'clock in the morning.

He was so excited, you know, saying

"These numbers are like the golden times.

I mean, this is unheard of."

Everyone is going to the next "Friday the 13th"

based on their experience of the last one,

and if they go from 4

and 5, and 5 lets them down,

it's already in profits before it has a chance to fall off.

I would say that the movie is a pretty substantive departure

from the rest of the series.

I think it's really interesting.

This film is either loved or absolutely despised.

Some people say, "You didn't even play Jason.

It didn't even count."

And they have no respect for that particular film,

and they think it was the worst in the series.

And I've had others that tell me the way it was done,

and they loved it and it was the best kills,

and it was the most exciting.

You know, it's personal opinion.

And I was kind of proud to be part of something

that they were taking a chance

of doing something different, you know.

Whether that worked out is another story.

It's like "Halloween 3."

Michael's not in the movie so it's not a "Halloween" movie.

I liked the fact that it wasn't Jason killing people.

I liked the fact that it was a bit of a whodunnit

and nobody really knew what was going on.

What the hell's going on here?

The only mistake that they made

was giving the explanation that it wasn't Tommy.

I think that if they would have kept it elusive,

and you really didn't know for sure at the end of the movie,

I think they could have gone a great number

of really cool places with it after that point.

But really, no, Imposter Jason, it just doesn't work.

I mean , ultimately, "A New Beginning," not so much.

There's a reason why the next one's called "Jason Lives."

But, you know, in retrospect, you know, it's glorious.

I had a really good time and, you know,

some of it's not bad.

Everybody starts off trying to do good.

You know, they really do.

And he thought he was doing a really good job.

And he thought that--

He thought what he was bringing to this thing

was going to be a different element

that people might really appreciate.

After the disappointing response to "Part 5,"

producer Frank Mancuso Jr.

Received a directive from the top brass at Paramount Pictures.

Get "Friday the 13th" back on track.

You know, well -intended people can make mistakes.

And I know I've certainly made them.

They realized in it, and the fan response,

that they were not happy with "Part 5"

because Jason their favorite character wasn't in it.

So they had to go back to the old formula.

Obviously, "5," where you have an imitation Jason,

angered the fans.

I mean, it was like, "Let's just ignore this.

Let's move on."

Clean house. Start all over.

Everybody, let's just start fresh.

"5" was a bad dream.

So it was important to me that Jason come back

in a very spectacular, fun way.

You know, we needed somebody who would sort of embrace

that kind of theatricality

and infuse the rest of the movie with that.

Enter Tom McLoughlin,

who began his career in comedy and as a professional mime.

During an initial meeting with Mancuso,

the up-and-coming writer/director

pitched an idea that everyone hoped would breathe new life

and bring a bit of levity into "Friday the 13th."

I came to the attention of Frank Mancuso

because of the movie I made, "One Dark Night."

I was not particularly interested

in doing a "Friday" sequel

because, as far as I was concerned,

it basically had kind of run out of steam.

Oooh, it's those damn enchiladas!

The idea was still kind of challenging to me

at the same time so I said,

"Well, let me see, you know, all the "Fridays,"

and I went to Paramount and sat in a screening room

and watched them all back-to-back.

And out of that I thought, "Okay, what hasn't been done?"

And, because I've always had a great love of Gothic horror,

I thought if I could bring in that element.

It's alive! It's alive!

Mancuso was smart hiring a young, hip director.

He didn't want somebody that was just going to phone it in

and take a check.

Being a huge fan of the old Universal horror movies,

and particularly "Frankenstein," that was the first idea.

You know, let's bring Jason back to life.

Gotta be a lightning bolt.

Then I actually would go to these bizarre locations,

you know, cemeteries, and, I don't know,

somehow I just loved that whole process

of writing in unusual places for this

and just sort of see what the inspiration was.

Originally titled "Jason Has Risen,"

McLoughlin's script once again

focused on the Jason-obsessed Tommy Jarvis,

but virtually ignored the events from "Part 5."

After I did "Friday the 13th, Part V,"

I got hired by Frank Mancuso Jr.

To edit a movie called "April Fools' Day,"

which, coincidentally, had Amy Steel in it,

who had been in "Friday II."

After that was over,

Frank wanted me now to do the next Friday,

which was VI.

John and I were assigned to do "Part 6."

Pretty soon after I got word from Paramount through my agent

that John wasn't going to do "Part 6."

I was at a crossroads in my life

where I was trying to decide do I really want to pursue acting,

or, you know, is this the best use of my time and talents.

So I made a conscious decision on "Part 6.",

that, you know what, I'm going to pass on this.

And they said we can't use you because you are intertwined.

They wanted to kill me off in "Part 6," but we said nope,

not doing that to us.

[high-pitched shriek]

One of the very few brothers that survived

the "Friday the 13th" series by the way.

"6" begins and it's a different actor,

it's a different story.

And enter Thom Matthews.

I did do a movie, a horror movie before

called "Return of the Living Dead."

[random screaming]

When Tommy shows up in "6,"

Jason has not been cremated as you thought.

His body was cremated.

He's nothing but a handful of ash!

And beyond that, Tommy is no longer bat-shit crazy.

This is between me and Jason.

He has now apparently not only found his moral center,

he is a hero again.

And he's bringing Horshack with him no less.

Accompanying Tommy on his ghoulish quest

was fellow mental patient Allen Hawes,

played by the late Ron Palillo,

best known as "Horshack" from the cult 1970s sitcom,

"Welcome Back Kotter."

Once Jason was dead and Tommy was still around,

and he had gotten out of this institution,

you know, his vow was to go and make sure, you know,

Jason was dead.

My character goes over and grabs a metal stake

from the rotting wrought iron fence,

and I stick it into his heart several times.

Oh, shit.

It starts to rain,

lightning bolt hits the rod

that's still stuck into his chest,

and it kind of revitalizes his body.

The Hawes character whacks him with the shovel

and all it does is, you know, get his attention.

He turns around and punches his heart out.

That was pretty interesting.

We made a foam rubber heart.

We had it so it could actually pump off camera,

and there were tubes running in that the guys on set

had the blood squirting out of it.

That also to me was important

because, you know, we've given him this power

with a lightning bolt.

He should be pretty damn, you know, unstoppable that way.

One of the exciting things for me

on "Friday the 13th Part 6" was the creation of Jason's mask.

And we wanted it to really look the same,

but we still had to customize it to our actor,

which was C.J. Graham in this.

Once he turns around after taking Horshack's heart out

and puts that hockey mask back on,

that was the last time you'll see me with my face exposed.

After that the inside of the prosthetics

became pretty simple.

But the people, Reel FX, they did a great job.

He had to be this unstoppable force.

And nobody was listening to Tommy

that he had brought him back to life.

You're gonna be sorry you didn't listen to me.

You're gonna be sorry if you don't shut up.

It did create a new rule which I thought was cool

only because, you know, how do you kill something

that is already dead?

From the opening moments of McLoughlin's gothic,

tongue-in-cheek horror film,

fans were aware that they were in

for a very different "Friday."

I had nothing to do with the James Bond title sequence,

but when I saw it, I just absolutely loved it.

I thought it was, like, so cool.

And it was also a wink and a nod to the audience

saying "You're in store, this is something different.

We're having fun with this."

Does he think I'm a fart head?

YES!

It was fun because every time Frank Mancuso Jr.

Came up with some bogus title

that we were making the "Fridays" under,

and he was a huge Bowie fan,

so every movie had some Bowie song as the title.

"Part 3" was "Crystal Japan,"

and "Part 5" was "Repetition,"

and we had the one, which I thought was the best,

"Aladdin Sane."

To play Megan Garris, the spunky sheriff's daughter,

McLoughlin chose Jennifer Cooke,

who had recently starred

in the science-fiction television series "V."

Jennifer Cooke was picked for two reasons.

One, the "Friday" girl always seemed to have to be blonde,

and I think that was Frank Mancuso's desire

to kind of carry on

the Hitchcock tradition of the blonde.

In my particular choice,

I wanted her to have a very kind of '30s, '40s snappy attitude.

Sheriff: Tommy Jarvis is a very sick boy.

Megan: How do you know, dad? What did you do?

Take his temperature?

Like a--you know, like Barbara Stanwyck was,

or Jean Arthur back in the day.

Playing Megan was terrific, and she really was a feisty girl.

I would say like most girls her age,

she was figuring a few things out in life,

like how to fall in love, and how to say no to your dad.

You keep forgetting, little Megan,

I'm the parent, and you're the child!

That's right.

When are you gonna stop treating me like one?

When you stop acting like one!

I've been an acting coach for a long time

and actually Jennifer studied with me.

And so we knew each other.

David Kagan was also--

His character name was Sheriff Garris,

and he was cleverly named after a horror director

named Mick Garris.

And Tom inserted a lot of those references

throughout the movie.

One was the town of Carpenter,

you know, after John Carpenter and "Halloween."

The best I can do is call the station in Carpenter

and have them keep a look out for them.

And then the other was Cunningham Road.

Drive out to Cunningham Road and look for him.

Megan!

If you watch the movie there's are a lot of little references

to Frankenstein, you know, in there.

The Karloff, you know, market.

Where are you?

Uh, Karloff's General something...

There was stuff all over that picture,

just signs on walls.

He had really done a great job in pulling all that together.

Harry did such an amazing job with the score

because you know, he kept the "Friday' score

but he had, you know, this whole Gregorian, gothic feeling to it

with what he added.

The score was different because the movie was different.

It was probably the first one that really, to me,

felt like, "Wow!

This has turned into an actual movie."

Over the years, it's come up that, you know, I was doing,

both a horror movie of "Friday the 13th,"

and also sort of doing a satirization

of, not so much the "Friday,"

but the kind of slasher movies in general.

The fact that the characters reference Jason,

make jokes about it,

I enjoyed, I thought it was a lot of fun.

Because I've seen enough horror movies

to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly.

Happy Friday the 13th.

The object of the game is to find out

which cabin Jason is in!

What if it's that guy, Jason?

I don't wanna know.

It was real. Just like on TV!

I think we're dead meat.

So...what were you gonna be when you grew up?

Some folks have a strange idea of entertainment.

It was a way of really kind of having fun

and involving the fans.

Tommy's very bizarre sense of humor

really shines through, I think.

But, yet, a fondness.

You know I found out years later,

meeting Kevin Williamson,

that that did have an influence on him for "Scream."

Killer: Name the killer in "Friday the 13th."

Casey: Jason! Jason! Jason!

Everyone was, you know, very fun and wholesome kids,

you know, innocent.

For the roles of likeable camp leaders Darren and Lizbeth,

McLoughlin cast his wife Nancy

and a young actor who would find out-of-this-world success

after his brief encounter with Jason.

The big discovery of the movie was Tony Goldwyn.

"Ghost."

He became famous for the movie "Ghost."

The thing that Tommy brought him back to life with

is this spear that he yanked off of a fence.

So once Jason had that,

he had something to spear both Tony Goldwyn and Nancy with.

(Screams)

My wife Nancy had a pretty close call in the movie,

and it was completely unintended.

She actually almost got impaled because of the windshield.

It changed the trajectory of the spear

that Jason was lunging through the windshield.

I would have been speared, and it missed me by a speck.

I mean they could only do it once.

It was really scary.

And then there was obviously the times

where somebody tries to reason with him.

Please! Take anything!

You know, as Nancy does in her scene,

tries to offer him,

money and credit cards and stuff.

My head was submerged, literally in the mud,

literally with a vice.

And they gave me a regulator

thinking that would keep me well.

Well , apparently regulators don't work in the mud,

so the mud's creeping down my throat.

The American Express card

was another thing that I knew

the way audiences responded in those days,

that when that card floated,

there would always be some joker in the back of the theater

that would go, "Don't leave home without it!"

And everybody would laugh.

They say that there's always a reason

that Jason kills someone.

What did I do?

I mean, I was driving. I wasn't having sex.

I mean, I was with a guy but we were doing nothing,

so it's curious as to why we were killed.

I've never figured that one out.

Jason has no bias.

If you were in his territory, fair game.

To establish a new look for Crystal Lake--

Now rechristened Forest Green--

McLoughlin took his cast and crew to rural Georgia,

where they soon discovered some interesting local pastimes.

The big thing for the kids to do on Friday nights

was a big parking lot,

and they would just drive around in this circle

and drive this loop,

and that was the big thing to do at night.

But it was kind of remote and sort of out of it,

kind of not cozy, for lack of a better word.

The camp we shot at, Daniel Morgan,

actually was the site also of the movies

"Little Darlings," and "Poison Ivy."

"6" was a lot more fun to do than "5."

I think everybody else was happy.

You had Tom McLoughlin, who I think is a real director.

It really was like a family.

When you film something on location,

you tend to get to know the cast and crew a lot better

than you would if you were filming at a movie studio

where you get to go home every night.

It's not love, it's location because everybody...

I was the den mother, and they'd come with these huge crushes.

She was great. She took care of everybody.

She was mothering everyone from the beginning.

Absolutely. I'm glad she survived the movie.

Because that spear could have gone right through her.

By a speck!

I just had such fun.

I mean, it's like a big improvisation.

With Tom's words.

He was filming a film that took place in a camp,

and it was like he was running a camp for wayward actors.

Despite the congenial, family-like atmosphere,

not everyone supported the director's artistic aspirations

for the film.

There was a man who, Don Behrns,

who was a little on the... cheap side.

The first horror film I ever worked on

was "Halloween 1,"

which nobody ever knew was going to be

the big success that it was.

He, you know, certainly had a past with doing, you know,

horror movies and things so he seemed like the right candidate.

And, at the time, you know, he made me very angry

because as the writer/director, you know, you had a vision.

Everything was nickel and diming, nickel and diming.

If I wanted a crane shot for this,

or I wanted this for this,

and many times I showed up on the set,

and it's like, "Where is it?"

It's like, "Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you."

You know... I wanted to kill him.

He said, "By any chance, you got a deal with Frank,

do you get a bonus for getting this picture done on time?"

I said, "Yes, I do."

At the end of the day, you know,

every time you have a restriction,

you have to come up with something else.

And lots of times you come up with something better.

By the time cameras rolled in January 1986,

McLoughlin had surrounded himself with a loyal crew

and a likeable ensemble cast,

several of whom were recruited from his comedy and mime days.

Tom McLoughlin wanted to cast experienced actors

in the first scene that he shot in this movie

because he wanted to be ahead of schedule.

It was a fairly complicated scene.

We were all being beheaded.

I knew Tom from the LA Mime Company.

He was the director of the LA Mime Company,

and I was a mime in there.

And when he was going to do this film,

he talked to me.

"Well, I have a part I'd like you to do."

And I said, "Oh, great. Do I get killed?"

He said, "Yes."

We actually were playing paintball, and it really hurts.

After I got off a great shot,

I made the men put on headbands that said "Dead."

Don't be spoilsports. Put on your headbands.

(whispering) A foreshadowing of things to come.

One of my favorite kills in "6"

was the sort of misogynist guy with the machete

who has the machete, and he's hacking the branches

and complaining about women should, you know,

stay in the kitchen.

She should've stayed in the kitchen where she belongs!

A woman shouldn't even be allowed in these games!

And then Jason grabs his arm and throws him against the tree,

and he winds up hitting the tree

and his head goes back,

and there's like a bloody smiley face on the tree,

and you see Jason holding his arm that's been severed

from the rest of his body.

And then it was a question of going,

Okay, you know, we've seen decapitations,

you know, how do we take it one more step?

Okay, let's do three in one.

You know, so that three heads went at the same time.

Jim Gill , who now runs Reel Effects,

did this really cool gag where

as the idea was as we passed the machete

across the three artificial dummies,

a trip mechanism would perfectly send the heads off

at the right time.

It was really authentic, really excellent.

Then we made the legs so they would buckle at the knees

and collapse out of frame.

A lot of work went into that.

And the rating system made them cut that back.

The head was so realistic.

The eyes, I had more hair at the time.

It wasn't until the first screening

about two minutes before that scene came on

and someone on the crew leaned forward

and tapped me on the shoulder and said,

"By the way, the triple decapitation has been edited out

because of the ratings."

And I'm like, "What?"

Just as I turned back to watch the machete go up,

and I think you see the bodies crumple by frame,

and I remember thinking, "Wow. What a shame."

When he fires the paintball thing to Jason,

and Jason looks down,

I thought that was like really, really funny.

You see me running away,

and Jason following me with the machete, and I'm going,

"Help, help, help."

He's gonna kill me!

And then they cut away,

and nothing is ever said about Roy until later.

"Did you find Roy?" And the went, "Yeah."

And they pull out an arm, and my glasses and parts of Roy.

I'll order up some body bags.

There were the kids

and then there was the Sheriff's assistant-- me,

Deputy Rick Cologne.

And my mail order laser scope

which, you know, as you see where the movie takes place,

it had to be mail order.

There was not a whole lot of places to go

and buy that kind of thing.

Wherever the red dot goes... ya bang!

Trying to find a cemetery that would allow us to shoot,

even though we were calling the movie "Aladdin Sane."

'Cause that was the whole thing,

we did not want to say we were "Friday the 13th."

Old Madison Cemetery, where we finally got permission,

and we had one area where we could drive the truck in there

90 miles an hour over the train tracks

and into there.

There was an entrance made

so it looked like the front of the cemetery.

And then the rest of it was staying on the paths

until the point where he gets tackled

and then that was kind of a bare area.

But like anything else in movies,

you're given permission to do something,

and you try to make the best out of what you're given.

Echoing the behind-the-scenes controversies of "Part 2,"

the original stuntman hired to play Jason

was replaced during the early days of production.

Originally we had a stunt coordinator

who was also playing Jason, which is Dan Bradley.

We started the movie doing all the daytime sequences,

all the things with the paintballers and stuff,

and so all that was Dan as Jason.

And Paramount, when they got the dailies,

somehow - and I don't even know whose decision it was

because I was busy shooting,

said that we're making a change.

"What do you mean?"

"We're getting a different Jason."

"Why?" "Just trust us, we need to do this."

I remember that Dan didn't, apparently,

didn't look that good on screen.

Apparently had put on a few pounds.

For a person who had been dead for a long time,

he had been eating pretty well.

It was devastating to me.

It was certainly devastating to Dan,

and I, you know,

as I said I just was really leery

about who was going to walk in that door.

And, you know, in comes CJ

who had really little or no experience.

He was large and imposing, and that's what they wanted.

CJ was huge.

He looked the part, but he was a gentle giant.

So, frankly, when he was grabbing people

and chasing us through the woods,

we had to do a lot of acting

because he just wasn't that scary in person.

He didn't want too much of a zombie,

but he wanted that fear, that anger,

and the projection had to be through the body,

100% through the body.

Just a simplistic little movement would create fear.

I pray the lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake...

Many of those small, little physical nuances

definitely helped add, you know,

that sense that, you know, there was a machine in there,

like Terminator.

But at the same time you had to give a little bit of that

human thought process so you didn't become robotic.

Ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma

I remember my first scene, my very, very first scene.

It was a back shot. Me walking towards the trailer.

Where Jason sees the Winnebago moving,

and he kind of tilts his head in a humorous sort of way.

You know, he wants to understand

what the noise is about, why the mobile home is rocking.

You're the best!

During my love scene,

they had a little powwow and said,

"We don't have any nudity in this."

So they asked me if I'd be interested in doing it topless.

The contracts had been signed,

so that just didn't seem to pan out.

The best part about working with all the actors and actresses

that I worked for is we had a great camaraderie.

They trusted me which was a great feeling.

I'm walking by the bathroom of the Winnebago,

and Jason comes out of the bathroom,

grabs me from behind, slams the door

and there I have this amazing fight with him.

And I'm this little tiny person,

and I really gave it my all and fought with him.

I mean, I had to take a young lady's face

and slam it into a camera lens with force.

Slammed it through the wall of the Winnebago

where the imprint of my face came out.

And how they actually did that is they filmed it underwater,

and they shot it in slow mo,

getting--pushing through this piece of plastic underwater.

John Travolta's nephew,

who's driving the RV, Jason comes behind him.

And the way the guy's rocking out, and listening to music

and looks up and all that.

Hey, Nikki what are you doing back there, taking a dump?

And we're driving along and up until

the slamming of the knife into the side of his head,

it's a real knife.

I mean, and he's trusting me,

and I'm wearing a hockey mask,

and I'm not just taking a cheap shot of force.

I'm throwing that knife towards his head.

Stein-stein-stein-stein-stein...

But then that iconic thing with that big crash

and then Jason on top of the RV

with the fire in the background.

Literally the last shot of the film.

The sun was coming up.

I was on my knees praying

that this guy wasn't going to get killed doing this

because nobody had ever flipped an RV like that before.

And I guess, what I heard later

is that our production manager, Don,

wanted the swamp cooler that was up on top of that.

He had little special deals for himself,

and one of the special deals, my understanding is,

he had this swamp cooler that he pulled aside--

$5,000 swamp cooler.

Well, apparently some people got wind of that

and got a little excited.

And they all marched over there,

and they tied it to the top of the RV.

And when the thing flew and hit,

the first thing to fly off was that swamp cooler, you know.

And as it exploded,

the cheers that went up, and the excitement over

"We got him. We got him."

It was worth every penny-pinching moment.

[sigh]

The car chase scenes were really fun,

and I was pretty comfortable doing those

because, I must admit, my first car when I was 16 years old

was a 1970 Firebird

that looked a lot like Megan's car.

This is gonna be a hairy turn.

They were just looking for a guy to play a cop.

Officer Pappas was a little vain.

Come on, handsome.

And I got to say one of my favorite lines--

You got a description of the plates?

I got the whole enchilada.

"I've got the whole enchilada."

Megan, step out of the car.

End of the line.

As Tommy is locked up by Sheriff Garris,

Jason's primal instincts lead him back to Camp Forest Green.

One of the other sort of notorious aspects

of my "Friday,"

it's the only one that actually has kids at the camp.

And I don't think there was anybody in fandom

that wanted Jason to kill children.

It just gave it, to me, another level of "Oh my God.

Are they going to actually show kids getting killed?"

Tom spent more time shooting the kids

and working on their performances

in a lot of ways than he did on the kills

that were going on in the movie.

One of the little girls in the bed,

she's laying there and all of a sudden

Jason's walking down the aisle

and leans down to the bed

and looks closely and tilts his head looking at her.

And she just starts praying that he's going to go away.

I named the little girl Nancy, actually after my wife Nancy

because she sort of represented to me

the sweet, innocent child

who believes that if you're good,

God's going to protect you.

And there's been the other rumor

which is it was named after Nancy

from "Nightmare on Elm Street"

who also had nightmares, but that's not true.

I mean--but again, if that works, we'll take it.

Jason can just about do anything as far as strength.

There's a scene where he takes one of the girls,

the camp girl's head, and twists it off.

You know, some of that stuff unfortunately

had to be cut way, way down from the way we had shot it.

But everything I tried to do in the movie

also was something that you couldn't do

as a normal human being.

Kerry's character was hopefully shocking

how badly she got it

and most of that was your imagination

because you didn't actually see it.

But you certainly saw the bloody aftermath.

I remember the little girl that runs out,

and she's in the woods,

and she's scared and , myself as the policeman,

goes to calm her down and tell her everything's okay.

What scary man?

Of course, everything's not okay.

That's just before Jason crushes my head.

[screaming]

They did build a great head where the brains popped out.

I guess the fans were a little bit disappointed

that some of my death was cut by the MPAA.

And then I come into the scene, and I'm looking for Jason,

and I trip over something, and I fall down,

and my face goes right up against his face.

And that's where the sheriff takes a shot with the shotgun.

Blows me back.

Takes another shot, blows me back.

You can blast him a number of times and knock him down.

He's laying there,

and, as far as I was concerned, he's playing possum

you know, just to mess with you.

One of the things that turned out wildly effective

was the back cracking of the sheriff character.

They dug a hole and those weren't my legs.

They had a guy head down in the thing,

in the hole, with his legs behind me.

And when I bent him up, all he did was lift himself up

from a box in the ground.

And the idea is the actor gets cracked backed by Jason.

Just that whole idea of bending somebody all the way back,

and , you know, hearing all this [cracks knuckles]

A little sound design, a little screaming.

It all turned out great.

Interestingly, that scene probably had more issues

with the MPAA than anything else.

And it's a bloodless kill.

They felt that it was too intense

so they sort of quick cut.

And we to just keep taking frame after frame after frame

out of that thing.

That had a huge, you know, reaction in the audience too

because, again, it wasn't something you had seen before.

With his undead Jason on the loose,

McLoughin injected his film with a new set of rules.

The thing I found the "Fridays" lacked

in my form of storytelling

was the sense of some kind of mythology,

some sense of rules.

And if you could somehow maybe follow those rules,

maybe you can, you know, save the day.

And it is just like in ghost legends, you know,

is that, Jason was never going to be at peace

until he was back where he drowned as a boy.

And my idea is to somehow manipulate him

so I can put this noose around his neck

and drown him.

I think he called me a pussy if I remember correctly.

Jason, come on!

Come on, ya pussy!

And then I give my attention to Tommy in the water,

and I just go after him.

It's very visual and beautiful.

You've got this fire. It's really well shot.

Cinematically, it's one of the more interesting sequences

in any of the "Friday" films.

The scene where Megan kills Jason

with the outboard motor was shot in two different places.

All of the underwater scenes

were shot in a temperature-controlled tank

in Los Angeles

well after we'd filmed the rest of the movie.

And when I say they chained me down,

they did chain me down.

I was, I was at the mercy of the safety divers.

If I needed air, I would signal, give a hand signal.

The divers would swim in.

They'd lift my mask and put a regulator right in my mouth.

All of the above-the-water scenes

were shot in this murky, eerie lake

in the middle-of-nowhere Georgia,

in the middle of the night.

So, that was terrible.

I believe we shot in Tom McLoughlin's

father's swimming pool after the fact,

of the motor, the blade from the motor,

cutting Jason's mask, and the blood coming out.

Jason has, you know, obviously lived

far beyond anybody's expectations

because even when I was doing the film,

it was pretty much,

"Well, I think this is probably going to be the last one,

and so just have fun with him,

but don't kill him kill him"

which is why I had him, you know,

hanging there in the bottom.

I mean, you can see at the end of the movie,

the eye opens up,

and the man behind the mask is still alive,

and it just sets it up for the next phase.

As with all of the previous "Fridays,"

a number of different endings were suggested,

though none were ever quite so daring

as Tom McLoughlin's scripted though never filmed

cliffhanger.

Tom McLoughlin had written a different ending

where you met Jason's father.

We'd seen Jason's mother.

We understand how messed up Pamela is.

Well, who marries that woman?

And, really, what did he have to do with this ultimately?

We don't know who he was, what he was, or anything.

So I thought it would be

really interesting at the end of mine to, you know,

have him show up.

In my original script, the caretaker had not died.

He was still around.

So he was, you know, it had a kind of an epilogue

with him in the cemetery and in walks this guy,

kind of an almost Rasputin, you know,

type character you didn't get to see too much of,

and you realize that he's the one

who's been paying the caretaker

to take care of Jason's grave all these years.

And you now kind of understand that whatever Jason came from,

you know, the truly wicked side of him,

was his father.

What I got worried about with Tom's idea about Jason's father

is that if you sort of dangle like something like that

at the end of the movie,

all of a sudden we're trying to tell the story

of a 60-year-old guy,

and how that would sort of circle back around

into a movie that we could actually sort of make work.

Frank Mancuso felt that, no,

we don't want to split, you know,

the attention of the franchise off on something like that

as cool as it, you know, the idea might be.

You know, stay with Jason

and probably he's ultimately right.

The Elias Voorhees character I think

really would have been very interesting to visit.

That I think was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Maybe the people who didn't like "Part 7"

would have thought that would have been a better movie.

I don't know.

But I was happy that they actually released

a Signet Pocketbook version of the movie,

which has, you know, that aspect in it at the end of it.

In a further attempt to broaden the film's appeal,

Paramount recruited legendary shock rocker Alice Cooper

to contribute three songs to the film.

You don't have to be a genius to take a look at me

and realize I'm an old rocker that refuses to die

and so when, all the movies I always try to put

as much rock music in as I can.

The music score done by Alice Cooper

was done after the fact, but it was a very cool thing.

We didn't mind a little blood on stage,

and a little, you know, slash here and there.

And so when the slasher movies came along in the '80s,

all of a sudden we were right there.

So when it came to writing for Jason, you know,

Jason's like a member of the band.

They came to us and they said,

could you write 2 or 3 songs for the movie,

a couple of incidentals and a theme.

And I went, "Yeah, absolutely."

Alice was incredible

to just kind of let us use whatever songs we wanted.

And the song that he came up with was just huge.

Yeah cuz he's back

He's the man behind the mask

And he's out of control

"The Man Behind the Mask" was written 3 or 4 different ways.

We wrote a heavy metal version of it.

And then we wrote sort of a hard rock version.

And then we realized at that time

that they were looking for something

a little more...

a little more bounce to it.

And so we got together with Kelly

who wrote, I think "Material Girl" for Madonna,

and he was the one that came in with that [hums bass]

Early test screenings of "Jason Lives"

did not fully satisfy Paramount executives.

So they decided to enhance the film's thrill quotient

by increasing its body count.

And I do remember being in meetings

talking about who can we kill, how will they get killed.

And that's where I came in.

Oh Steven, it's beautiful.

I am friends with Tom McLoughlin, the director.

So I knew him beforehand.

He had directed my husband Vinnie Guasterferro,

who is the deputy,

and so he hired me to shoot the scene we did.

We shot that at Griffith Park here in LA.

And he shish-ke-bobs them

where it puts it right through the front

and right through the back.

I know we weren't the first shish-ke-bob

to occur in "Friday the 13th"

but I think we were the first on a motor scooter.

That is probably our claim to fame.

Optimistic about the film's chances

of playing to a summer audience,

Paramount Pictures bumped up its release date

to August 1, 1986.

Despite being the only "Friday the 13th"

to receive the occasional positive notice,

the film failed to capture the #1 spot at the box office,

falling behind another high-profile horror sequel,

James Cameron's "Aliens."

With a final tally of $19.5 million dollars

"Jason Lives" became the lowest-grossing

"Friday the 13th" to date.

And I really think the reason "6" didn't do well

is not because "6" is not as good, if not better,

but the fans didn't really come back

because they felt so ripped off by "5."

And then when they began to see "6" on video,

that got them back into the series

because they saw that Tom McLoughlin, more than anybody,

brought the series back to life.

I was really happy with the movie, the way it came out.

I'm still happy with it. I think it holds up really well.

And I sure had fun filming it.

I never got to go to summer camp

so it was the closest I ever got.

And I thought Tom did a really good job on that movie.

I thought that he brought a lightness to it,

a fun-ness to it.

He had a great sensibility.

He had a real appreciation of the movies.

And as a result, we had a lot of very good reviews on the film

because they said,

"Well, you can't really hate a movie

that is making fun of itself."

Yet, you know, for most of the fans,

it still, you know delivered what a "Friday" should deliver.

By the late 1980s, Paramount was looking for new ways

to exploit their most lucrative franchises.

To the dismay of its critics,

"Friday the 13th" would soon be coming...

to television.

Mel Harris, who was at the time head of Paramount Television,

came to me and he said,

you know, "We're having a very successful syndication run

with "Star Trek."

We want to try to identify some other titles

that we control that we think will bring an audience.

Just by virtue of the title."

It was essential that we found a way to tell stories

that would have a kind of "Friday the 13th" theme

without being directly associated

with "Friday the 13th."

And he said , "Look, this has nothing to do with the movies.

It could be anything that you want.

It just has to be "Friday the 13th,"

and you have to be involved."

I remember when I was a kid going--

Doing like the 11:00 monster movies, and it's like,

you know, kind of freaks you out

and then you gotta go to sleep.

What I need is a Vampira cocktail

to settle my nerves.

It will not only settle them,

it will petrify them.

And that's kind of the dynamic that I was looking for.

With only a title to work with,

Mancuso and co-creator Larry B. Williams

began brainstorming a premise

that could sustain itself in the world

of late-night syndicated television.

Like the films themselves,

"Friday the 13th: The Series" had to be made cheap.

And it had to be scary.

And I was kind of intent on doing an anthology

with continuing characters,

so we started talking about the notion of a curio shop

and what that would be like.

And then the idea of it being cursed

and then we started saying, "Well, you know,

if we had all these cursed objects,

then we can go ahead and have a great time with that."

So that really became the sort of the core of the show.

Frank's plan with "The Series"

is that all these antiques were cursed,

but they all could actually service you

in something really good,

but there's always a price to pay.

The allure of the object that is cursed

and the things that happen to people

with that object in their possession

is really a terrific idea.

And it was a terrific launching pad

for really some--some really fascinating storytelling.

Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil

to sell cursed antiques.

But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul...

Distributed by Paramount Domestic Syndication,

"Friday the 13th: The Series" debuted on September 28, 1987.

It told the story of cousins Ryan Dallion and Micki Foster

who inherit an antique store from a distant uncle

who sold his soul to the devil.

Aided by antiquities expert Jack Marshak,

their quest was to retrieve the cursed objects

before obsession and death came to those who acquired them.

I'd been out in Los Angeles for three years

and got an audition for this television series.

It all just happened very fast.

Went in for a wardrobe fitting and was on a plane to Toronto.

Robey, John LeMay and Chris Wiggins were a dream cast.

Chris is a senior emeritus honored Canadian actor,

and it surprised us when we asked him to join the cast

and he said yes.

So they wanted to shoot like

this little pilot kind of thing, which I directed,

and , you know, it was very contained,

very small, and, you know, we probably did it for $85.

I have no time for you!

But it communicated what we were meant to communicate

which is that, you know,

it's going to be scary, it's going to be spooky,

it's going to be tense.

With not a single episode

featuring an appearance by Jason,

or even his cursed hockey mask,

many "Friday the 13th" fans felt alienated.

And even cheated by its television counterpart.

The only thing that the television series

"Friday the 13th" and the movies "Friday the 13th" had in common

was the title and Frank Mancuso Jr.

While "Friday the 13th" as a title was a come-on,

we really felt that there was something there.

There is no concept

that could have sustained itself on television

with a slasher killer on the loose

anywhere for the 76 episodes that were subsequently made.

I really wish they would have called it "Friday's Curse."

Which was the original intention.

In Europe it was called "Friday's Curse,"

and in Canada it was called "Friday's Curse" as well.

It was set up in Canada and I was producing the show.

And it was a fascinating experience.

And we got like Atom Egoyan to do one.

David Cronenberg did one.

David Cronenberg brought that terrific kind of

laser-like focus on a theme

which so totally fit into the storytelling notions

of "Friday the 13th."

And it was wonderful.

It was also great to work with David

who's a fabulous director.

Frank asked me about being story editor

because they had a story editor up in Toronto

where they were doing the show, and, you know,

wanted me to write and direct, you know,

some episodes as well.

"Master of Disguise," I thought was a great idea

basically having, you know, a makeup case that, you know,

could take somebody who was really deformed

and, you know, you'd kill

and then you would sop up the blood of the victim

and then he was as handsome as like a James Bond.

And because it was syndication,

we literally never got a note from anybody about anything.

I mean, I don't know that anybody

even looked at the shows.

I mean, it was like literally they just went out.

So if I wanted to do it in black and white,

it was black and white.

If I wanted to do a two-parter, you did a two-parter.

I mean, it was like literally whatever we decided to do.

"Friday the 13th," the new television series

that has put real fright into late night.

"Friday The 13th: The Series" was a bona fide ratings hit.

Often ranking just behind Paramount's

top-rated "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

After two successful seasons,

actor John LeMay decided to leave the show

to pursue other opportunities.

The thing that was the most interesting of a challenge

was the third season,

Frank asked me if I would write and direct

for the season premiere.

And he said, "You know, we need to kill the Ryan character

because he wants to get off the show,

and but don't kill him in a way

that we can't bring him back if he changes his mind."

And I got turned back into a child

at the end of my two-year stint on the show.

It was a grand and glorious two hour episode.

It was a way of basically taking him off the show

and, if you wanted to bring him back, you could.

When LeMay was replaced in the third season opener

by actor Steven Monarque

as streetwise Johnny Ventura...

"The Series" lost not only its leading man,

but its luster.

Once Ryan got turned into a little boy,

Johnny Ventura had to take over that spot.

Johnny...

Johnny was the cousin of Ryan.

He was a little bit more of a blue-collar kid.

I don't think he was afraid of fighting

and physically getting involved with saving the day.

[monster growling sounds]

"Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street"

were head-to-head in terms of their television experience.

"Freddy's Nightmares" was always a somewhat more lighthearted,

tongue-in-cheek kind of a television series.

I think the makers of "Friday the 13th"

always wanted it to be dark,

always wanted it serious quality.

Because the show got good reviews,

and the show was successful,

the people at Paramount said,

"If we can get X dollars at 11:00,

if we move it to 10:00 we can even get more."

So they moved it to 10:00 in year two.

And all of a sudden it's like even more successful.

They said, "You know what?

Let's start putting it on at 7:00, 8:00, you know,

whatever it is.

They start moving it.

So now, all of a sudden,

different kinds of people are watching.

No longer is it the last thing that you see

before you go to bed at night.

Now it's like, it's on at 7:00.

They stopped the clock, Lewis!

[screams]

Here you are, sitting at home, eating dinner

and all of a sudden this, you know,

splat thriller comes on the tube.

I think, you know, as a parent

it would catch me by surprise, too.

And with Paramount boldly pushing the show

into prime time slots, "Friday the 13th: The Series"

soon came under fire from right-wing religious groups

who were less than enthused about a show

involving black magic and pacts with the devil.

I think when I came in at the time,

people were already not liking the show.

There was already this force trying to get it off the air.

So this guy, Donald Wildmon,

who had like this kind of Christian Coalition group

started squawking about "Friday the 13th"

because it started to get recognized.

He's talking about Jason.

He's talking about, you know, all this stuff.

I'm saying, this guy's never even seen one of the shows.

What's at stake here?

Western civilization as we've known it

for two thousand years.

We kind of all laughed him off in the beginning.

But, you know, you get somebody like that who calls and says,

"Yeah, I got 555,000 constituents,

and they're not going to buy Proctor & Gamble products

if you continue to put your ads on this show."

All of a sudden it's not so funny anymore.

I was sad that it ended that quickly.

You know I really wanted to do at least another year or two

because I was just finally getting my feet wet.

It's amazing how our culture has changed in 20 years

and how permissive and pervasive violence, in particular,

is on TV,

and how much it's just taken for granted,

that it's just going to be there.

So, yeah, it was sad because we did, what, 73 hours

and, you know, there were some clunkers,

but there were a lot of really good shows in there.

And, in point of fact,

when I talk to people about the television series,

you know, people do remember it fondly.

But I think a lot of people

who were really big fans of the series

didn't like the fact that they stole the name

and tried to sneak a fast one past everybody

and get them to watch this hour serial on TV.

But it was fun. I liked it.

I mean I really had a good time doing it.

By the end of 1987,

the idea of pitting "Friday the 13th's" Jason

against "A Nightmare on Elm Street's" Freddy Krueger

was already quietly circulating around Hollywood.

Due to complex legal issues

involving the two characters, however,

it would be another fifteen years

before fans would see Freddy and Jason battle to the death.

But that didn't stop executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr.

From finding Jason a formidable foe.

I got kind of energized by "6" a little bit,

and I really wanted that to tell people,

"Okay, we got your back.

We got Jason back so it's going to be okay."

And "7", I sort of backed off again.

I mean, inevitably it had to do with what else

I was doing at the time.

I was about halfway into the first season

of "Friday the 13th," the television series,

when I got a call from Frank Mancuso

asking me if I'd like to come down to Los Angeles

and discuss with him

the possibility of producing "Friday the 13th Part 7."

And Frank was in discussion with John Buechler

to come and direct the film.

Basically I said, "Why?

Didn't they just make 6 of them?"

I mean, why would you ever want to do a "Part 7?"

And I said this in front of Frank Mancuso,

and my agent was in the room and both their jaws dropped.

And I think it's because I didn't want to do it ultimately

that I got the job

because I did want to push it in a slightly new direction.

John had been a makeup effects artist.

He directed "Troll" and a couple of other movies.

He'd come out of the Charlie Band Empire world

of low-budget horror films.

So he was kind of a perfect candidate.

Because of my particular effects background,

I think I was considered as being

the helmer of the project

because I could bring that to the table.

Even when it got to "Part 7," I mean,

they weren't costing any money.

So there wasn't any real risk.

Originally titled "Jason's Destroyer"

the screenplay written by Daryl Haney

would see Jason face off against a powerful

though unlikely, new adversary.

Well, obviously the main difference

in this "Friday the 13th" was that there was a female foe.

A girl that could just come in and stand up to Jason.

The synopsis of this movie would be Carrie Meets Jason,

and, you know, this is a girl

who's got these incredible telekinetic powers.

The first thing I remember about getting the script

for "Friday the 13th" was the fake name on it,

"Birthday Bash,"

and my husband was a huge "Friday the 13th" fan.

And, he goes, "This is Friday the 13th.

This is not "Birthday Bash." You've got to do this.

Please do it."

And he just begged and begged and begged for me to do it.

Lar was wonderful,

and I don't think anyone had really seen Lar

in anything before that.

But she was terrific.

One of the visual inspirations for me

was an old Hammer film called "Hands of the Ripper"

where you basically had a beautiful, little blonde girl

who was Jack the Ripper's daughter.

That kind of iconistic image

stuck with me and that became the template for Tina.

I identified with several things of Tina

right off the bat.

She was very vulnerable,

and she--a lot of people are.

They might have an exterior,

but they have a vulnerable underside.

So Tina evolved from what was basically a Carrie clone

with different baggage, of course.

"Part 7" once again opens at Crystal Lake,

where a young Tina Shepherd

first unleashes her powerful telekinetic abilities.

My daughter, played by Jennifer Banko,

had these special powers,

and my husband, John Otrin, would beat me up constantly,

a horrible alcoholic.

Please, don't drink anymore!

Don't tell me what to do! (slap)

That's all I knew.

It was an abusive father.

And my little daughter was able to cause his demise.

One day she just, she's had enough,

and she accidentally with her telekinetic powers

kills her dad.

She goes, "I hate you , Daddy."

I hate you! I wish you were dead!

You know, I remember I did that little...

And the next thing I know,

the pier falls right into the water, and I die.

But it was amazing

because we had to do multiple shots,

and the bridge would shake and it would collapse,

and then it would put itself back together,

and we'd start from one.

After spending years in a mental hospital,

17-year-old Tina returns to Crystal Lake

to face her past... and to exorcise her demons.

You didn't know what Tina was capable of,

and she didn't know what she was capable of.

I always had a sense that what if she got too upset

and hurt someone that she loved around her again.

Because you weren't really sure what she was thinking,

and she couldn't control it.

Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't happen!

And you're lying to me!

Her adversary, up until the end, is not Jason.

It is her doctor who is trying to exploit her.

Terry Kiser played the doctor.

Terry did "Weekend at Bernie's" where he played the corpse.

He became huge, never said a word.

He wants to do a research document on her.

He takes her to the one place, Crystal Lake,

where her father was accidentally killed by her

to make her very agitated.

Instead of taking her anger out on kids at the prom,

basically she takes it out on the lake,

and she focuses her anger at the lake,

and the lake starts to bubble,

and it jump-starts Jason.

Ch-ch-ch-!

Never before had Jason been played

by the same actor/stuntman more than once.

All that was about to change.

Enter Kane Hodder.

I had worked with Kane Hodder on a couple of other films,

one was called "Ghost Town,"

and the other one was called "Prison,"

and I thought that this might be the kind of guy

that I would want to play Jason

because he is a coordinator, he is a stuntman,

and he could perform under tons of prosthetics

and makeup.

I had been a fan of the movies for a long time,

a horror fan in general.

Loving the character of Jason,

never having any clue that I might have a chance

to do it myself.

I kind of went into it without any real plan.

I wanted to just do what felt natural.

You don't get the performance.

You don't get the visceral one-on-one confrontation

if you don't have an actor,

if you don't have somebody who can perform

through a ton of foam latex without a single word

and make you know what he's thinking.

And obviously Kane Hodder came through with flying colors.

Although the film's exact timeline remains unclear,

at least 10 years have passed since the events of "Part 6"

when a supposedly-dead Jason

was left to decompose at the bottom of Crystal Lake.

Buechler's thoughts were that he's kind of a rotted corpse,

and the makeup was real extensive.

Every scar, every rip, every tear

that Jason ever had was in the Jason

that we created for "Part 7."

I looked at things in the past,

and it just kind of seemed like he was too much of a zombie

for what I would enjoy myself.

And so I tried to just put subtle things in there

to make it a little more human,

like the breathing thing, and the head turn

where I turn my head first and then the body follows.

It just was something that felt right

and felt kind of imposing.

And we all thought

he should have been Jason from the beginning.

He should have been every single Jason, you know.

He's the guy that ended up playing Jason most

in the "Friday the 13th" movies

because he did bring something to the role.

While Tina is subjected to Dr. Crews'

unethical experiments,

the house next door is overrun

by another lively group of teens.

Including the handsome yet sensitive Nick,

ugly duckling Maddy, and the bitchy Melissa.

Played by the late Susan Jennifer Sullivan.

I remember Susan Jennifer Sullivan.

A fun little girl , not at all like her character.

She was sweet as can be.

In many ways, she was playing against type

because even though she looked, she had the package

of that kind of privileged snobby princess...

There goes the neighborhood.

She was really humble and very nice.

It's a matter of some curiosity that at this point in time,

the fan base knows it as "Fri-Gay the 13th Part 7."

We were kind of aware

that a large number of the male members of the cast

and nay, indeed some females, were indeed gay,

but it never had an effect on making the show.

I know possibly one of the reasons it got the name

"Fri-Gay the 13th," Kevin, the love-interest

of Lar Park-Lincoln, was, I believe he was gay,

and maybe some people thought there was no chemistry,

and you know, she might not have been terribly attracted to him.

There was a little bit of a rumor on the set

about that they didn't really get along that well

which I thought was pretty tough to have to be able to,

you know on film, appear like they're hitting it off,

and they're having a connection.

It's a... big pink elephant.

I was a little bit oblivious to the fact

that their chemistry wasn't all that good.

I kind of remember now

that Lar would say a couple of things to me

that they weren't jiving,

but they never said a bad word about each other.

The film worked just fine,

all the romances, all the drama.

I'm not sure sexual orientation gets involved

with who Jason wants to kill.

He's an equal-opportunity slasher.

While the "Friday the 13th" films

were never greeted with enthusiasm

by the Motion Picture Association of America,

no one felt their wrath more harshly

than director John Buechler.

I've said it often, and I'll say it again,

the ratings board raped my movie.

The MPAA was the true horror of the film.

They sent us back many, many times

to re-cut the film,

to take out, you know, pieces of gore.

The favorite Jason kill that I've ever done

is the sleeping bag just for the creativity of it.

OK you big hunk of a man, come and get me!

Jason picks up the sleeping bag with the young woman in it.

She's screaming, and he bashes her against a tree.

They shot various versions of the sleeping bag.

It had a heavy dummy in it

and about twenty gallons of blood,

which is not light.

So, of course that was a big no-no with the ratings board,

so I would cut it down, cut it down.

And finally, in the final version,

he picks up the sleeping bag,

hits the tree once and throws it down.

One of the rare cases where I thought

maybe the edited version ended up better than the unedited.

Every kill in the film,

they shot footage that was very, very graphic.

The kid who got killed at the lake

when his girlfriend was skinny dipping,

and there was far more detail to what happened to him.

Jason, like a golf pro, swings the axe upward

and slashes up through a guy's jaw,

splitting his face forward

and a spout of blood goes straight up.

In the movie, unfortunately,

you cut away before any connection is made.

For me it's like telling a joke without the punch line.

I think Billy Butler's kill was also kind of great

because you didn't really see it happening,

but you saw Tina's vision.

William Butler and I

actually did "Texas Chainsaw" together as well.

A lot of our fans, you know, they bring up

that him and I did two horror films together,

very close, a couple of years apart.

They seem to think that's really neat, I do as well.

We were filming "Friday the 13th: Part 7"

in February in Alabama.

We had a guy with a gun with us all the time

to shoot alligators.

He was a rather older man and he was very slow,

so I don't think he could have shot that alligator

if it came out of the swamp at me,

so that was strange.

Oh, get real, Maddy. You're not his type.

You need a little touch-up work first.

Thanks!

I remember Diana Barrows.

She played kind of the ugly duckling

who gets the makeover.

Need a little touch-up work, my ass.

We actually did reshoots in Topanga

to make the deaths kind of longer

and that was the scenes with Maddy smoking grass

for the first time with David,

and more versions of my death scene.

[scream]

And my ex-boyfriend confessed to me years later,

after I broke up with him,

that he would rewind my death scene a million times and go,

"Get her, Jason! Get her, get her."

[scream]

Yeah, right, happy fucking birthday.

I certainly remember how Jason killed Ben,

my boyfriend in the movie.

I'll bet it's Michael...

I'm thinking Michael is shaking the van.

It's actually Jason. I hop out of the van.

For some reason I don't want to have sex anymore.

I want to find Michael.

I don't think I've ever seen a killing like that

where he just takes, you know, his head,

one hand on top and one under his chin,

and just smushes it to a pulp.

Actually in the script my death is described

as "Ben's head gets squished like a ripe pimple."

They had made a dummy head.

They had filled it with cottage cheese

and a bunch of gook.

After my head is squished,

Jason picks up the party horn, and she gets plugged again.

After the horn went in,

which I didn't realize until I'd actually seen the movie,

there was a little toot noise.

When we were in Alabama,

we filmed a scene where they made a kind of prosthetic body

under my nightgown,

and he took a big sword and chopped me in half,

but the fake body underneath

had shifted, and it looked really phony so...

but they didn't see that until we got back to LA.

So that's why we re-shot it.

A new death scene for Robin

was filmed in the same Topanga Canyon house

which previously served as the Jarvis residence

in "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter."

So he picked me up by the neck,

and he threw me out the window,

but the funny thing is, is they hired a stuntman

to be my body double.

So when you see the body going out the window,

it's this guy with these big giant legs

and this kind of pretty bad red wig.

You know, so I remember people going,

"Your legs are so muscular."

Push comes to shove,

we discover that not only does Tina

have this psychokinetic ability,

but she can also clairvoyantly see things before they happen,

but not exactly as they happen.

She gets an image that is kind of a surreal version of it.

Once in a while if one of the characters

was particularly bad,

then I might want to come up

with a little bit more violent way of killing 'em,

like Dr. Crews.

Terry's character, he was not a good doctor.

You have deliberately turned my daughter

into an emotional wreck.

That's not true.

In fact, in my death scene, when we're out in the woods,

and I'm running and the whole thing, he sees Jason coming.

And he literally puts my body in front of his

so that he's safe for a second.

That's the kind of guy he was.

That guy's gotta die in a creative, violent way,

more so than some of the other people.

The psychiatrist's death was another one

that was just gutted by the MPAA.

I was surprised when I went to see the movie,

so much of the gore had been cut out.

That was a real tool.

I've never seen it since then.

I hadn't seen it before,

but it was like a weed whacker with a circular saw blade on it.

Great weapon.

Didn't see much of it in the movie unfortunately.

They shot all sorts of angles,

cutting into a prosthetic body and blood and guts and...gone.

[screams and buzzing]

Everybody loved watching Melissa get the axe in the head.

She was just such a horrible character.

She was such the quintessential bitch.

Melissa was a bitch.

You were already waiting for her to get it.

Tina and myself and Melissa

are in the cabin kind of waiting things out.

Don't go out there.

She says, "Fuck you. No..."

Fuck you both!

Turns to leave and guess who's at the door?

Jason's sitting there with the axe,

and he splits it right in her head.

Whack!

We did a reverse pull-away gag on her with a hatchet,

which didn't end up in the movie at all.

I remember we watched this stunt girl...

fly across the room with this axe in her--

It was extraordinary.

That was a fun day, actually, watching that scene.

We were in a very small space when that was shot.

And, of course, Kane takes up half the room.

We acted scared and ran upstairs

because that's what you do.

You don't run outside, you run upstairs.

I thought from the very beginning

it should be more of a stunt movie

than it would be a makeup effects movie.

And we have that great street scene

where she goes right up to him.

Jason?

I loved the twigs coming around his legs

and taking him down that way.

I had to really take a lot more abuse than I was expecting,

but I was glad to do it

because I think it made the movie look much better.

The battle continued.

It just continued and continued, and we shot it forever.

For me it was difficult

because my character was in a constant state of upset.

I would have to constantly keep myself very tense

to keep the tears rolling and flowing,

and the anger, and the disbelief and the craziness.

Going into it we relied heavily on other mechanical effects

like the roof falling on Jason.

As soon as that thing hit me, man, there was no acting.

It hit me so hard and with such force

that it just drilled me into the stairs.

We had special effects in that movie

that were actually kind of in competition

with the killing.

And we had TVs flying across the room

and explosions and the pearl necklace breaking,

and all this great magical stuff that didn't typically happen

in a "Friday" film.

And we really wanted that over-the-top aspect

with the makeup effects, with the stunts,

with the physical effects, everything.

Every time I turned around,

she was doing something else to him.

I loved the nails, and the gas in the basement.

I loved that scene. That was really fun.

And he's like fed up with all the stuff she's doing to him.

And I can vividly remember Buechler saying,

"Go like this, really move your face around."

He was talking through the whole thing.

I was always amazed and just in awe of him

because as a stuntman he had an accident

and was burned in a stunt

and has scars on his chest and his neck.

It really was a case, you know, conquering your fear

and just moving on saying, you know,

this is not going to stop me.

They truly blew up an entire house in that movie.

It was wild.

You know, putting pryro in in special places

so it would go boom, boom, boom, boom.

And the grips, everybody smoking cigarettes,

and up in the eaves inside the house

are these little ropes hanging everywhere.

And I went, "What are those?

And they went, "Oh, we're going to blow up the house."

And I went, "You mean it's all set to blow up,

and everybody's smoking!?"

Eventually the word came down that, yes,

we were ready to go.

The countdown started happening. We tensed up.

This was going to be great.

And as the button got pushed,

the whole building went up within a split second.

I was there when they filmed the cabin exploding,

and I don't know,

something must have gone wrong with something

because you could actually literally feel the heat.

There was not a piece of wood

larger than a matchstick available

to be seen the following day.

It was "Apocalypse Now." It was just too big.

Lenses were smashed on the IMO's.

You know, filters were melted.

And eventually, I think the longest piece of film

of the explosion was about 20 frames, less than a second.

And eventually we created at least something

that you could say,

"Okay, there's an explosion there."

But on the day, we were heartbroken.

From the earliest days of production,

John Buechler found himself at odds

with a key member of Frank Mancuso Jr.'s executive team.

When you're working as a director on a movie,

you have a vision.

The producer's interested in the money,

and the director is interested in the product.

In this particular case...

I kind of went head-to-head with my associate producer.

Barbara Sachs worked for Frank Mancuso

across a broad range of his development.

She was responsible for developing

"He Said, She Said," "Permanent Record,"

so she was a very big part of Frank Mancuso's company.

There was occasional tension between her and John

because she was probably giving her input,

and John had his own vision, and John knew what he was doing.

This was not a new genre for him.

The "Friday the 13th" series of films

was a little bit outside her wheelhouse.

This was not in her sort of

intellectual and emotional direction.

She didn't like horror.

If you're going to be an associate producer on a film,

or even a producer, you gotta love it.

One of the things I really lobbied for

was to show Jason mask off

for the better part of the last reel of the movie.

She hated the look of Jason.

She said, "He looks like a frog. He's so unbelievable."

She vetoed the idea for me to do it at all.

And I was busy working,

and I couldn't really go over her head

and talk to Frank and get approval.

So I did it anyway.

And ultimately Frank Mancuso loved popping Jason's mask off

the way I did it.

She always just seemed to be somebody in the way.

There was, I believe, a conflict about the very ending,

about how the father would look.

The ghost of Tina's father was to be realized

as a fully animatronic thing.

I'm decaying after 7 to 10 years of being in that water.

I look as ugly as Jason looks.

And we did this makeup on John, and we did the animatronic,

and, of course, she vetoed that

because I'd gone against her will.

We actually put the makeup on,

and we started shooting some of it.

Actually I came out at the end with that outfit on

and brought Jason down, and it was never used.

And so what you see at the end of the film

is John Otrin coming up with a dirty face

and pulling Jason down.

I think when people view the film they say,

"That's kind of lame."

I felt bad really for John because he had done

so many really great things in that movie,

and it was never-- it was never seen

and some of those scenes were lost and deleted.

For years, fans have demanded a home video release of the film

in its fully-restored form.

Unfortunately, a truly uncut version

of "Friday the 13th Part 7" will never be seen.

It would be terrific to be able to go back

to "Friday the 13th Part 7"

and put it back together in a form

that had more, sort of, creative coherence.

Unfortunately that footage has been discarded.

Paramount destroyed all the outtakes of the film

which it's... It's pretty unfortunate.

Without the elements, without the outtakes,

there's really no hope of ever making a director's cut

or alternate version of those scenes

because the footage just doesn't exist.

Like so much of, you know, great American cinema,

it's now lost to the world.

Not that I'm saying "Friday the 13th Part 7"

was great American cinema,

but great American cinema of a certain kind.

Though it wasn't per se a studio film,

it did have many of the trappings of a studio film.

And it made me ultimately very dissatisfied

with too many cooks.

Sometimes directors can get kind of snippy.

John never did that, and he had a lot of external forces

that could have certainly made him go crazy.

We were fighting all kinds of different battles

within producing the film.

And um, he was always very kind to me,

and I'd go home at night and say,

I'm gonna look like an idiot in this franchise,

and my career is going to be over.

But I trusted him , I believed in him and it worked.

Jason... Is Back.

But this time, someone is waiting.

"Friday the 13th: Part VI I The New Blood"

Little more than six months after the start

of pre-production,

"Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood"

debuted on May 13, 1988.

While its final take of $19.2 million dollars

was respectable, it paled in comparison

to the late-summer release

of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master,"

which took in a then record setting $49. 1 million.

Although Jason may have been temporarily unseated

by the competition,

he was still a long way from being dead.

It opened at the Chinese Graumann Theater in Hollywood.

How awesome is that?

So here we are, we're in the movie theater,

the 8 o'clock show or something, and we're counting the deaths.

This is a sold-out crowd.

Every time Jason killed somebody,

the whole audience would go...

1!

2!

3!

Every time somebody got killed, they'd count 'em.

It's just amazing, the movie magic,

and the way things really come to life.

I was scared, I screamed, I jumped, I moved, you know,

I was hiding, and I knew what was coming,

I'd read the script, I'd seen a lot of the scenes being done,

but when they actually put it together, you know,

it's real!

I was very happy to see in the "Hollywood Reporter"

that "Friday the 13th Part 7"

was the highest grossing movie at the box office in May 1988

when it was released.

That says something about the enduring legacy

of "Friday the 13th."

Although Tina would not be seen again,

fans have long envisioned a sequel

that would bring together the surviving characters

of "Friday the 13th" for the ultimate showdown with Jason.

Well, I'm waiting for "Friday the 13th Part 13"

to come out and it would be terrific

if the surviving girls get together

and that would be a script.

Hell, yeah. I would definitely do it.

It sounds like it would be a great time.

Charlie's Angels vs. Jason, Jason's Devils basically.

We'd get all buff, we'd get all strong

and then maybe I could run as fast and jump as high

as I did before.

He's always only fought someone one-on-one.

He's never had a group fighting him at the same time.

I would, I mean I haven't forgotten how to do it,

it's like a bike, I don't think I could ever forget.

We'd just have probably really great lives

with this terrible memory.

I would probably do another film

that would reprise that role, you know,

the years later, as long as it was done in , you know,

a good light.

I think what Tina would be doing today

is trying to help others

but still dealing with her own demons and being pulled back,

I think she would be pulled back to the lake again.

Tina being fully realized as who she is

made the movie work,

and the fact that we could pay it off

with the special effects and so forth

really contributed to the success of the movie.

Even if Jason's machete blade

had dulled slightly at the box office,

all seven films in the series

remained highly-profitable ventures for Paramount.

But with its fan base growing up

and dream demon Freddy Krueger

now taking on pop-icon status,

it was time for Jason to venture out of the woods...

and step into a much larger world.

There were seven before, obviously,

and they all took place in Crystal Lake, right?

And so the first question I asked them,

was, "Does it have to be in Crystal Lake?

Can I take Jason out of Crystal Lake?"

Rob Hedden is an infectious personality, first of all,

so he's a very upbeat guy.

He has tons and tons of energy.

Frank Mancuso Jr. who was producing it,

I mean he was the one, he just said,

"Well, if it's a big city, it's got to be New York."

I said, "That works for me. That's a great idea."

So that's how the whole

"Jason Takes Manhattan" thing came about.

But there was fun that we hadn't seen before

about the notion of a Jason in a big city.

The notion of what would happen

if Jason got into the subway, you know all those things.

My first draft of the script had a big chase scene

across the Brooklyn Bridge.

There was a lot more stuff that we just couldn't afford to do.

He certainly had ambitions

that we didn't have the budget to allow for.

Production reality set in and it was like, okay,

instead of, you know, 75% of the movie

taking place in New York, we'll do 50%.

And then it was, well, we can't really do 50 either.

So then the concept, well ,

let's do some mayhem on the cruise ship

while they're getting to New York,

and we'll make, you know, maybe the last third of the movie

will take place in New York.

Among the sea of new faces,

at least one familiar passenger was back on board.

Kane Hodder's enthusiastic and always menacing

portrayal of Jason Voorhees

ensured that the graduating class of Crystal Lake High

would be in for the voyage of their lives.

So for me it was like I looked at "7." How did he die in "7?"

Okay, that's where we're going to find him. He's underwater.

He's going to get shocked with electricity.

In the film's opening sequence,

an amorous couple anchored at Crystal Lake

inadvertently awakens Jason from his watery grave.

Perhaps in retrospect

we probably shouldn't have anchored our boat

in Camp Crystal Lake

where there was a corpse of a murderer down under the water

waiting to be reanimated.

He really doesn't even need the electricity.

He could come back just because he feels like it.

Having Kane Hodder on board was really helpful

because he had done "Part 7," and he knew what had been done.

And also Marty Becker was our special effects guy.

And between them and our makeup people,

we decided let's tweak Jason a little bit too.

People ask me,

"Why does the makeup change so much from movie to movie?

And the hockey mask changes and everything else."

You know, basically it's because

it's a different makeup effects person who designs it,

and they don't necessarily stay true

to the previous movie.

Plus he starts out underwater

at the very beginning of the movie,

and so he's pretty much just gooey the whole movie.

They put slime on me every single shot

so I was wet the entire movie.

Goo. Goo is great.

The moment where I get almost shot by the spear gun

was the scariest moment of the whole shoot for me,

out of the whole week,

because they did have to aim the actual spear gun

really close to my head.

And they were like, "Don't move and get it right

because we're going to damage the wall behind you."

I didn't think there was really any danger,

but it was definitely scary because it did whiz by my ear,

and it was very loud when it shot into the wall.

It also probably wasn't really smart to hide on the boat

where the murderer is coming to get you

instead of jumping into the water

and at least trying to swim for your life.

We were doing my death scene, and I saw the fake torso,

and it originally had really, really large boobs

on the fake torso which I was super excited about.

And then they were like, "We might have to rethink this."

I know they made some adjustments,

and she had really nice nipples, I remember that.

Kane Hodder was on the set one day,

and he came out with a strap-on in full garb you know,

Sounds like something I should check out.

Once again, fans have been quick to point out

inconsistencies in the timeline

and the logic of "Part 8."

As far as the logic on how that ship

got out of Crystal Lake into the Atlantic,

I have no idea.

It's a tough one because it had to be Crystal Lake,

and we had to get him on a cruise ship to New York.

And so we tried to do a little smoke and mirrors

and it maybe didn't quite work.

I have a theory.

I think we were all so frickin' happy

to have a paying gig and for most of us,

it was our maiden major movie and it was like,

"This damn boat could come from the Sahara Desert

and get into the Atlantic.

I'm not going to challenge the concept."

And we ultimately just said, "Let's just forget it,

you know. People can--people may get mad at us for that,

but let's go for it."

Our graduating class I'd say it's easily, what,

about 100 kids on that boat,

and it's like only 5 of us get killed

but yet everybody's wiped out.

At the very beginning there were so many extras

and then as the shooting went on there was less.

And that was probably a budget issue.

They might've got a little scared and jumped overboard.

And Julius is like, "Hold it down."

School is out, McCullough.

I think that's the assumption, right,

is that Jason basically,

behind the scenes, was eliminating everyone.

A number of young hopefuls were initially considered

for the role of the film's smart yet aquaphobic lead.

Rennie had a special connection to Jason

because her evil uncle

was trying to teach her how to swim

when she was a little girl.

So I unfortunately,

because of an Old School understanding,

I tossed her into the water

which was a not very nice thing to do for an uncle.

And she saw Jason under the water.

My character is terrified of the water

but she decides to go on the boat anyway.

One by one the classmates are killed off or missing.

There's nowhere to go.

They can't escape from him and that claustrophobia

gave me a lot of ideas in how he could trap them

and kill them.

In "7" and "8" I was sort of absent.

I was there in spirit,

but I wasn't there actually scoring it.

Fred Mollin, the composer to the TV series,

took over writing the music to those two films,

although they dropped in a few pieces of mine

from previous films and, of course,

k-k-k...

TCH-TCH-TCH-JA-JA-JASON...

As production of "Friday the 13th Part 8"

set sail in Vancouver, British Columbia

under the code titles "Ashes to Ashes,"

and "Burial at Sea,"

a last-minute change was made to a key member of the cast.

Originally when we got to Vancouver to shoot

there was this really hot guy playing my boyfriend.

That's all I remember about him. He was really hot and buff.

We shot the first day with this other guy, great guy,

really nice guy.

It was my first major film but I had done some other things,

so I shot the first scene of that day

which was like well into the script

when the ship was flooding with Peter Mark Richman.

This is Jason's fault!

Not another word of Jason, do you hear me?

No, I don't. And it's time you listened to me

if you want to get off this ship alive.

Let's get to the lifeboats.

He seemed a little uncomfortable.

The chemistry with him and the Rennie character

wasn't quite there.

I thought there was chemistry. Whatever.

Thank God for the producers because they really said,

"You know, there's a problem here,

and if we don't correct it right now,

we're going to have a problem-- a bigger problem."

I think the day after that, one of the PA's came to me and said,

"The producers want to see you tomorrow night."

And I knew without them even saying it,

I'm going to be let go.

And so it was the toughest thing I've ever, you know,

had to do was to basically to replace an actor,

and that's what we ended up doing.

But, again, it was for the benefit of the movie.

And Scott Reeves came in.

And Scott Reeves was so sweet and fantastic,

and he's hot too.

Also on board were Martin Cummins

as film school geek Wayne...

Kelly Hu, best known for her roles in "X2"

and "The Scorpion King,"

and Saffron Henderson

as head-banging rocker J.J.

There was one girl in the movie who's a rocker,

and she's got the Flying V.

This place is achin' for a video!

She's got to get her head bashed in by a Flying V.

I mean, it just was like that's a no-brainer.

[Scream and splatter sound]

This is actually J.J.'s guitar

and right here you'll notice

that there's actually some of J.J 's blood

after almost 20 years.

Forensics evidence.

I think every "Friday the 13th" has to have the promiscuous girl

who is caught doing something naughty.

And she pays.

Come and get it.

She was the Queen Bee.

She made everybody buzz around her.

And she did that by going in there

and being the edgiest, the coolest,

the one that was always doing the riskiest stuff.

I mean, seducing the teacher.

Hey.

There's a scene where she paints body organs on her.

I didn't mind the biology project so much

because it was kind of funny,

This girl comes on to me, and I was getting turned on.

I was really... mmm ...

having it...affect me.

Peter was a much older man when I was doing that,

but he definitely helped me with the scene

and made me feel comfortable.

What do you think you're doing? I'm your teacher!

- And cut it. (laughter)

I was a little nervous about, you know,

some of the revealing shots.

That was my issue really.

Rob Hedden wanted to make me feel comfortable,

so he just stripped down at the same time.

He goes, "Look. I'm doing the same thing."

And he was so awesome that way.

I did not feel exploited.

Then, again, I was the good girl

who was fully clothed throughout the entire movie.

Not only did I have a shirt,

I had a shirt and a vest

and baggy, horrible pants, macho shoes.

It was bad. It was very bad.

"Friday the 13th" has so many '80-isms in it

with the camcorder being this huge, huge camcorder,

the cocaine, and just the dress and the hair

because it was big hair, lots of backcombing

and definitely an '80s movie.

I think that a lot of creativity

rightfully has to go into modes of murder,

you know, and you know,

how is he going to dispatch his victims?

We had Kelly Hu and it was one of her first movies, you know,

and she was great.

And she was totally up for it and I thought,

"Well, okay, let's figure out a way to kill them

that doesn't involve a knife or something else."

The disco scene was one of the hardest scenes

I've ever had to do as Jason

because we did like 14 hours of work.

We decided to do this big dance thing and she's circling around

and his face is popping up here and there.

And then at the end, I had to pick the actress up

and choke her to the ceiling.

I had to say, "Well , now I have to hold you up to the ceiling,

and then throw you down hard, and you're dead.

So you can't break your fall.

Not easy to do, and the girl did a great job

because she just hit the deck hard.

That was actually one of the, at least from what I heard,

you know, one of the more satisfying deaths in it

because even without any blood or, you know, gore.

Despite its attempts to feature more fantastic effects

than outright bloodletting,

the film still had to pass muster

with the stringent MPAA ratings board.

I always thought of "Friday the 13th Part 8"

as sort of the Disney version of the "Friday the 13ths."

It wasn't quite as gory.

Well, I don't really know about the censor boards

and what they allow, or what they didn't allow,

but I'm sure they probably didn't like

"Friday the 13th" so maybe that's why the,

you know, blood situation sort of diminished.

It just seemed a little tame.

I mean, the 1980's, at the height of the success

of these movies,

there were multiple cases made that he was kind of

the modern Reagan-era killer

because he was making those kids that didn't "just say no"

and were having premarital sex, pay.

It's just sort of, watch out, young people.

Be careful what you do

because Jason's gonna come to you.

There were various things like, "Okay,

we gotta electrocute one kid, gotta electrocute somebody.

A lot of sparks. That'll be great."

Another one we did,

and this was done after the fact,

it wasn't shot during principal photography.

We decided let's put a sauna on the ship.

I actually put the Panaflex on my back

to shoot that sequence of the hot coals.

You start asking yourself is there something wrong with you

when you're spending your day

thinking up ways to murder people.

I'll never forget when I was shooting the shower scene

because when he comes in, even though you know it's a movie,

and you know you're just acting, it was scary.

You know, you shoot all night.

You shoot all night in these movies and you're exhausted,

and you're freezing, and you're being hosed down,

all the time.

You're in the same clothes for 3 months.

It was somewhat dangerous.

We were rather miserable through that period.

I had to be drowning in the ocean,

and we were in this huge oil tank

on the sound stage,

and I just remember going under the water

and coming up and just being covered in oil,

and on my face and thinking,

I think I've just taken 10 years off of my life.

One of the takes that's in the film

where Julius comes up out of the water,

the water was so violent...

I'm losing the boat here. I'm losing the boat.

The boat was closer than I had anticipated,

so when I came up, the top of my gums

hit the edge of the boat.

There were so many times where I just hoped

that I wasn't going to end up in a cast

at the end of the night.

But, you know, it's show biz, baby, you know.

You keep it moving.

When the remaining cast members abandon ship

in a final bid for survival,

it appears that Jason had been left behind on the Lazarus.

leaving fans to ponder another question--

How did Jason get to New York City?

We went through all of these, you know,

scenarios of how did he get there

and then we ultimately decided

let's just let the audience wonder

and let them try to figure it out.

He'd been doing all these other things during the movie

that defy any kind of human logic.

One image I had in my head

that really pertained to the New York thing

was having Jason rise up out of the water

into the harbor in New York,

and the first thing he sees is a giant billboard

with his face on it,

and he gives, just this little cock of his head like, what?

Operator, this is an emergency. Get me the police.

[Glass] My death scene, the fans

and just the letters and stuff that I get,

it really, it really made an impact on people.

Just a great scene because it had really never been done

to try and box Jason.

Initially they had planned to have that boxing match

take place in Madison Square Garden.

His character thought, you know, I'll just wear him out

with my punches and ended up wearing himself out.

We just really went for it.

I, you know, to ask Kane. I said, "Hey, dude.

Can I really hit you?" He goes, "V.C., give me all you got."

He was punching me for real on every shot to the body.

Like 66 punches each take.

And like even at the end of that scene

where you see my knuckles very swollen

and with blood and stuff all on them,

that was real, baby.

It was, you know, it was toe to toe.

So I did, you know, I took a little abuse myself

so by the time it was time

to knock the head off the dummy, I was ready to do it.

You know, everybody else can see what's coming but Julius.

You know what I mean? So he's just standing there.

And just a classic line that he gives right before that.

Take your best shot...

Motherfucker.

If you are going to sort of tire yourself out

trying to take Jason on,

don't pause and say "Take your best shot, motherfucker."

Run because he is going to knock your head off into a dumpster.

They made three. One was for close-ups.

One was heavier that actually hit the garbage can,

and then there was another one that was lighter

that they tossed up in the air.

Yeah, but I kept the one, the money shot one.

The one that was for close-ups.

It was an adventure.

It was really, really an adventure.

For veteran character actor Peter Mark Richman,

best known for his roles in episodes

of "The Twilight Zone" and "Dynasty,"

being killed by Jason was hardly the high point

of his acting career.

One of the most awful things that I had to do was my demise.

Jason picked me up and carried me over to this barrel,

and there was a rat on top of the barrel.

It was so nauseating.

We shot in some miserable street in Vancouver.

That was supposed to be New York, right?

So there was a joke running around it was

"Jason Takes Vancouver"

instead of "Jason Takes Manhattan,"

but we were able to make a lot of parts of Vancouver

look like New York.

Let's be honest. That's not Manhattan.

I've been to Manhattan. That's not Manhattan.

You don't understand, there's a maniac trying to kill us.

Welcome to New York.

It's kind of like trying to make a nice steak dinner

on a ham sandwich budget.

Not since "Rumble in the Bronx"

has a less accurate depiction of New York been presented.

And then not only that,

they were only going to let me shoot

for one week actually in New York.

We put a 40-foot crane in the middle of Times Square,

and we did some big stuff

that none of the "Fridays" had been able to do before.

It gave us a different kind of engagement

with the, with the audience.

The single most amazing thing that I've ever done

as the character was shooting the scenes in Times Square.

And there were hundreds of people on either side

of the streets behind barricades watching the filming.

So I had the mask on,

and just stood there knowing there's hundreds of people,

and I just turned and looked at them.

They went nuts.

It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

Screaming and cheering

just because I had given them the look in the costume.

But when I was standing in Times Square

looking at this giant crane with all these extras around,

Jason walking through.

This is a real movie. This is big.

I felt like, like a rock star or something

because the way people reacted.

You didn't get me in the lake.

And you're not gonna get me now!

I felt very empowered playing the part,

especially at the end when, you know,

I was the only one surviving

and there we were in the sewers, and I felt like,

alright, this is a nice, tough, accurate portrayal

of a girl's strength.

You know, he's chasing after our heroes

at the end and then he gets hit with toxic waste

and melts to the point where it is supernatural ending

where he finally reverts to the child,

which seemed like it had more closure than the other ones

as far as Jason coming full circle.

And what was supposed to happen is that

young Jason comes out of this giant skull,

and it just looked funny.

And so it was on the famous cutting room floor.

Were I submerged in toxic waste,

I'm probably not emerging as my 8-year-old self,

particularly if I was already a mongoloid,

mentally handicapped person.

Clearly the government needs to be investigating

the healthy by-product of toxic waste.

Part of it is that he is just a supernatural kind of being,

that keeps coming back.

You just can't kill the guy.

And I couldn't kill him either.

He-he-he-he.

The never-ending battle

between Jason and the Motion Picture Association of America

continued to make headlines

in the weeks leading up to the film's release.

The ratings board wasn't amused

by the image of Jason

slashing his way through the film's teaser poster

with a bloody knife.

And neither were New York City officials.

I remember some controversy as far as like

with the "I Heart New York" poster.

It did piss off the Tourism Board in New York.

In other news, after New York officials threatened to sue,

Paramount Pictures agreed to remove

the original promotional posters for "Friday the 13th Part 8"

where Jason is slashing through the "I love New York" logo.

As far as like capitalizing on being in New York City,

I think one of the, another way that they did that,

that was really kind of brilliant was the trailer.

They set it up with the skyline

that we all know to be New York City.

You know, Frank Sinatra's playing.

You know, you're thinking it's going to be

some beautiful , sleepy, you know, date movie

and then all of a sudden Jason's ass pops up in there.

Now New York has a new problem.

Even if you are not a genre film fan,

you're just a marketing executive,

that is a home run marketing concept.

And then shortly after we did "Jason Takes Manhattan,"

I was asked to do "The Arsenio Hall Show,"

in costume as a guest.

And I walk out, and he pulled the whole interview off

by talking to someone who doesn't speak.

I got some great titles I put together--

Jason and the Three Babies. What you think of that?

(laughter)

Despite its clever ad campaign,

the film opened to scathing reviews

and earned a new series low of $14.3 million dollars.

I don't know if "Friday the 13th Part 8"

was the best episode.

I think the first one was probably the best episode,

in my humble opinion.

But we gave it our best. We really tried.

One of the things is that some of the fans,

it kind of rubbed them the wrong way,

the fact that they went expecting to see

all this slashing and the things that you typically associate

with a "Friday the 13th" movie taking place in New York City,

and, you know, it took place on the boat.

For producer Frank Mancuso Jr.,

who would go on to produce such films

as "Species," "Ronin" and "Stigmata,"

the time had finally come to hang up the hockey mask

and bid farewell to "Friday the 13th."

The "Friday the 13ths" had a lot of negative connotations

that came along with it from a societal point of view,

and I think that that was very much a concern to me.

And if a kid got shot in a Friday the 13th movie,

it was the movie's fault,

it wasn't the fact that the kid was there with the gun.

You know, so, I can't keep on doing this

because on some level this is going to get to a place

where I can't get away from it.

So I've sort of made a conscious decision not to do it anymore.

I got along so great with Frank and just,

he just had such a great attitude.

I was just amazed at how much creativity

and certainly insight into what was going to work,

what wasn't going to work,

and how to handle people.

I was lucky enough to be on that ride,

and I appreciate the fans

because as far as I'm concerned,

the fans are what made this movie what it is.

A cultural sort of phenomenon.

And that doesn't happen one way.

That's a two-way street.

They sort of brought a life to it

that it would have never had without them,

without any doubt.

Although Paramount Pictures never officially announced

the end of their association

with the "Friday the 13th" franchise,

after the disappointing box office returns

of "Jason Takes Manhattan,"

there was little interest in moving forward

with another sequel.

For three years, Jason would lie dormant...

until producer Sean S. Cunningham

decided that the time had come

for the monster to return to his maker.

You know, I was away from "Friday the 13th"

for several years

because they were making the same movie over and over again,

and I'd been associated with it,

but I had moved on to do other things.

I think probably after "Part 8,"

Paramount figured the franchise had gone its run.

The whole reason to come back

was I wanted to do "Freddy vs. Jason."

I thought that was going to be so cool,

and it was a way to sort of breathe the life into it.

As it turned out, I was able to get the rights back

from Paramount and Warner Brothers

and set something up at New Line,

but we had to wait for a long time

before we could do "Freddy vs. Jason"

and that's when we wound up doing "Friday The 13th Part 9."

Paramount kept the rights to "Friday The 13th"

and the other partners had Jason Voorhees,

which is why "Part 9" is "The Final Friday,"

not "Friday The 13th Part 9."

With the sequel rights now secured

and New Line Cinema officially on board,

Cunningham turned the director's chair

over to an ambitious young filmmaker

whose passion was matched only by his inexperience.

When I started directing the film I was 23.

And at that point I was the youngest director

New Line had ever hired, and I was a year out of film school.

And I won Best Picture when I was there for the short film

that I had made.

He had just graduated NYU,

had a script written with a friend named Dean Lorey

called "Johnny Zombie."

It was a fun little kind of horror comedy

that started getting more and more attention

and eventually became a film called "My Boyfriend's Back"

which was a major production for Disney,

and they didn't want a first-time director helming it.

So Adam kind of got bumped off the project.

Our feeling about Jason

was we can't take it too seriously.

It's got to be fun for us.

And we were huge geek fans.

We loved the series.

And it was like, "How do we make a movie

that we want to see?"

I think when "Jason Goes To Hell" was conceived

it was coming off the ill-reception of "Part 8"

which was not very positive.

So we tried to kind of change the formula a little bit.

The plot was actually dictated by Sean.

Basically what he said was, "I want that damn hockey mask

out of the movie.

So whatever you come up with, let's make that movie."

Rightly or wrongly, maybe Jason needed a little shaking up.

So we decided to go in and mess with the mythology a little bit.

Much like in "Halloween 3"

They just threw out Michael Myers entirely.

Sean wasn't involved with the hockey mask.

That wasn't Sean's movie.

Sean's movie was about a mother

avenging the wrongful death of her son.

So Sean always wanted to kind of go back to themes of family

and those ideas so we were really turned on by that.

He wanted to create a mythology

out of these previous eight films

that really weren't in any way leading to a mythology,

so he had to kind of create it from scratch.

We thought how fun would it be to play with

the audience's expectations and start the movie

by killing Jason.

Incoming!

And once he's been killed,

we started to reveal a more sort of interesting,

or at least from our point of view,

version of the Jason myth

which is that Jason is ostensibly Hell's assassin.

I didn't have a clue as to what the plot was.

And we got this hodge-podge of a script.

There was something about Jason

transferring from body to body to body.

So Jason is not a hockey mask wielding maniac,

even though that's his favorite form,

but that his evil can go from person to person to person.

This was one of the first films where

the idea and the essence of Jason's evil

sort of manifesting itself physically

was really the first time they'd ever done that,

and it was definitely a departure from the other movies.

So it was a bit more of a creature movie

than it was an all-out kind of slasher film.

It's reminiscent of "The Hidden"

which I hadn't even seen before we wrote "Jason."

So we were like, "Wow. That's coincidental. Uh, oh."

I was so surprised when I finally saw the film

that it actually made any sense at all.

I think we figured out that the entire crew

was under the age of 25 except for me.

And I went, "Really?"

And so there was that enthusiasm like, "Oh, boy!

We're doing a feature film here!

This is so cool!"

I didn't know a damn thing,

and I think about the first day of production

is when I realized, "Wow! I am so in over my head."

As "Jason Goes To Hell" begins,

a nubile young woman returns to her Crystal Lake cabin

in the dead of the night.

But in an unexpected twist,

it is revealed that Jason's intended victim

is really an FBI agent being used as human bait.

So what's funny about my character, Agent Marcus,

is that she's an FBI agent.

We try to make it like you wouldn't know that.

I mean, why would an FBI agent get naked in this cabin

to lure someone but, hey,

the girl's gotta do what the girl's gotta do.

And I remember Adam like hating my hair.

I'm like, "Honey, if you're looking at my hair

and not my hooters, what are you doing?"

And we put every cliché

that had ever been in any of the "Friday The 13th" movies

within a 5 minute section.

You'll see the mirror close, and he's not there.

I thought Adam was kind of brilliant

in the way he kind of just spoon fed you.

"Oh, you're okay, you're okay, okay." No, you're not,

you're fucked!

I was able to bring Kane Hodder back

who had played Jason before, and he was basically

the only holdover that was left from the Paramount years.

It wasn't even a discussion.

It was, "So who's got Kane Hodder's phone number?"

I really like working with Kane.

He took the part so seriously,

and he knew everything that Jason would or wouldn't do

so it made my job an awful lot easier.

It was probably the hardest makeup to work in,

and the least amount of days that I was in the makeup.

We really wanted to go with a sort of mutated,

diseased look where the head is sort of diseased and misshapen.

A lot more sort of "The Elephant Man."

The hockey mask had been on Jason so long

that the skin had grown around it in theory.

The hard thing was not being able to take the hockey mask off

between shots.

If you do something violent and, you know,

with a lot of energy, it takes your breath away.

You want to be able to take that thing off

and catch your breath.

I couldn't take it off between shots

so I had to catch my breath

while breathing my own exhaled air.

Not easy to do at all.

He's very method, and that's great for camera,

but boy, when you have to work with him,

it can be very daunting and in one scene,

he almost took my head off.

And I was supposed to run and jump around the car.

I literally jumped over the car because he scared me that bad.

And I remember coming back, and I was shaking.

I was like, "Don't ever do that again.

Well, maybe one more time. That was kind of good.

Was that good, Adam?"

Jason has been done away with in so many different ways.

I mean, in previous movies, you know, he was set on fire.

Of course, he's shot hundreds of times.

But blown up in "Jason Goes To Hell?"

I thought all that could have been done to Jason had been done

but, lo and behold.

There are a lot of Jason fans who to this day are, you know,

pissed off at me for blowing up Jason

in the first ten minutes of the movie.

They love that scene

but then they want Jason right back, right again.

And for me, I thought it was more fun

to have Kane Hodder actually in the film

making fun of Jason.

And he makes this comment about himself

when basically he says...

He wasn't nothing but a big ol' pussy anyway.

And I love that. I love that!

Kane was a remarkable asset to the film

because I wanted all the other actors

who play the Jason evil in the movie

to have that same economy of movement

and that same language.

With not a single teenage character

featured in the script,

Sean Cunningham called upon an experienced ensemble

made up of recognizable faces from network television

including Erin Gray,

Steven Williams and John D. LeMay,

the only actor to play the male lead

in both the film and television incarnations

of "Friday The 13th."

We cast John D. LeMay because the director, Adam Marcus,

really felt comfortable having him

because he knew him from "The Series."

That was the reason I didn't want him to do it.

I married the daughter of Jason's sister.

Who knew?

But I'm happy to know that I am related

to such a cultural icon.

Tracked by mysterious bounty hunter Creighton Duke,

it is revealed that Jason is attempting to be reborn

through a never-before-mentioned relative.

Thirteen years and nine films later,

we learn that Jason Voorhees had a sister.

The reasoning for another child

was that Pamela Voorhees

had had her daughter out of wedlock.

And Jason became sort of the jewel of her eye.

This was the only child she cared about.

She fixated on this boy and sent her daughter up for adoption.

That was the idea behind it.

I was the sister to Jason Voorhees.

They needed somebody who had the DNA,

and I guess it was me and then my daughter, of course,

and my granddaughter.

I played Baby Stephanie in "Jason Goes To Hell."

When I made the film, I was about 6 months old.

I've little to no memory about being in the film

considering I was so young

but when I got a little bit older,

my parents broke the news to me

that I was in a horror film...

Here's beautiful...

And I wasn't allowed to watch every scene, of course.

But I did watch the scenes that I was in.

I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's me."

And it was just a really crazy experience

to be able to watch myself.

I think the actors were amazing,

especially John LeMay and Steven Williams

who was out of his mind and brilliant.

The finger breaking scene was one of my favorites actually.

Jason needs to be reborn again, and he needs Jessica to do it.

Just because it was so weird and twisted.

I mean, here's this guy fondling my fingers.

Ooow! fuck!

Amazingly I was able to still beat Jason up

at the end with my broken hand.

Everything about "Jason Goes To Hell,"

especially the scene

between Creighton Duke and Steven Culp.

Robert: I want you to say the first thing

that comes to your mind. Okay?

Creighton: Okay.

Robert: Jason Voorhees.

Creighton: Well, that makes me think of a little girl

in a pink dress sticking a hot dog through a donut.

It was always about,

"How can we crack each other up?"

It was like two guys on "Saturday Night Live"

trying to get the other guy to laugh.

After an early test screening,

New Line requested that several new sequences be added

to the film,

including one that ranks as one of the most violent

and graphic in the series' history.

I play a camper named Luke who's going camping

with two beautiful ladies.

Luke: We're going to Camp Crystal Lake.

Steven: Oh yeah?

Planning on smoking a little dope,

having a little premarital sex, and getting slaughtered?

The murder of the couple in the tent

was something that we shot after the film had wrapped.

I was petitioning to have both ladies in the tent.

I thought it would be fun. Why not?

And it was one of those sequences

where they felt they needed a really violent kill

that had a lot of impact.

So we started our scene with these kids

who are pretty lit up.

They'd been skinny dipping.

The run into the scene, they go to have sex

and what happens is they choose not to use a condom.

Oh, God, Debbie, I hate these things.

And when the killer steps on that condom wrapper,

on that unused condom,

the audience went out of their minds.

Every screening.

For actress Michelle Clunie,

later known for her role in the groundbreaking television series

"Queer As Folk,"

the scene put her in a compromising situation--

In more ways than one.

Michelle and he had been dating and had broken up

right before we shot that scene.

And then we showed up on set and there we were,

naked together for a couple days.

So she had to do this huge love scene

with her ex-boyfriend, and they were both completely nude.

You're on a mattress on the floor,

inside a fake tent with all these guys around,

and you've got to sort of create some sort of chemistry,

some sort of intimacy between you

which doesn't feel natural at all.

And then when they finally kill her,

they put this fake Clunie on top of me.

Michelle came up to K.N.B.,

and we actually cast her in that position.

She's on top of the guy and they're having sex,

and, all of a sudden, out of the middle of her chest,

the road sign pops out and blood sprays everywhere.

(screams)

Oh shit!

And then it's torn through her shoulder blade

where she flops open.

And it was the second dummy that had been already pre-cut

with the torso cut in half,

and it had a little mechanism in it

so that it could sort of flower open.

And they're spraying blood at me with a fire extinguisher,

I remember.

It's a little sad that today that probably would have been

a digital shot of the thing coming out,

and they would have animated it.

Richard Gant who was playing Jason

was supposed to at some point crush my head.

And I think that they ran out of time and money,

and they, and so they didn't build a cast of my head.

And they cut out right as his head's coming down, I think,

and they cut to an exterior of,

and we hear me screaming and then crush.

[Off screen screaming]

Unsafe sex equals death, I was totally cool with.

What was amazing about that

was that the Wall Street Journal,

when they talked about "Jason Goes To Hell,"

they called the film a return to morality in cinema

because of that scene.

The thing about Adam Marcus was he was really behind,

100% behind shooting every gag to its fullest.

[sounds of sharpening blade]

The reason for the homoerotic shaving scene

in "Jason Goes To Hell' was that I knew 15 years later

everybody would be asking me

about the homoerotic shaving scene in "Jason Goes To Hell."

Again, I found these movies to be really pretty sexist.

It's always women in the shower

soaping up just before they get whacked.

And I thought, "You know what?

I'm going to make the first one of these

where there's as many naked men as there are naked women.

Let's even the score. Something for the ladies."

Not only is it homoerotic,

but I have a middle-aged guy naked on the table.

I don't have Brad Pitt on the table.

I have an interracial kiss at the end of the scene.

I mean, everything about it was a taboo.

There's not a scene like it in any other Jason movie

or really in any other movie I can think of.

I don't know if that's good or bad but...

Filming my death scene was lots of fun.

I remember in acting class,

I was good at being dead,

so I was able to bring that to "Friday The 13th."

And it was kind of fun going to work with a knife in my back

and pretending... I've been killed.

[screaming]

In Joey B's restaurant,

the carnage was fabulous.

Bodies everywhere.

It was really bloody and violent.

I just loved watching Rusty work.

She was great at improv'ing...

This makes a whole new patty, hence,

the two-for-one burger sale.

And every time she was in a scene,

I was just mesmerized by her.

When I have my gun on John and Kari

defending the baby, the line was

"Nobody's going to touch that baby,"

but I decided to say--

Nobody's gonna touch that fuckin' ray of sunshine!

In Rusty Schwimmer's case,

she got punched in the face.

Poor Leslie. He got dumped in a fry vat.

And I know from friends that there was a big cheer

that let up when I was punched in the face

because they wanted me to shut up.

In an attempt to finally subvert the MPAA,

the filmmakers planned to release "Jason Goes To Hell"

as both an R-rated theatrical cut

and an unrated home video version.

This allowed the K.N.B. Effects team

the freedom to create some of the bloodiest

and most over-the-top gags ever attempted

in a "Friday The 13th" film.

As a horror film back then,

you always went in pretty gore heavy

expecting to be cut back.

I think that the whole point was,

throw all that stuff in there

and then go to the ratings board,

and if we can't get it, then we'll do the unrated version

and give the audience what they want.

Eventually, of course,

the evil gets back into the body of a Voorhees.

Steven: That part about being reborn

through a Voorhees woman, does it have to be a living woman?

Duke: No.

Steven: That thing's in the basement with Jessica's mother.

And Jason is reborn into his hulking magnificent form.

Jason's rebirth may have thrilled fans,

but it did not sit as well with actress Erin Gray,

who was not present when an insert shot

was added to the film at the last minute.

The first time that I was made aware of this scene

was actually in the movie theater

when I saw it, and I gasped loudly.

I just thought it was inappropriate.

It was not something that I would have agreed to.

I actually felt violated.

It's the one thing in any scene,

in any movie that I've done

that I just find very distasteful,

although I've forgiven Sean since.

I do love Sean personally.

The truth is, what I was trying to do

was use Jason, the figure of Jason,

as almost a prize for the audience.

Duke: Tonight, my friend...

You will...

Steven: Jessica! Duke: Die!

[bone snapping]

Bringing him back at the end,

I wanted it to feel like your friend came back into the movie.

John's character took a tremendous amount of abuse.

We had a helluva fight out in the front of the house.

I did put up a pretty good fight.

I take great pride in my backhand to Jason

at the very end of the film.

And , by the way, you might not know this.

I'm Jason.

All of Jason's vocals, that's me.

Because I work cheap.

Kari's character was fairly tough too.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to fight her

as much as I would like,

but we still had some good scenes

where she stabbed me with the knife and everything.

Interestingly enough, at the end of the movie,

it was always scripted as a big, lightning-filled climax

with the skies opening up and all this celestial activity.

K.N.B. had a very elaborate sequence

designed for that with all kinds of puppets,

and we had a very elaborate miniature

which wound up not being used because of technical problems.

These branches or these roots of these trees

were supposed to suck Jason down into hell.

And we were all underneath the table puppetering these things.

And they were going to do these aerial shots

and big camera moves going around the two of us

as we squared off.

Originally there was one extra creature at the end

which was a demon baby

that they had , I believe, an amputee in a prosthetic suit

that had a big long tail and...

ultimately that wound up being excised.

This is my doll that Bob Kurtzman gave me

after the shoot.

They didn't use it so - yeah, a little keepsake for me.

But there was one parting shot yet to come.

One that would set the stage

for Jason's long-anticipated face-off

with "A Nightmare On Elm Street's" Freddy Krueger.

I suddenly said, "Wait a second.

We've got a chance for the ultimate in-joke in this movie.

We're with New Line.

New Line owns Freddy.

What are we doing?

Like, that's the end of our movie."

And they fell in love with the idea.

I mean , it was like instantly, "Oh my God, that's great."

In the end where Freddy's hand comes out of the ground

and grabs the hockey mask,

it was my hand wearing the Freddy glove,

grabbing the mask.

And this is your final chance... to see it!

"Jason Goes To Hell The Final Friday"

opened on Friday, August 13, 1993

to a respectable $7.5 million dollars in its opening weekend.

To this day, "Jason Goes To Hell"

remains one of the most hotly-debated installments

of the series.

And once again, "The Final Friday" wasn't final after all.

We were trying to do something different.

Some people really like it for that and forgive its faults.

Other people only see it for its faults and, you know,

say there should be all Jason all the time.

Jason has to be in the film.

I think that was one of the biggest let-down for the fans.

It's possible that the concept jumped the shark on some level.

At the time they were trying to reinvent and figure out

how to keep the franchise going,

and how to keep people interested.

So I respect that.

I think we did something that was bold.

I know there are people who are upset by that,

but my response to that has always been, "You know what?

There are 7 of those movies you can rent.

You can see a whole lot of Jason in the hockey mask."

You have to deliver a certain story,

and that story had better be consistent

with the ones that preceded it,

and Jason better be consistent with what happened beforehand.

So this is not a place where you want to say,

"I've got an idea.

Let's have Jason do body swapping."

Not so good.

The Jason audience is a smart audience.

Not just about Jason movies,

which they will quote you chapter and verse.

They know more about my movie than I know about it.

The truth is, true horror fans

know every genre of cinema,

they just happen to know horror better than anything else.

Yes, are they going to blog incessantly

about the color of someone's suit? Sure.

But ultimately, for me,

every time I see somebody blogging

about "Jason Goes To Hell" or about, quite frankly,

about any of the "Friday The 13th" films,

I feel really lucky that they care enough

to actually spend the time and energy

talking about this character.

For me, I really learned to always respect every audience.

And I think that's probably the most important thing

I learned from "Jason."

Following the crowd-pleasing coda of "Jason Goes To Hell"

it appeared that the long-anticipated showdown

between Jason and Freddy

was finally about to become a reality.

But as the project remained stalled at New Line Cinema

throughout the 1990s,

Sean Cunningham decided to give fans one more "Friday."

We had been in development hell

on "Freddy vs. Jason" for years,

and finally Jim Isaac,

who's the director of "Jason X", said, "Well,

if we're just waiting on 'Freddy/Jason'

let's just make another 'Jason' film ."

So Todd Farmer, Jimmy and I sat down

and just started coming up with ideas for a new "Jason."

We didn't want to do anything that was going to screw

"Freddy vs. Jason."

So the way to stay away from that was to push him

into the future.

I mean, that was just kind of thrown out as kind of

like a gag at first

because that's, you know, that's where horror films go to die,

like "Leprechaun" or "Hellraiser." I guess.

You know, space is kind of the final frontier.

Armed with a budget of $13 million dollars,

Isaac took his team to Toronto

and set out to make the most ambitious "Friday The 13th" yet.

"Jason X" takes place 400 years in the future.

Jason has been captured by the military,

and they really don't know what to do with him.

There's somebody in charge of the operation

who thinks that he should be frozen.

The high ranking official comes in, played by David Cronenberg,

and says, "No, we're not going to freeze him today as planned.

We're going to take him away and study him."

His unique ability

to regenerate lost and damaged tissue,

it just cries out for more research.

David Cronenberg supplied a lot of his own crew

for Jim Isaac.

Our first AD was, you know, David's AD.

Stephan Dupris, who I've worked for years

who did "Naked Lunch."

He's got an Academy Award for "The Fly"

and a lot of David Cronenberg films.

He's an amazing makeup effects artist.

The rumor going around set was Cronenberg

wanted to be in the movie only if he got killed on camera.

That was the deal.

They dropped their guard a bit and, of course,

Jason gets free and creates havoc

but ends up getting frozen anyway.

In the future, Earth has been completely destroyed.

It's a wasteland.

And a group of science students, kind of loser kids,

go on this field trip.

We arrive doing some archeology

and discover a frozen Jason Voorhees,

and we don't know what trouble we're in for

but of course the audience does.

Really it came down to, you know,

kids basically having sex or drugs are going to die.

Even four hundred years in the future,

neither Jason, nor his appetite for sex-crazed victims,

has evolved.

I think in the future maybe teenagers

are a little more sexual.

Of course, some wonderful devices that I get to use

for such things as nipple tweaking.

So, yeah, it's all in there.

It's all in the curriculum.

The easiest, most fun work you can get as an actor

because you're basically just running from a monster

until he catches up with you and kills you

and hopefully you get to make out with a hot chick

along the way.

Which is one of the things that somehow

manages to sort of stir Jason's soul and re-awaken him.

Certainly the way it's edited, it kind of implies that,

that it was just too much for him to take,

and he just had to rise up and put a stop

to all this crazy teenage love.

One of the important things in a Jason "Friday The 13th" film

is to be true to Jason's character.

I think that's where Kane comes in.

My first impression of the script of "Jason X" was like,

"I don't know. Jason in space?"'

I didn't want to make it hokey.

He took it seriously.

He took playing Jason very, very seriously.

Even though the location and everything,

all the surroundings, were different,

I just tried to keep him the same

as I had always done before and I guess, you know,

it worked out.

He definitely made sure that we were all kind of a little bit,

sort of like intimidated by him.

I think he had a tattoo that said "Kill" in his lower lip.

I think he definitely goes to a dark place

when he plays the role.

He was also very safe when we were, you know,

when we were struggling.

He made sure that we worked out how he was going to hold me

so that I could fight without actually getting hurt.

I did my own stunt when he threw me against the window.

Which I thought was great because, you know,

sticking a girl's head in cryogenic fluid

and smashed it on the counter. Very creative.

I had to plunge my face into water and scream

and then hold my breath and just wait

because then they ended up putting, you know,

all the CG I over the top.

Technically our most difficult kill.

And we spent a lot of time on that, prepping it.

I think they made 10 heads,

but it was really, really creepy.

All these heads lined up of, you know, me screaming.

I've never seen a crew and a cast gather for an event

just to watch that effect.

Everybody just thought that was a great one.

We knew from way back then that that was going to be a good kill

and it stands the test of time.

Apparently "Mythbusters" a few years ago tested my death

to see if they could actually freeze a head in liquid nitrogen

and then smash it.

Guy: Absolutely nothing like the movie.

Girl: So I guess this one's busted.

Originally in the script

my death scene was going to be that he was going to somehow

use the sliding doors to cut me in half,

and I was really stoked about that happening.

I was really looking forward to them doing that.

And then I guess they thought it would be a little too difficult

to do and so they switched it to the machete blade.

Melanie's reaction to me being killed,

they squirt out my blood.

It shoots up and hits her right in the eyes,

and she just freaks out because it wasn't actually

supposed to go in her eyes like that,

and I think that's the shot they ended up using,

so I kind of get a chuckle when I watch that scene.

"Jason X" has some good kills, I think.

I think we did a pretty good job of that.

You had different elements as well.

You had this sort of super SWAT team

that was out to get Jason.

You had hologram games.

I thought this was an alien sim?

Yeah, it is.

This was my tiny cameo in "Jason X,"

and I get the privilege, myself and Dov get the privilege

of saying that we died twice in a Jason movie

because we die in the virtual reality scene

where I get my head cut off.

OK, screw this. Game over!

And then later I get my head smashed into a wall

where my stuntman lovingly broke his nose for me.

I really liked Jonathan, the guy who plays the teacher.

We're gonna be safe here.

[Screams]

Shut up!

He's just such a sleaze ball, you know,

and he's always making the wrong choices and, you know,

he basically endangers everybody.

Jason's coming at him,

and he doesn't know what's going on,

and he grabs his machete and so he says,

Guys. It's okay. He just wanted his machete back.

[Makes slashing sound]

We didn't know how I was going to die initially.

I'm asking everyone,

"How do I get it?"

So they said , "Ah, we're going to cut your head off."

Came back later and they said, "We changed our mind.

He's going to grab you,

and he's going to slam your head into an electronic box."

I leapt up going "Holy fuck, that's hot."

The thing about "Jason X" which, you know,

we didn't really think about

was that this took place in the future

so every single thing on frame had to be built.

It had to be created.

It had to be designed and fabricated.

The future was a lot more colorful

than I thought it would be.

It was beautiful, but it was beautiful in the way

that "Batman 3" was beautiful in that, you know,

there was lots of color and lots of neon

and just not what I was expecting.

You know, what I was expecting was "The Dark Knight."

We had something like, I don't know, 800 visual effects

in the film.

Sometimes you're acting with a tennis ball

on the end of a stick.

I was very new to it.

Given the fact that we were trying to pull off

a lot of technical things,

it was pretty smooth.

We had one shot that was outside

which just made the shoot very easy

because we were on stage every single day.

Following the release of Wes Craven's 1996 mega-hit "Scream,"

"slick, smart and self-referential"

became the hottest buzzwords in horror,

and "Jason X" was no exception.

No wonder you wore this thing.

My only issue really was that,

as we got closer into shooting, the script got changed.

It was one of the sort of post-"Scream" films.

And suddenly all the studio notes were

"This needs to be more like 'Scream."'

So it was a movie that had to acknowledge

that the movie-going audience, we knew all the clichés.

Now what?

Now basically.. .we die.

At one point, Lewis Abernathy, who had written "Deepstar Six"

and had been doing some work with Cameron,

he was also in "Titanic."

He was the frizzy-haired guy telling the story

about how the Titanic went down.

He came in just as a fresh set of eyes.

I think they went through and polished a lot of the dialogue

and it maybe made it a less "Aliens"

and a little more campy.

Aw, shit, I forgot my arm.

Yeah, here you go, dumb-ass.

Hi, hand.

Some people thought it was a great idea and fun.

Other people thought, "Oh, no.

We should go back to basics."

If a rusted machete would no longer cut it

for Jason in the 24th century,

his opponents also had to be tougher, stronger

and more resilient than ever before.

Both good and evil needed an upgrade.

The women in "Friday The 13th" movies

are always the strong, you know,

the strong characters,

and we wanted to be true to that.

But being in the future,

we wanted to take advantage of that as well

so Todd and I came up with this idea of this robot.

And this is the lovely Kay-Em 14,

Tsunaron's little "love-bot."

I actually took this character seriously.

I wanted to not just be android-like,

completely robotic.

And so Jim and I talked about

what would be some kind of templates

that we could work with,

and he actually mentioned "Stepford Wives."

There's some strength in that

in terms of being completely unflappable

and delighted at, "Oh, what are you doing now?

You've taken my head off. No worries."

I'd clap if I could.

There's a scene in "Jason X"

where the robot Kay-Em wants to get fake boobs.

- What do you think? - Hmm?

- Do you like them? - They're fine.

And the boobs are not Lisa Ryder's boobs.

It's a prosthetic that goes over it

and then they have these fake nipples,

and they were attached to wires.

[clinking sounds, Tsunaron grumbles]

To this day, still, when people mention that movie

they are like, "Oh, I love that fake boob scene."

A giant challenge was my costume.

My costume was completely head-to-toe PVC

and corseted at the back.

It was hard to breath.

I think I lost like 10 pounds just sweating through that,

you know, PVC costume.

We wanted her to be the one that kills off Jason.

So it was just - it was just a way to have some fun with it.

There was a lot of gymnastics.

Just a lot of Kung Fu really.

Jason got shot so many times during that movie.

The wardrobe was changing every day, you know.

Here's the one that has 15 bullet holes.

Now this next scene you're going to have 45 bullet holes.

She shot off his arm, shot off his leg,

and then shot his head, and it exploded.

Yeah.

And that's when we felt that he had died.

We really wanted to play with the technology,

with taking advantage of the fact

that we're 400 years in the future,

and then we tossed around ideas

of what kind of technology might be forefront

and nano technology, I thought, was the obvious choice.

So we've got Uber-Jason.

So this is Jason 100 times better

than Jason has ever been before in the future.

The makeup was very easy to work in

until we got to Uber-Jason.

That was an entire one-piece suit.

It limited my motion a lot with the arm and the leg

that had the metallic pieces.

I couldn't bend at the joints as much as I was used to.

I still love the design of that Uber-Jason mask.

Then you get the red contact lenses.

Crew people didn't even want to look at me in the eyes

because it was so weird looking.

Because even though you've got the same character,

it's doing something different.

Jim Isaac's son brought his class in and, you know,

of course, I scared the hell out of them,

and, you know, kid went into a fetal position, one of them.

I guess I'm a little cruel but I gotta have some fun too.

Bar none, I mean, you can't put the guy down.

I mean he literally is indestructible in that sense.

Much to Kay-Em's sadness

because then he knocked my head off.

You guys might want to run.

Our big plan to use our robot has gone awry

so we've got this rolling robot head

that Tsunaron is in love with.

He's holding it, and he's gone crazy.

He's lost his mind, and he's holding the robot head.

We've got Waylander

who's sacrificing himself to save the day

and blows up the hull.

One of the things that's interesting about the film

is my death is sort of indirectly caused by Jason.

Jason has punched a hole from outside

into the spaceship and, of course,

when he pulls out his hand, it creates this enormous vacuum.

We're all trying to run away and poor little Janessa

just isn't strong enough or fast enough

to get away before the suction starts.

This sucks on so many levels!

Janessa has the best witticisms.

Want a beer?

Or do you want to smoke some pot?

Or we can have pre-marital sex.

The most successful scene in that movie

was the sort of hyper-reality of Jason on the spaceship,

you know, pummeling the naked campers in the sleeping bag.

You know, it's a love letter to all the other movies

because that's what they were at one point.

It was just innocent and fun.

Originally I wanted Uber-Jason

to pick up the girls in the sleeping bags

and swirl them around like this

and then hit them in the air and then throw them down.

We were running out of time and money by then.

It was the end of the show

and that would involve a lot of rigging to do that

or a little CG I stuff, so we adapted it a little bit,

which I think actually worked out even better.

The weightless environment scene

with Jason fighting another guy concerned me from the beginning.

I thought Jason might look a little comical

floating around weightless even if he's fighting

so we were able to limit that a little bit.

One way to find a weakness

because it's pretty hard to find a weakness for Jason.

Tsunaron and the Rowan character

escaped ultimately into a pod,

and they saw Brodski ride Jason off into the sunset

kind of thing.

And it was basically my head, Tsunaron and Rowan who survived.

During the year-long production of "Jason X," Michael DeLuca,

New Line Cinema's president of production,

made a much-publicized exit from the studio,

and with him would go the film's biggest champion.

With virtually no support for the film at New Line,

"Jason X" would be left adrift in space for over two years.

You know, it just kind of sat there.

It was the redheaded stepchild for almost 18 months

um...and during which time actually

a print got leaked out on the Internet.

And I know for a couple months,

we were the most pirated movie out there.

By the time "Jason X" was released in April 2002,

it failed to ignite even a modest spark at the box office,

and is regarded by both critics and fans

as an interstellar dud.

When it finally did come out, you know,

a lot of the buzz that had been going on on the Internet

had kind of died down,

and whether it was deserved or not,

I think there was a bad smell to it,

and it just didn't perform as well as it could have.

There's lots of things I'd like to do differently.

I mean, I don't think there's anybody

who's sort of directed a film or, you know,

made a drawing or sculpted an ashtray or whatever,

I mean, I think you always look at it and go,

"I could have done it a little bit differently."

I don't think anyone's ever going to be happy

with the way it turned out.

Yeah, I wish it had been a little bit darker,

a little bit edgier.

You want to make the best movie you can make,

and I feel like because we were all going

in different directions, we didn't make the best movie

we could make.

And, you know, I know that people love or hate it,

but it could have been better.

I think the movie does suck on a lot of levels,

and I think that's part of its appeal.

One of the things I love the most about "Jason X"

is that it's not embarrassed to be "Jason X."

We watched the movie. Everybody had a good time.

It was a packed house,

and we were walking out and there were these girls,

and they were like, "Oh. You're in the movie,

you're in the movie."

And one of my buddies said , "Hey, you want his autograph?"

And the girl went, "Nah.."

I went right from doing "Jason X"

to a TV show called "Andromeda"

which the parallels were astonishing.

Lexa Doig and I both were in both.

It marked my, you know, the beginning of six years in space.

I look back now and I realize how lucky I was.

Of course, I was complaining,

and I thought my career was over

as I would see what was becoming of it but, you know,

it was what it was.

There have been an absolute tremendous number of spin-offs

for comic books, novels, all that sort of stuff.

I think with the "Jason X" franchise,

I think you can continue telling those stories

in the future.

And, again, look, even those movies,

if you really love the series, they have their merits.

I mean, we all sit and watch these things

when they play the marathon on Spike

or whatever channel they're on every year,

and there's no question, if it's a Friday the 13th,

we're going to go check cable

because you know a couple of them are going to be on.

And no matter what they are

or how ridiculous they might be at times,

I'm going to sit and watch them.

And probably enjoy them at an unhealthy level.

I think in general I should have fought a little harder

for the script that I fell in love with originally.

You know, that's your job as a director

is to fight for what you think is right

and that sometimes is difficult

when you're under the gun, time, money and all that.

But, I mean, as far as it being crazy and fun and different,

I'm pretty happy with it.

But really I think at the end of the day,

it got Jason back out there again,

gave the little push forward that "Freddy/Jason"

needed to really take off

and get us back to where we are right now.

Ever since the idea

for a pairing of "Friday The 13th's" Jason

with "A Nightmare On Elm Street's" Freddy

was first suggested in the late 1980s,

fans had been anticipating the ultimate showdown

between the two horror icons.

It was funny because when we finished our "Friday,"

it started to go around that,

what about bringing Freddy into the series, you know,

and actually have a "Freddy vs. Jason."

The kids had been talking about it.

Whether it's letters to the editor in Fango

or at conventions or in fan clubs,

they'd been talking about Freddy and Michael Myers,

Freddy and Jason,

Jason and Michael Myers.

You know, who would win?

There was always the talk that Freddy and Jason

would somehow be combined,

and I think the ownership of those two properties,

of Freddy and of Jason,

kind of mish-mashed around various studios

and ended up finally at the same place.

Then after "Jason X,"

they started seriously talking about it,

saying they were going to have a script done,

and, you know,

then it was definitely a real project

and appeared to be the very next one to be done.

And you've got to remember even,

almost a decade in front of that

when you look at "Jason Goes To Hell,"'

it had been set up, it was clear it was coming.

And our idea was Jason was Hell's assassin,

so Freddy is the other assassin,

and both of them had just been killed.

So now these guys are both in hell,

and the devil proposes a contest to these two guys,

which is, I'm sending you both up.

Whoever brings me the most souls in this given time slot,

you're the winner and you get to stay up there as my assassin.

The other one is gone forever.

So that was sort of our idea for "Freddy vs. Jason"

back in the day.

But New Line had, you know,

no interest in giving, you know, the rights over

and Paramount was not going to go the other direction.

And it took a long time for Paramount

to finally lose their option.

They wanted to distribute the film.

So it was a combination of things.

I got the first draft of "Freddy vs. Jason"

when I was a freshman in high school in 1994.

I bought it for $15 at the Motor City Comic Con in Detroit,

and I remember pledging right then and there,

"I need to get to New Line, I need to get to LA

before they make this movie,

or I'm never going to forgive myself."

And I made it my goal.

I dropped out of college

specifically to be able to get there in time

to make "Freddy vs. Jason."

And credit to Jeff Katz because, you know,

you've got to be kind of a dog with a bone

on these things.

There's so much--not just on "Freddy vs. Jason,"

on every kind of movie,

it's always easier at a million different stages

just to say no.

But after more than a decade in the works,

and millions of dollars

spent on some of Hollywood's most sought-after

screenwriters and directors,

it seemed that Freddy and Jason

might forever be trapped in Development Hell.

They had gotten Rob Bottin attached.

Rob Bottin was a huge special effects makeup guy.

You know, he'd worked on

Carpenter's remake of "The Thing."

And Rob Bottin was going to make his directing debut

with this project.

And so it incubated and then there were scripts

and scripts and scripts.

I think there were 13, 14, 15 writers on that script.

There were so many different specific takes

and so many different, you know,

versions of that movie from beginning to end.

The first draft I ever read was the Peter Briggs draft

which was actually taking very good care of continuity

to where Alice the Dream Master was in it,

the Freemans from "Jason Goes To Hell" were in it.

It was about the kids and the families coming together

ultimately to stop them.

They didn't like the script, and they didn't like the director.

Then they didn't like the script.

Because Freddy Krueger's origin

was that Freddy was a child killer,

a child molester.

He had actually molested Jason and actually drowned Jason

so that Jason wouldn't tell anybody what had happened.

You had another series of scripts

where I believe the character's name was Dominic Necros

if I get this, if I remember correctly.

It seems to me that a third of this movie

needs to be about Freddy, a third needs to be about Jason,

and a third needs to be about a new character.

So I created the head of a cult of Freddy fanatics

who were called Fred Heads.

But it was really, just look, it's Freddy and Jason.

They're the stars of the show.

I certainly wouldn't buy a ticket to a movie

called "Freddy vs. Jason"

to go spend the bulk of my time with a guy named Dominic Necros.

I didn't buy a ticket with his name in the title.

In our version they find Jason's grave

at the Crystal Lake Cemetery,

and there's a headstone that says Jason Voorhees, you know,

born 1958, died 1963, and that was crossed off,

1978 and that was crossed off, 1981 was crossed off,

1982, 1983, and there were like 20 dates on there

of like all the times he had died.

So that's probably a documentary all unto itself.

It's all of the writers and all of the drafts.

Ultimately, a young screenwriting duo

came up with a take that would pit the two terror titans

against each other while remaining true

to the established histories of both franchises.

The writers lobbied hard not only for the assignment,

but also to put the project back

on the studio's fast track.

When Freddy's glove comes out of the ground

and pulls the mask in, and we asked ourselves,

"What does that mean?

Why is Freddy grabbing his mask?

Why is he pulling it down?

Does he need him for something?"

And that's kind of the seed that kind of grew

into "Freddy vs. Jason."

Our angle was we started by saying here are the things

that you should not do and then we went backwards.

And then we sort of got them to understand

what this movie could be, you know what I mean,

and then got them excited about it.

Those guys ultimately,

because they grew up as fans of both these franchises, got it.

I think if you ask most of the fans,

I want to see Freddy as I know him and love him best,

Jason as I know and love him best

and just let these two sort of forces of nature

go head-to-head and ultimately,

thankfully, we ended up in that place.

While Sean Cunningham undeniably

retained creative control of all things Jason,

the same could not be said for Wes Craven,

the mastermind behind

"A Nightmare On Elm Street's" Freddy Krueger.

I never really had any participation

after "New Nightmare."

That was kind of the end of it for me.

Wes also had moved on to other things,

the "Scream" franchise and everything,

so he really didn't really care too much

about "Freddy vs. Jason."

Outside of Wes, who's certainly being paid every time

the character is used, getting his credit and all of that,

it wasn't a case where Wes could actually control,

"I don't want Freddy to do that,"

that wasn't a possibility,

whereas in Jason's case, Sean has that ability.

When it finally got together,

we had trouble finding a director too.

They met with probably 40 directors.

They met with every director you could think of

on this project

because a lot of guys wanted to do it.

We went to one of the executives and said,

"You should really think about this guy Ronny Yu"

because we were big fans of "Bride With White Hair."

New Line agreed to meet with the action director

from Hong Kong,

who had recently brought another American horror franchise

back from the dead with "Bride Of Chucky."

That first meeting, my intention

really was to go in to tell Bob

that I don't want to do the movie.

He's been getting, like, directors,

tons of directors,

like saying they grew up with these two franchise,

and they're crazy about this

and then there come this Chinaman comes in

and tell them that, you know,

he doesn't care about the franchise

but he knows how to make an entertainment movie.

So he said this is what he want.

We wants somebody come in with a different angle.

He had never seen a "Friday The 13th" movie

or a "Nightmare" movie...

and that seemed like a very odd choice for me,

for a director to direct the most important one

of each franchise.

You know, at this point we were looking for journeymen.

I liked the guy's cultural influences,

and he was also a nice guy

that I felt like I could get along with.

Just that little outside-ness that Ronny Yu brought to it,

being a Hong Kong director,

I think really, really helped it.

Don't take it too seriously.

You know, have fun with the monster.

This is what I learned when I was making "Bride Of Chucky."

Chucky: What would Martha Stewart say?

Tiffany: Fuck Martha Stewart!

It was never a question in the minds of genre fans

that Kane Hodder, who had already played Jason four times,

would be back for "Freddy vs. Jason."

But as pre-production began,

rumors began to circulate that Hodder was out of the running.

I had planned, in my own mind, I guess,

for years to do that movie.

I thought they had planned for me to do it as well.

In that fan boy base there was a dispute

as to whether or not Kane Hodder

was going to be as good as some other Jason might be,

and frankly I never thought of anybody else playing the part.

I really was excited about doing it.

Got the script.

Then the director was hired

and things started changing, and I wasn't sure why.

Before I'm on board,

already the studio decided that they wanted a new Jason.

The decision not to use Kane Hodder

really had nothing to do with Ronny.

Ronny said from day one,

"If you guys want Kane Hodder, I don't care."

But one of the executives at New Line said, "No.

Let's go a different way."

In terms of Jason, I certainly personally point

to parts 3, 4 and 6 really at the end of the day.

Tall, lanky, clean mask.

And I think that there was an attitude

that when you shot them side-by-side,

one had to look like a sort of force of nature,

a tank, that being Jason.

You know, I think it was just the stigma

of all of the Jasons that led up to what we were doing.

They'd all been sort of, you know, forgive me,

but a little cheesy and not too expensive to make.

And I think New Line, when they decided to make this movie,

decided they wanted to do something different.

And different just didn't mean Kane Hodder,

it meant everything.

I says "Fine," you know.

This is their call, and I'm fine with it.

I always did feel kind of bad that, I had been, you know,

pushing for this whole match-up in interviews for 16 years

in playing Jason

and then not be allowed to do it.

And a lot of people were unhappy and still are.

And, you know, part of me really wishes

that, you know, those fans had been able to see

that dream that they were always looking for,

which was Robert and Kane.

And unfortunately that didn't happen.

But, you know, this is showbiz

and apparently we're all replaceable.

I get the issue on this one,

but I also sort of know the larger movie business,

and the way things go.

It was going to happen at some point.

I would say to you at the end of the day,

do I really think it affected box office? I really don't.

You know, it was going to be a success no matter what

just because people wanted to see the two characters together,

and I just, I really wish I had been able to do it.

The producers' search for a new Jason

led them to a six-foot-seven Canadian stuntman

who had donned Jason's trademark hockey mask once before.

This time, however,

not only would Jason have to convincingly swing his machete,

he would have to show

that even an unstoppable force of nature could have feelings.

One of the people that we'd seen early on

was a big-time stunt player in Vancouver named Ken Kirzinger.

Jeff Katz who was at New Line

so passionately wanted to cast Ken Kirzinger as Jason.

He just thought he would bring something special.

Something in the eyes he saw different or better.

As it was put to me when I auditioned for it,

is they wanted to convey some emotion in Jason.

Actually he had been a stunt double of Kane Hodder, I think,

on one of the Jason films.

In "Jason Takes Manhattan"

there was a shot where Jason gets hit by a police car

and since Ken Kirzinger was doing the stunts

on the show too, he doubled me for that shot.

That was a question that I put to them at the beginning.

Like, you know,

because Kane had sort of established the character,

did they want some of the trademark moves

that Kane does, you know, the deep breath and stuff,

and they didn't.

They really wanted a more unique character

and Ronny Yu and I had some discussions about, you know,

movement and the fact that they wanted to do

a lot of close-ups on the eyes.

He was big enough. His attitude was good.

He looked good in the wardrobe. So we cast him.

I was a little leery because a lot of the feedback I, you know,

that fans were putting out there was negative, I think,

in the beginning.

But then when the movie came out,

it became very, very positive.

Jason was not the only role to be recast.

Once again, the script called for the return

of Jason's maniacal mother.

We literally underlined cameo, and we wrote in the script

Betsy Palmer.

I believe they contacted Betsy Palmer,

and she was not interested.

I was asked three times to be in three different pictures

of "Friday The 13th,"

and I declined each time.

First of all, they didn't want to pay any money.

They probably said, "Hey, we'll give you a plane flight

and a sandwich," and she was like,

"Well, everybody else is getting paid."

In the script they had me standing in a graveyard,

I guess, and saying, you know,

"You promised me you'd kill all those people."

Mommy has something she wants you to do!

I mean, what sort of lines are that?

That's nothing for an actress to do, for God's sake.

Make them remember what fear tastes like!

Jason finally appears after his mother says like,

"Wake up. Go get these people."

And then he somehow, finds my house.

I live in the house that Freddy has, you know,

tortured people for years,

and then Jason shows up out of nowhere.

Surprisingly the bed death was not initially popular

when it was in the script.

We thought it was one of the highlights of the script,

but, you know,

that was something that they wanted us to take out.

Whoa, babe.

I told you about kissing me after you smoked.

He wasn't a very nice guy.

He used to yell at my friend Gibb a lot,

played by Katherine Isabelle.

You know I don't like to be touched after, okay?

Just mouthing off and Jason literally

just snapped his mouth and his body shut.

[screams]

[giggles]

You know, and then they said, "Well, it's too brutal,

it's too gory, it's too this, it's too that,"

and then we just kept saying,

"Listen, this is not something you want to cut."

That was actually the last day of photography.

It was the last thing we shot.

When we went to the first test screening, and that, you know,

the audience really loved the movie

and that got the biggest reaction

and you really couldn't hear any of the dialogue,

like in the previous scene,

because people were still cheering.

It was really satisfying.

To be drowned in a lake, already have deformity,

be insecure about it,

and have to watch your mother's head get cut off,

I think the fact that he just is killing people isn't that bad.

With Freddy using Jason as his pawn

to stalk the kids of Elm Street,

a cornfield rave sets the stage

for one of the film's biggest and bloodiest set pieces.

The cornfield massacre is one of my favorite one.

I loved the burning Jason, you know,

going after the kids with a machete.

That was, that was the most difficult sequence in the movie

without question.

First of all, it smelled to high heaven

because it was actually like the cow field

and just the smell of the manure or whatever

was horrible.

Because there were so many extras.

I think there were like 400 or 500 extras in that scene.

Those kids that were smoking pot said...

Why don't you go find yourself a pig to fuck?

And they called him a corn poke.

And that's when he just breaks his neck,

and, I don't know, once again he felt like ostracized

and like he didn't fit in.

Maybe he was just there to party.

I don't know.

Burn, motherfucker!

But shooting that sequence is really tough

because lighting fire in a dry cornfield

is the most dangerous request.

When they gave me the part of Jason,

they made a point of telling me,

"Ken, you're an actor on this movie.

We're going to have a stunt double for you.

You know, we don't want you getting hurt."

And I went to them and I said, "Listen, you know,

there's one stunt I really, really want to do in the movie,

and that's the fire burn in the cornfield."

Very, very dangerous because you could only,

an actor or stunt actor could only be in a burn suit

and burn for 30 seconds maximum.

And they wouldn't let me do it.

And I was really disappointed

because that should have won the stuntman's awards that year.

You know, the big top shot of seeing this burning,

burning figure just running,

running across the cornfield

creating a path, for me, that visual, that image is,

I thought is fantastic.

It took forever for them to figure out

how to keep this machete on fire.

They had to keep putting like petroleum

and all this stuff, and we would do like part of a take

and then it would burn out.

And, so, that was a very, very long night of shooting.

Some of the extras, some of the kids,

didn't know that a burning Jason

going to dash out from the cornfield.

So some of the reaction from their faces are real.

Jason probably did more damage, had more carnage in that scene

than several of the movies he's been in before.

We need those pills.

Can you get us back to Westin Hills?

We're going to get some of the Hypnocil

so that we don't dream, so that Freddy can't get us.

Jason shows up and starts causing shit,

as he is want to do.

He had to break through the glass door with the machete

and Kelly Rowland and I

were screaming at the top of our lungs.

I've never been...so terrified,

and I didn't know the line between reality and fantasy.

My favorite personal part of the film is,

for my character, is the big standoff

where I'm actually possessed by Freddy.

Let me handle this, bitch.

And Jason comes down the hallway,

and he comes up and ba-bam into the neck,

plunge him in...

Sliced right in half.

Which is a pretty awesome way to go.

You need to have one guy

that the audience should invest a little bit of their emotion.

And for me, personally,

I thought we should invest a little bit more on Jason.

Dude, that goalie was pissed about something.

Freddy obviously,even before he became Freddy Krueger

and was a burn victim and this crazy dream demon,

he was a bad guy.

Jason was just trying to go to camp and have a good summer.

When Lori enters the dream world of Jason Voorhees,

she witnesses the childhood tragedy

that unleashed his inner rage.

In "Freddy vs. Jason" you see him confronted by fears

that he never had before or people didn't realize

or wasn't shown in the other movies.

So you are afraid of something after all, huh?

Just knowing myself, I would have tried to fight

against the Jason-fearing-water part of that movie.

I just want to put the record straight,

We never said the Jason was afraid of water.

We never wrote that. That was not in our script.

-Very important. -That was not in our screenplay.

That would, that came afterwards.

That was in a re-write.

All we wanted to do was say

that Jason perhaps would have a subconscious fear of drowning.

And there was some debate of,

in that scene where you see Freddy's blade

going into the little poor kid's brain.

But there is a flashback to when I go back to Camp Crystal Lake

to try to save him.

I really genuinely cared for him and saw him in a new light.

I got to see him as a little boy that was picked on.

If I had been there,

I would have killed all those horrible camp counselors

and stuff.

Throwing him in the lake and teasing him.

It was awful.

JASON VOORHEES?!

And sort of for the first time, I think,

in "Freddy vs. Jason" they touched on that,

and I think that would be really interesting

to get into Jason's head more.

While Elm Street is said to be located

in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio,

Crystal Lake is approximately 600 miles away

in rural New Jersey.

Fans have asked, how were Lori and her friends

able to get Jason back to Crystal Lake in record time?

Where is Crystal Lake located?

That was a big problem for us in "Freddy vs. Jason."

We had to get them to be able to drive there.

But for us it was important that it was far,

like those two things.

So we had all these scenes where they were going like

all night and all day, and of course,

when the movie gets cut it looks like

they're like right next to each other.

Look, we're almost there.

Jason is in the back of a van.

They've got him all taped up, and they've been drugging him.

Kelly Rowland despised the scene

where she had to give Jason mouth-to-mouth.

As much as I'm saying I loved Jason now,

and I have a certain compassion and empathy for him,

I don't know that I'd want to give him mouth-to-mouth.

[sputtering sounds]

And then the drugs wear off, and the van flips,

and he comes shooting out of the back of the van

which is probably the biggest stunt I did on the movie.

The mother of all battles between Jason and Freddy

is waged in the real world,

and on Jason's home turf.

The moment of truth had arrived.

For fans awaiting the ultimate slasher slugfest,

the time had come to place their bets.

My philosophy is everything in the movie

should set up for the end fight.

Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing finale there.

I'm like wrestling with a 6 foot 7 Canadian stuntman

who's been in over 100 movies

and is buff and hard and can drink me under the table,

and it was a rough shoot.

I did a lot of my stunts.

You know, I think Freddy got the best of that one.

He's pretty much kicking his ass the whole time.

I think there were a couple moments where I felt

kind of maybe crossed the line a little bit,

where we wanted to have Jason to kick his ass

a little bit more.

Hey, asshole!

Originally in ours it was...

- He calls him a mama's boy. - Mama's boy.

Which I thought was good, you know.

He's a little character related. Calls Jason a mama's boy.

And they changed it to 'Hey, Asshole.'

And I remember backing up in the scene and saying...

Freddy vs. Jason, place your bets!

And it never actually ended up being in the movie.

I still don't know why they cut it.

Place your bet was not in script, and I didn't shoot it.

It's basically just for the, for the trailer.

Quentin Tarantino saw the movie and was so disappointed.

He went to the premiere and he said,

"Where's the place your bets?

That's what made me want to see it."

At the end with the set piece,

we involved with all different special effects,

like, you know, fire, water, wind , smoke, explosions.

One of the bloodiest battles you'll ever see in a movie.

And that was all Ronny Yu's doing.

And none of it was CG.

We'd have sometimes six hoses going in

and blood spraying everywhere and Ronny still screaming,

"More blood! More blood!"

We were like, this looks like a Monty Python movie,

I mean the amount of blood spraying,

it was unbelievable.

So over the top,

the violence and everything

that the audience would laugh at the violence

rather than really affected by the violence.

Jason, he and I almost became teammates.

And we were both against Freddy,

and he actually saved my life in the end

when Freddy was about to kill me on the dock

at the very end of the movie.

And so he was protecting me.

Welcome to my world - BITCH!

He allowed me to be able to cut Freddy's head off

at the end and kill him.

And I really felt like he and I

had some sort of bond or connection.

Out of respect, I throw the machete back in the water.

So in the end...who won?

The claw or the machete?

Fans of both franchises

were equally passionate,

and New Line feared that tipping the scales in either one's favor

would alienate just as many as it would appease.

I always have problem with the original ending.

I hated the ending.

I thought is a wrong focus.

Well, the original ending was that it's six months later,

and Jason Ritter and I are in bed together

and then he turns into Freddy at the end.

Which I thought was really interesting.

And we test screened it and then the audience loved the movie

but hated the ending.

That's how they decided to do the re-shoot

which I was a part of.

Originally I was up for the role of Jason,

and I had had several callbacks for the part,

but months later I got a call to do the re-shoots

to play Jason and I was just thrilled.

I was like, "Oh my God.

I'm going to actually get to do this."

Not only did I get to step behind that mask,

but I got to play Jason in a film

with Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger.

Ultimately, "Freddy vs. Jason"

would end not with a whimper or a bang...

but a wink.

I would say that Jason won the fight,

but the war might not be over.

Look, Freddy's the one who doesn't have a head

at the end of it, now granted he winks.

But I think the ending, what was great about that

was the great Rorschach test for the fans.

You got the Robert Englund/Freddy Krueger fans

who say Robert Englund won.

You got the Jason fans say Jason won.

It's kind of left up in the air.

It gets people talking.

I spent three years

working in the professional wrestling industry,

so I learned very early on

that even if someone seems to have won,

the feud will go on.

Freddy or Jason, who won?

Me! I won!

I made Freddy defeat Jason and then I killed Freddy!

So I'm the winner. I'm the victor. I won!

In anticipation of the film's release,

New Line put the "Freddy vs. Jason" publicity machine

into hyper-drive with a pre-fight press conference

and boxing event held in Las Vegas.

What's the matter?

Can't you speak for yourself, hockey puck?

Soon Jason Voorhees was everywhere.

From officially licensed hats and mugs,

to comic books and even children's lunch boxes.

And for the first time in his more than twenty-year history,

Jason was even given a proper Hollywood premiere.

It's something the fans have wanted.

It was, that's really a fan-inspired film,

and that's probably one reason it did 135 million worldwide.

When the movie came out it was the highest horror opening

of all time,

and I think it was the highest grossing of the bunch.

I think it opened to $25 million or something the first weekend.

It was incredible.

But to those who toiled in the early years

of both franchises,

"Freddy vs. Jason" was more hype than holy grail.

After seeing the movie, I guess I was kind of hoping

that I would see a scene to say,

"Oh, that's why."

But honestly there's nothing in the movie that I saw

that I wouldn't have been able to do.

I went to see the film.

I found it really just kind of brutal

without being very imaginative.

I love Ronny and I think he did an excellent job?

But you know, he was maybe a little more influenced

by WWE type stuff and you know,

you can see that in the film, and that's not a criticism.

But definitely in our screenplay,

we thought that there would be scenes,

maybe there'd be a little more tension.

While it's got its faults, I think it was pretty true

to the spirit of those characters

and tried to show a little love for the continuity

which was very much intentional.

It was able to sort of help breathe a little new life back

into the genre on the whole.

After the film's record-breaking success,

the question was inevitably asked,

would there be a rematch?

At that time I just thought, you know, great.

We should do "The Good, The Bad , And The Ugly"

type of movie with the "Halloween" guy, you know.

The Myer vs. Jason vs. Freddy.

But then you've got two kind of quiet killers.

I think it's kind of an overkill there.

There were some interesting ideas at one time.

There was a, you know, a Freddy vs. Ash vs. Jason

that was talked about

which I think that Sam Raimi wanted Bruce Campbell to win

which I thought was a terrific idea.

You know, making the world safe from sequels -- Ash.

Sam and the camp are very interested.

We negotiated sort of on and off over two years.

As is the nature of Hollywood, deal making,

it comes and it goes.

We try again and it comes and it goes

until ultimately the deal's just not going to make.

Well , I love "Evil Dead." I love "Evil Dead II."

I love Ash.

Groovy!

But I think that that would be even harder than it was

to pull off "Freddy vs. Jason" and as you can see,

it wasn't that easy.

But I think that's perfect idea for a comic.

Several years later in actuality,

David Imhoff at New Line Licensing at the time said,

"You know what?

We should take the treatment that I had written for the film

and let's go do this and do it as a comic."

At my last horror convention,

one of these fans brought up to me this comic book

"Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash" and I said,

"Where did you get this? This is amazing.

This is what the sequel was supposed to be."

And he said, "I know.

Do you want to see it? You're in it."

The heroine from the first one always has to die pretty quickly

in the second one.

But you know who kills me?

Jason.

Two pages in, I have a machete hacking through my head.

And he wouldn't even have that machete to kill me

unless I returned it to him. I did the right thing.

And then he cuts my face in half?

Freddy hadn't even shown up on the scene yet.

I changed my mind. He doesn't have morals.

He's just a heartless, soulless killer.

I'm very honored and at a large level

kind of humbled that in comics now

we sort of have the responsibility

of keeping the original continuity going,

and "Freddy-Jason-Ash" because it was going to be

the legitimate sequel and that was the take

we were going to use,

it's an incredible honor because it's basically,

to the fans like myself that care about the continuity

and want to know where Tommy Jarvis has been

and what he's doing,

it's a thrill to get to kind of deliver that

for them ultimately.

And at least let the people

that want to keep the Freddy and Jason

that they grew up with and love,

let them sort of keep living on in another medium

while these new sort of re-interpretations are done.

Of course I'm very happy and very excited

with the end result.

But more importantly,

I just felt that my instinct was right

in the very, very beginning.

I'm so happy that the audience also endorsed that,

endorsed my gut feeling.

You know, we love "Nightmare" and "Friday,"

and, you know, we were, you know, stewards of it, I guess,

a little bit, you know, for a short period of time,

and, you know, we always try to do our best.

We always put our, you know, the fans first,

and, you know, hopefully some people out there

think we did an okay job.

Two months after the box office smash of "Freddy vs. Jason"

another horror icon was given a new lease on life

with 2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

This time, it was neither a sequel nor a crossover

that left audiences screaming.

It was a remake.

If the mother of all slasher films was no longer sacred,

then a remake of "Friday The 13th" seemed inevitable.

Platinum Dunes is a company I started with Michael Bay

and Andrew Form, my two partners,

and I knew that New Line had the rights to "Friday The 13th."

That was a title that we'd always talked about

wanting to make.

I guess when you do a remake

you sort of play with people's expectations.

You try to know what those expectations are

and you give them what they want

but not what they expect.

I rang Marcus up and I said, "Marcus, you know,

I'm not quite sure why we're doing this film."

And he explained to me that he had enjoyed a great success

with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

remake and that, you know,

basically he was taking this film

because he felt like his career needed

that shot in the arm again.

When I did "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

I was actually surprised to see like the outcry, you know,

how dare they?

"Friday The 13th," in a way,

it's less of a holy cow to bring to the butchering block.

Aided by partner Michael Bay, director of "Armageddon,"

"Pearl Harbor" and the "Transformers" series,

the Platinum Dunes team

spent the better part of a year securing the rights

from both studios.

Yet no one could see the point

of faithfully retelling the story of Pamela Voorhees

and her murderous rampage at Camp Crystal Lake.

The audience wanted Jason.

So the producers brought back two of the series' biggest fans

to conceive a new vision of "Friday The 13th."

Shannon : As kind of a reaction to "Freddie vs. Jason'

we wanted to adjust the tone.

Yeah.

We wanted to make this less goofy.

Yeah.

More serious, a little harder edge.

Jason didn't kill in the first movie as we know,

and we didn't want to make a movie

where, that didn't have Jason, that had Mrs. Voorhees killing.

So we took elements of the first four films.

We didn't really ever think of it as number 12.

It was like, you know, this could be

like we're starting all over again.

This is the story from the beginning.

There are many words for making a movie again,

I think retelling is a fashionable one right now.

Definitely not a re-imagining

because we are just basically going back

to what Jason was in the first place.

It could have been called a sequel in my opinion.

A mash up, or a poupou platter.

More of a hybrid.

- It was a reboot. - A reintroduction.

- A potpourri. - A greatest hits.

I don't even really know what it is.

From the get-go for me it was always "This is a reboot"

and that was sort of drilled into our heads.

It's a re-box-officin-ing. That's what it is.

It's sort of the Reader's Digest of slasher films.

We did not want to say none of these movies happened.

I mean, it was important for us not to sort of say,

"Hey, we're starting over and that didn't exist."

Absolutely.

That's not something we wanted to do.

But, of course, you know, they wanted to just call it

"Friday The 13th," you know what I mean,

so it kind of started over.

But, you know, for me it lives sort of in,

along with all the others.

It was really important to us to go back to Crystal Lake.

It had been a long time since Jason had been there,

and we loved the setting of the camp.

This is really a New Jersey story and for some reason,

we wound up shooting this in Texas.

There weren't even camps around, you know,

and not the right type of lakes.

I don't remember specifically discussing

where we were geographically in the United States.

I don't believe that's addressed as to where it is.

I think it's kind of like in "The Simpsons."

Crystal Lake, I mean, there's a lot of Crystal Lakes out there.

You know, it could happen anywhere.

Do you know how many lakes are probably called Crystal Lake?

Crystal Geyser, Crystal Water.

For the next actor chosen to wield the famous machete,

playing Jason wasn't just another job,

it was the role of a lifetime.

I'm a huge fan of the "Friday The 13th" series.

It's my favorite horror series of all time.

Derek Mears walked through the door and, you know,

you don't know what to expect after seeing his pictures

from past movies and clips

and he turns out to be the sweetest guy.

And then you find out he actually does cage fighting

as a hobby.

When I was in school, I have a disorder called alopecia

which means my body sees hair as a foreign obstacle

so it rejects it, and when it started originally falling out,

it would fall out in little patches,

little pieces here and there,

and I was kind of the different kid in school.

And I looked and I go, "Oh my God,

I'm like a, I'm like a little Jason, like we're similar."

And so I kind of had a relation there,

a tie to that character.

Derek Mears was the only person

we considered to play Jason Voorhees.

When that phone call came in,

trying to be professional and be stone-faced,

"Well, that sounds great. Well, cool.

We'll work the days. Where are we shooting? Fantastic.

We'll talk to the managers."

But inside you're like

a 13-year-old cheerleader, schoolgirl,

"Oh my god, that's amazing."

The fact that Derek got to come in

and recreate this character,

someone who is so passionate about "Friday The 13th"

as a whole and every film that's come in the genre before,

I feel like it couldn't have been a better fit.

He was constantly in his head,

talking to the producers, talking to the directors,

what about this, what about that, you know,

and he'd go through different films.

Well, you know, Jason did this before,

or are we going to do something different?

When I approached the character of Jason,

I did a lot of research on child psychology

being that Jason saw his mother get murdered in front of him

at such a young age,

being that he was an outcast

and teased and picked on from all the other kids.

His mother, his only tie to life,

that's his only source of love

and seeing that taken away from him,

how does that affect a person?

It'll be easier for you than it was for Jason.

This is about a victim who is lashing out in vengeance

for the death of his mother.

You should have been watching him...every minute!

Ultimately Jason's still a person.

He's just a very damaged person obviously.

So I think Derek really wanted to explore that.

You know, he's been rejected by society. That's his area.

And so when the kids come into his area,

he's forced into a corner, again,

kinda like a wild animal and he retaliates.

It's very similar to John Rambo form the "First Blood" series.

John Rambo: Don't push it or I'll give you a war

you won't believe.

And the discussion was, "Is he running or is he walking?"

He ran in the first few films.

You know, in 2, 3, 4 he was running.

Why not go back to that?

It feels like if you see him running,

all 240 pounds of him with that 4 foot machete,

that it feels scarier than if he just pops up.

We actually shot a lot of scenes kind of two different ways.

One was like more empathetic

so the audience could understand and feel for Jason,

and one was more aggressive.

You know, it's not an easy job wearing all that makeup

and running around and carrying the machete,

and it's easy to get aggravated and mean.

And every day he was a pleasure to be around and just a happy,

grateful guy to work with.

There couldn't be a greater contrast in personality

for a serial killer.

Derek is the nicest guy that any of us have ever met,

perhaps the nicest guy that exists on this planet.

I mean, it's so funny that for someone who plays

such a dark and scary character,

he couldn't be a warmer, more loving person

filled with more light. I just think the world of him.

I'm ruining my bad-guy career right now.

I'm going to have to punch somebody

just to establish dominance.

When you discuss the makeup,

or the costume really that Jason Voorhees is wearing

in our film, that's Scott Stoddard.

I was inspired by the asymmetry of what Tom did

for the original makeup for the little kid,

and what was done then in "Part 4."

But I also really wanted to combine what Carl Fuller did

and had done in "Part 2."

I thought that kind of mountain man, you know,

just longer hair falling out, kind of grizzly looking guy,

was something that I wanted to put into it.

Scott did an amazing job.

I remember the first day that Derek came on set.

I had - I mean, like chills ran down my spine.

I was like, "Oh my God, Dude."

They wrote in the sack head in the script and when I read it,

I was like, "Okay, great. Brings me right back to Part 2."

The sack cloth was really scary for me too.

I think in some ways more scary than the hockey mask.

I think both versions, the hockey mask

and the sack head version of Jason are terrifying.

To me the hockey mask does seem more iconic though.

You know, that's what I associate with Jason.

The film opens at Crystal Lake

in one of the longest pre-credit prologues

in "Friday The 13th,"

and perhaps motion picture history.

This remake centers around

this brother-sister story between the Whitney character

and the Clay character played by Jared Padalecki,

and it starts off because their mother is dying.

I don't feel right being here, so far away from my mom.

My boyfriend drags me away from taking care of her

to go on a camping trip,

and we don't realize that it's Camp Crystal Lake.

And it doesn't go so well.

[random screams]

With the crew being around you, once you sort of got outside

of all the lights and stuff,

you could really see how creepy it would be

to be out there in the pitch black

and not really know your surroundings.

The dark woods outside of Austin, Texas

provided the perfect cover for a practical joke

on actor Jonathan Sadowski by his fellow cast members.

We were shooting in the dark woods late one night,

and , it was like 3 or 4 in the morning, super tired.

Of course, the portapotties are like a walk.

It's a hike to get there, and it's pitch black,

like there's nothin' out there.

This would make the perfect serial killer story,

that somebody actually got killed by a serial killer

in the woods while shooting "Friday The 13th."

And we're all watching the monitors,

watching the scene that's taking place,

and Jonathan pops up from his chair and goes,

Well , gotta go to the bathroom,

and he walks off in the darkness.

And so Feldman and Mennell

like thought it would be a really great idea

to convince Derek to hide in the bushes.

So he goes out and, of course, Derek sees him

disappear into the woods

and Derek goes to the opposite side of the woods

and hides and waits for him to walk back.

He hid in the bushes like halfway through the walk

and jumped out at him with his mask and machete.

I have never seen an adult man get so scared

as Jonathan Sadowski who literally,

when Derek came charging at him out of the woods

in full costume, didn't know what to do,

so just ran in place like a cartoon character.

Ahhh-ahhh-ah-haha!

His feet are jumping back and forth.

His hands are going up and down.

What happened was that part between fight and flight.

He goes, I didn't know, I was so scared I didn't know

if I should run or punch you in the face.

And the whole set just died. Just killed everybody.

So I'm like, Oh, mission accomplished.

I felt pretty good about that.

Our movie has a ton of nudity in it.

And as a kid when I was going to movies,

that was part of the genre and for some reason

it kind of went away.

And it was important to us to bring back the nudity.

America and I are in the tent and we are loving each other

biblically from behind.

Oh, you like that?

Yeah baby, wait for me,

-No I think I'm gonna... -No, don't do that again-

As it turned out, playing the role of sex-starved Amanda

was more than original actress Moran Atias bargained for.

America Olivia bares her breasts in the beginning of the film.

That was written into the original screenplay.

And we shot that scene with another girl

who when it came time to bare her breasts,

she refused to do it.

You know, I think she'd recently come from Israel

and was ready to do some serious acting

and "Friday The 13th," I think,

was not exactly what she had in mind

when she came to do "high art" in America

and, I guess to put it plainly,

I think there were just too many boob shots.

Hey... It looks like you.

No, it doesn't.

It does. It's cool, you should keep it.

When Mike and Whitney go into the cabin,

and she finds the locket, because she's wearing it,

yes, it does save her life to a certain degree.

That symbol of love is that locket,

it's that confusion, oh, that's my mom.

He's not all there but it's that tie in to him needing love.

Little Oedipus.

[scream]

I think for me if there's wooden boards involved

and someone's falling through or bashing up into them,

that's the kind of death scene I like.

I don't know why. I'm just creeped out by it.

And I jump into the bathtub,

and I'm trying to pull Nick into the tub with me.

There was a lot of thrashing around and Derek Mears,

Jason, was out of town.

He was actually getting married, funny enough

while we were shooting.

And they had a stunt double for him

that was supposed to grab me.

I bashed this guy, kicked him straight in the eye

and gave him a good shiner.

I run back to save Amanda, and she is hanging from a tree

in a sleeping bag on fire and burning to death.

That is when I stumble upon a bear trap.

[scream]

We shot like 10 takes and after a while I'm like,

my leg's kind of like dented and like a little bit bleeding

and like black-and-blue and so I was like,

"Guys, can we loosen up with the bear trap?"

And they were like, "Oh my God, that's the real one.

Can somebody just get him the rubber one?"

Jason comes at me at the end of the scene

and puts a machete through my forehead

and then he turns on Amanda Righetti's character,

and we cut to black and then the real movie starts.

Jared Padalecki goes back to Crystal Lake

because he thinks that that's where his sister is.

So he kind of goes, he's there on a mission to find her,

and he finds some other kids who are hanging out

and partying at Crystal Lake.

I have a cabin. I'm very rich and I want people to like me,

I guess, even though I don't like anybody

that I really bring to the cabin.

Hey, take your feet off the table please.

Jenna, you know, registers what Clay is going through

and how hard this must be

despite the fact that all her friends

are just focused on partying and having a good time.

I'm trying to set up myself to get laid

with this beautiful girl.

She ends up going to this other guy.

I'm definitely jealous, a little pissed off.

So you don't want to be friends after this?

Don't want to hang out?

Two boys wanting to duke it out over a girl.

Like that's a story we can all relate to.

I would probably leave soon before I get pissed off,

and, you know...Yeah?

Yeah.

The new film attempted not one,

but two, versions of the scene

where Jason discovers his iconic hockey mask.

The original scene was, in my mind,

not nearly as interesting as the one that we shot later on.

Donnie comes into his pot den in the barn,

and he's getting high.

And he puts the hockey mask on,

and Jason comes in and grabs him by the head.

You don't see him get his head chopped off

but then you see the head drop out of frame

and land on the ground.

He's looking at the mask and puts the mask on

and there it was.

That's how he was going to get it.

And then a few months later,

they decided to go and re-shoot that a little different,

and it was when he goes upstairs, confronts Donnie,

That shit ain't fuckin' right, dude...

Cuts his throat, pulls something aside,

and there's the hockey mask.

I also think the scene's quite effective.

I think it's an interesting moment there.

Not only when he gets the mask,

he puts it on, and he goes to the mirror.

I think it's quite an effective scene.

I'm really glad we shot that.

I thought they both worked well.

It would have been fun if they had Shelly from "Part 3"

who introduced the hockey mask,

where he's like working with Donnie doing something,

You know, there he is. There's Shelly, you know.

In keeping with "Friday The 13th" tradition,

several of the film's death sequences

had to be reconceived and re-shot.

So there's a kill in the script with Willa Ford's character,

originally it was written where the boat sequence happens,

Ryan's character gets shot with the arrow,

she gets hit by the boat, and she's stunned.

As she's kind of coming to, and she realizes

there's a guy wearing a hockey mask,

and she's kind of confused and all of a sudden,

the guy pulls out a machete, and she's like,

Oh my God, oh my God.

And so she starts to swim parallel to the water,

and he just slowly walks with her keeping the same distance.

It cuts to the kids back at the house

having a big party, having a good time.

It's a very long scene there.

Then it cuts back to her and now the time is passed

where it's dark, and she's been treading water

for a long time, and Jason hasn't moved.

He's still just staring at her.

And so it was more of a psychological kill,

like she's so afraid to get out of the water,

she'd rather drown in the water.

And I thought that was brilliant.

But they changed it where she faked it

and comes up under the docks,

has the machete get the top of her head

which is still a great kill.

The kills are obviously such an important part

of this franchise and of horror movies in general,

and I loved them in this movie.

I thought everyone had a really unique and disgusting way to go.

We were talking to the producers and they were like,

"Did you realize there are 13 kills in this movie?"

And I was like, "Yeah, it was intentional."

And they were like, "Really? Wow. That's great."

The other part of the formula, I guess for us,

was we wanted to have kids having fun.

We wanted to bring back some of that feeling

from the 80s where it's kind of sex, drugs and violence.

Well originally we did want to put it in the 80s,

I mean , that was sort of important to us,

and then once you start talking to like the studio guys,

they go, yeah, it's not going to happen.

It's very modern , and we didn't step back in time at all.

We really brought that modern energy to it.

As Form and Fuller once explained to me,

"These kids have got to be fuckable.

The guys have gotta want to fuck the girls,

and the girls have gotta want to fuck the guys

in the movie." So that's what makes them care.

My character did have some good lines in the film.

I know the one that I did not want to say was...

Your tits are stupendous.

And they said, "Trust me. It'll get a laugh. It's funny."

I said, "Okay."

And then we were doing the sex scene,

and, it was like a twelve-hour day for that thing,

and it sounds like, Oh, man, you had to do that for twelve hours,

you poor guy, but seriously, twelve hours a day

wearing a little cock sock,

it's not really the most comfortable thing.

This is a man's sport.

Aaron Yoo, who plays Chewie in the movie,

he had to have full stomach surgery

while we were shooting.

He had an obstruction in his stomach,

and he was rushed to the hospital from the set.

He came back with, I don't know, 30 staples in his stomach.

I don't know how he held up but he kept going like,

"Hey, look, can you actually throw me?

Can you like do it for real?"

I go, "Yeah, I can do it for real. I'm not doing it for real

because I don't want to hurt you."

Are you looking for this? 'Cause it, uh...

completes your outfit.

And he was like, "I'm good for one.

Is that cool with everybody?" "Okay, dude, if you're sure."

[screams]

And all I'm thinking is if his guts pour out

while we're doing the scene... I'm going to shoot that, right?

'Cuz I can use that in the movie if his guts pour out.

There's a point where I'm stabbing him,

and he starts to choke, and he's gagging,

and he goes to the ground, and we end the scene.

I go, "Dude, are you okay? What's going on?"

And he goes, "No, no, no. I had the blood in my mouth,

and rather than just coming out of my mouth,

I tried to inhale it into my sinuses so it would come out."

I go, "You are far too committed for this."

That is insane.

"No, but it looked really, really cool."

Take that, motherfucker!

My death scene, it hurt the most.

And you know, oh, he's getting away and then all of a sudden

you just see [noise]...axe.

I'm screaming for help, and you can hear me.

Oh my God, please!

It's always interesting to me to see, you know,

a bomb drops, you know,

a bunch of kids scatter around like roaches on the kitchen sink

and how do they interact.

- You can't go out there. - We have to help him.

No we can't, ok? He's using your friend as bait.

You know, at least someone said we have to help him.

Somebody's gotta do something!

I was like, Do it, be a friend, go out there

and save your buddy.

And we're all like, Whose life is more important here?

Ours.

As I was watching the movie,

I thought of so many different scenarios

of how I could have been saved.

Spineless bastards.

[screams]

I mean, I think I die three or four times in the movie.

I get suffocated by Jason.

Then I get hung on these hooks.

And I get shot through a door.

Then I get thrown out a window.

Marcus, I guess, wanted to try to get a little more creative,

you know, like the things that make you squirm.

The poker through the eye hole, that was -- errrrr.

Anything with eyes, like when you watch that movie "Zombie."

As the remaining characters make a last bid for survival,

an on-set accident nearly resulted

in a real "Friday The 13th" casualty.

Whenever you're making a horror movie

and kids or people are running and they have sharp objects,

someone's bound to get hurt.

We were shooting one of the scenes

where we run from upstairs to downstairs.

And we're coming down the stairs.

I'm backing down as fast as I can

like pretending I'm a frickin' FBI agent or something,

and I run into Danielle and I slam her into the wall.

He somehow pushed me into the windowsill,

and I hit my chin, and I split my chin open

and fell back and gave myself a concussion.

She hits her head,

and she almost gets knocked out unconscious.

And she had to go to the hospital.

I think - it was just bad.

So I still have a teeny tiny scar on my chin

that will forever remind me of "Friday The 13th."

I feel bad but it was - I mean,

I guess it was payback for her going to the other guy.

So I got her back.

I think the most brutal kill

would probably have to be Travis's.

He had the iconic scream.

[screams like a girl]

I think he probably out-screamed all the women

that have been in any of the "Friday The 13th" films.

My death scene in this film was a great one,

and I think the whole purpose of my character

staying in the film as long as he did

was you wanted the audience to really slowly hate me

and hate me more and more

so that when I died it was a big payoff.

We went through probably 10 gallons of blood.

Gets the machete basically all the way up his body

until he's lifted off the ground.

Then he lets me down, lifts me up

and throws me on the back of a hay bale spike

that goes through my chest as the car pulls away.

So timing had to be perfect. I had to be strapped in.

It was just a really-- it's a gnarly death.

He was the asshole, he was the jerk,

and , as we all know in films, we want those people to die.

So he got what he deserved.

And then they drive away with my dying body.

So, altogether I'm--that was one of my favorite parts

was to watch me die.

The original script that I read,

it involved a much more intricate scene

involving Jared's character

and Amanda Righetti's character and my character,

in more of a battle with Jason

and Jenna was definitely more involved in that version.

They needed to find something

that wasn't going to be too difficult to shoot

and that was going to fit in their schedule.

So Jenna had to die in the tunnel.

I loved that about this.

You know, the sort of, she follows all the rules

of a quintessential Jason movie, and she doesn't swear,

she doesn't have sex, she's not a hard partier,

and yet she still gets killed.

And I think it's fun.

I think it's a great talking point,

and I love that people are so invested in it.

With the Platinum Dunes partners

closely watching over the set,

and with the mounting pressure of constant script changes,

tensions flared between the producers

and director Marcus Nispel.

The working relationship that I had with Marcus

shifted quite a bit in the course of making this film.

Kind of a recluse. He would just keep to himself,

and he would say things to you when you needed to hear them.

There's a fine line between genius and madness.

He's such a visual guy. He gets so excited.

"Da-da very good scene. I want you to burst in.

You're going to attack her. The energy stop there.

Oh they can't help it. You're going to rip them apart!"

I think I had a better relationship

and better communication with Brad and Drew.

They were the producers that were on set

the entire shoot.

Unfortunately there was a lot of conflict

between those parties.

Marcus was trying to push this film forward

but they kept changing the script

and rewriting the script. And they were forever at odds.

Almost every shooting day would start with,

you know, some sort of discussion

or conversation about what we're shooting.

No, no, that's not even a scene anymore.

There may have been something between them,

but by the time it gets to us actors,

everybody's--you know, it's like mom and dad.

If they fought it was when we went to bed.

As time went on I realized this is no way to carry on

making a film.

We have to somehow arrive at an amicable agreement

where we can just carry on and, you know,

and that never really happened.

As filming drew to a close,

one question still remained--

How would this "Friday The 13th" end?

And we ended up going back out to Austin

a few months after we had wrapped the movie

to re-shoot some of it,

and they wanted to see me stab Jason.

The original ending we shot for "Friday"

when Jason's getting pulled into the wood chipper,

we actually shot where the mask pops off.

He's staring, he's confused

because, you know, he loves her so much.

It's that confusion of like, he loves his mother

and she's not his mother, but she kind of is,

and so he's like, "Why are you doing this?"

And then she stabs him with the machete.

Jason ! Say hi to Mommy--in Hell!

"Jason, say hi to Mommy in Hell."

I fought that tooth and nail.

I was like, "Oh, guys, really? That's cheesy."

What they were looking for is the entire audience going like,

Yay! The bad guy's dead!

But instead the entire audience was silent.

And so they changed the ending.

I prefer the more, the emotional one myself

because it adds more depth.

Obviously the big pressure is will there be a big,

big scare at the end,

and then, of course, your biggest trick as a director

is to see what you make look like an end or not,

the false end, you know.

What are you going to do? You know, it's hard.

It's hard to top what happened in the first movie.

The first movie has one of the great, you know,

jump scare endings of all time.

So it became a really tough bar, I think,

for every other filmmaker.

It's like well we need something.

And they just couldn't decide.

There was one point where we were both in a canoe

and then the canoe goes over.

And then there was one point

that maybe it was just Jared in the canoe,

and I was on the dock.

And then it ended up, no, we'll both be on the dock.

They weren't sure if they were going to do a sequel

but they wanted to keep it open-ended

if they did do a sequel.

And then they ended up just deciding, "Okay,

he's going to just come out of the water and grab you."

[screams]

On Friday, February 13th, 2009, "Friday The 13th"

was released on 3, 105 screens in North America.

Although it brought in an astounding $43 million dollars

in its opening weekend,

negative reviews and a backlash from hardcore fans

caused the film's box office to plunge 80%

in its second weekend.

Nevertheless, the film went on to earn

$65 million dollars domestically,

making it the highest grossing film

among any of the slasher remakes

and proving that Jason Voorhees can indeed survive anything,

including his own reinvention.

Any film that gets remade ever

is going to come across a lot of criticism.

We're messing with something that to a lot of people is holy.

So it doesn't surprise me that there were people

that weren't happy or satisfied

with the way they depicted where Jason was living

and how he was going about killing these people.

The diehard fans

kind of got their panties in a wad about it,

but I thought it was a pretty good execution.

If you're really a fan of those original things,

and you're mad that we messed with some original things,

then go watch the original movies

and don't come see Michael Bay's remake of it.

Well, at least Jason wasn't like living in space.

I had a friend send me something the other day

saying there was a list of recognizable characters

in the franchise, and that I was one of them.

I'm like, "That's really cool."

I've been very fortunate because the fans, fan boys,

can sort of fall on one side of the fence,

and they've been very kind to me,

and I'm very grateful for that.

We tried to make a fans' dream.

Because we are fans and I mean I don't know if everyone says,

You guys aren't really fans.

But I really am. And I love these movies,

and we just wanted to write the movie that we wanted to see.

I just knew I worked on a film that I loved working on

with a great group of people

and then when the people started seeing it

and watching it and coming up to me and telling me

what they loved about it,

then I was able to look at it and go,

I just worked on a "Friday The 13th" movie.

This is so cool because this is what I grew up on.

I never thought about growing up

to try and make one of these films.

I don't think you dared to dream that high.

I make no bones about it. I loved making this movie.

I would love to make another 12 of them.

You know, I think there's probably more life in Jason,

and there's just another way to reintroduce him

into the next generation.

This is how much of a nerd I am.

I got chills, which is crazy.

It's such an honor to be a part of the series.

It's mind blowing because when I hear Jason I think of Kane,

C.J. Graham, Ted White.

You know, I think, "Oh, yeah, that's right.

I got to play Jason." How unreal is that?

If they do a sequel, I would like to return.

But if not, even if I'm not asked or I don't return,

I'm a fan of the series.

I just want to see more Jason films,

and I'm totally cool with that.

No matter when or if

Jason Voorhees ever hangs up his mask and machete,

fans will always have their Crystal Lake Memories

to remind them that the world would indeed

be a much darker place without "Friday The 13th."

It's fun to think that Jason,

who started off as just this little surprise ending

on the first one, has turned into a pop icon,

a virtual cottage industry.

I don't think anybody,

myself, Sean or Steve

or pretty much anybody involved with that picture,

had any idea that "Friday The 13th"

would spawn twelve and who knows how many more films?

I know I didn't.

Honestly, "Friday The 13th" has given me a gift

that is just bigger than life itself.

A movie that I didn't give two cents for

in the beginning has brought me into the world

and into the lives of people who have viewed it

in a very special way.

If that's how people saw me,

as kind of the strong, intelligent woman,

it made me feel pretty empowered.

To be able to carry it with me for the rest of my life,

this fun cult film,

it's something to talk about,

it's a great conversation starter.

I can say I was in "Friday The 13th,"

and I gave Jason his hockey mask,

and nobody doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Everyone knows what what is.

I'm really proud of it.

I'm part of history, film history.

You know, this is my first job ever,

and there I was the lead of this film

and that sort of, I think that started me off

to a good path of eventually lots of doctor and lawyer roles.

It's like a badge of honor, you know,

of all the iconic horror figures, you know,

to be killed by Jason, it's really cool.

The quote is "You're not an actor

unless you've done a 'Friday The 13th' movie."

There are so many people I run into all the time that say,

"You know, I was in a 'Friday The 13th."'

The fact that I've become an icon

is the weirdest experience of my life.

Because, you know, there's no reward

when you're making the damn thing.

It's a year later when it comes out.

You're listening to the screams and the applause

and that's what - that's why we do it, you know.

We went and had a great time watching people

watch the movie.

Again, you don't see that very much now.

Well I guess in some weird way these are...classics?

So I'm happy people enjoy 'em,

and can laugh about it and not take us all too seriously.

A lot of actors tend to like kind of shy away from it,

kind of put it in their past, look the other way,

act likes it's a porn or something

that they're not proud of and they just would rather not admit

that it ever happened.

For me, I feel quite differently about it.

I'm grateful to the fans of the horror world,

and I am grateful that, you know,

I was welcomed with such open arms

by the fans of the franchise.

I loved playing Tommy Jarvis.

Corey set it up so great in "Part 4"

that it was like passing the torch.

And of course he goes on to "Part 6."

He at least lives, so I must have done something right.

I just want everyone to know I had a great time,

I was really proud to be a part of it.

I am very grateful,

and I'm glad we can all share a good laugh...or a scream.

Ethel: Ayyyy-ahhh!

No matter how twisted these movies seem,

there's something that actually kind of interweaves

this whole big group of people that makes it one big family.

Host: Never in the course of film history

has a single date

meant so much to our culture

than that of Friday the 13th.

It was a party for the launch

of the Crystal Lake Memories book.

And then of course, Jason showed up and, you know,

cut the cake with a machete and that was awfully fun and silly.

[cheers and applause]

And I got to meet my father and mother

from the films, and we had a photo,

and we felt like we were a family reconnected,

found each other again.

And she's this little adult now,

I think she's going off to college, bless her heart,

we did really well, she turned out great.

"Friday THe 13" has been an anchor for a lot of people

...for those who just had it as entertainment,

but for filmmakers, directors, writers.

Several years back I had the great opportunity

to be cast as the standby for Hugh Jackman

in the Broadway show "The Boy from Oz."

His whole dream to grow up and become an actor

was based on Jason, he wanted to play Jason.

REPORTER: So do you ever think that you'll ever play Jason

in one of those "Friday The 13th's?"

HUGH JACKMAN: Oh man, you've done your research.

That's what inspired him to be an actor.

I saw everyone was committed to doing their job

to 100% and, you know,

it made me in a way fall in love

with what it is that I do.

I do think these movies are essential.

I think they allow us to live out some weird dark part

of our personalities.

I think they're healthy.

I don't think they're negative on society.

I think that's an excuse.

We all love, you know, being scared

and wondering what's happening behind us and around us.

[scream]

I think that's why they last, honestly.

"Friday The 13th" is always a great date movie, you know.

We like to say we've been bringing people together

for thirty years.

[scream]

For guys like us who like horror,

and who like Jason, Michael and Freddy,

they're part of our culture and so,

you know, we'll tell our kids about these stories.

That is what made it scary

was the fact that you could only deter them.

There was no way of killing them.

They were gonna be around for the next generation

and the next movie,

No matter what you did to them...

they were gonna be back.

How long will this go on? Who knows?

It could go on for another 20, 30 years. Who knows?

The amazing following that we have,

I had no idea, and I'm so pleasantly surprised

of the fans and everybody.

They're so nice, and I feel really proud

to have been a part of it.

I'm just amazed at the phenomenon this has become.

I never dreamed when I was doing the film then

the effect it would have on so many people

and how there would be such a following 30 years later.

And I'm so grateful to the fans for their loyalty.

They've shown me a lot of love

and that's been very uplifting and surprising.

I've never met as many people

that are as excited about saying hello

to some guy that wore a hockey mask

and getting his signature.

They know more about me than I know about myself half the time.

And they're terrific. They're terrific, terrific people.

You know, as Andy Warhol said,

"We all have fifteen minutes of fame."

And thanks to "Friday The 13,"

my fifteen minutes, it keeps going.

You know, it may be a one-time thing for me, I don't know,

but it has been a great experience.

I'm taking pictures with 4-year-olds

with machetes and masks, babies with masks on.

Most of them come up to me and say,

"Hey, you scared the shit out of me

when I was 8 years old," you know.

And I say, "Well, what were you doing

watching the movie at 8 years old?

When you get that cult following,

when you get that group of people who's so into it,

it never goes away.

They would've stopped making those movies a long time ago

if they weren't successful.

And success isn't just money, it's people want to see 'em,

it's desire, and they trigger something,

and they become an institution.

It's so weird now to go into these different stores

and see these plastic hockey masks

that are just there because of the "Friday" thing.

Between toys, novelizations, non-fiction books, video games,

if everyone remembers that wonderful Nintendo

Entertainment System game.

He is no less marketable than Ronald McDonald

or Mickey Mouse at this point.

It's really become part of the everyday culture

in the American culture and throughout the world.

It's just an incredible opportunity

of experiencing something that, you know,

you're going to look back 15, 20 years, 30 years,

and just remember that you were part of that.

What gave me nightmares as a child,

now it's like a weird full circle. It's so bizarre.

How the heck did I get here?

It's kind of like I've jumped in through my computer monitor,

and I've joined this secret, fun, murdering society.

Playing a character that's known around the world

is an amazing feeling

and something I'm really proud of,

and I never expected anything like that

going into this career as a stuntman,

and I've just been very lucky,

and I'll always love the fact that I was Jason.

"Friday The 13" in this long odyssey

towards becoming iconic horror film making,

it's just an amazing phenomenon.

I swear to God, I don't understand it,

and I'm just grateful that it happened.

And there you have it, the story of Jason Voorhees.

For now he may be quiet,

but he will be back.

The one thing we know for sure...

Jason's horrific reign of evil

is eternal...

immortal...

and unstoppable.

Jason is still out there...

and maybe...just maybe...

he's closer than you think.

Kill her, Mommy.

Paul there's somebody in this room.

There's somebody in this fucking room!

Whooo! This feels good!

Dude, that goalie was pissed about something.

If Vera had--

Boo!

[Scream] Ohhhh!

It's that creep Shelly. What a sick sense of humor.

Why do you do these stupid things?

I just want you to like me.

I have seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo

wearing a mask is never friendly.

I don't think so, Maddy.

You could use a little touch-up work first.

Need a little bit of touch-up work, my ass.

This sucks on so many levels!

Now I say we regroup,

and let's go find this mother-fucker

before he finds us. Huh? Are you with me?

You didn't get me in the lake, Jason,

and you're not going to get me now!

Tommy! Tommy, get the hell out of here!

That's what's known as screwin' the pooch!

Bad news Crews.

I'm in the mood for... I feel like...a Jarvis Sandwich!

When I looked into that mirror I knew I'd always be ugly.

I said, "Lizzie, you'll always be plain."

Are you ready for Tony the Wonder Llama?

I told you to sit on it, Tonto.

Hey, you're lucky you weren't alive

during the Microsoft conflict.

We were beating each other over the heads

with our own severed limbs.

Come on, Sara, strip and dip?

Freddy died by fire, Jason by water.

How can we use that?

Dude, that's not a good look for you.

You ask the one black guy to pump the gas for you? Shit.

Do you--

You know, I gave up a weekend with Mary Jo Conrad

to be here with you.

You know, Jimmy, you're a dead fuck.

Yeah, well, I guess I do owe you.

You slut! [laughter]

Stay here. Relax. I'll be right back.

I'm gonna chop you into itty- bitty little pieces, my friend.

Just like I done to that pig go

over at that fuckin' crazy farm.

You tell 'em, Ma!

Ayyyyyy-ahhhh!

Melissa's a bitch. [laughter] No, I can't even do it.

Jason belongs in hell. And I'm gonna see that he gets there.

Wherever the red dot goes, ya bang.

Nobody's gonna touch that fuckin' ray of sunshine.

[tongue lapping sound]

Rrrrrrrrruff!

My earring...

Must be my imagination.

Survival's the name of the game,

and that flag is mine.

We never should have let her play.

Oh God, somebody help! He's trying to kill me!

You're not just a lousy doctor,

you're a blank-blank-blank coward! [laughter]

Aww, what scary man?

It's the best. The best!

You're talking to the prom queen, Eva.

Do you really think I'm going to risk getting caught?

What's brown and sits on a piano?

Beethoven's last movement.

[party horn sound]

Hey buddy, where are you, Michael?

Hey buddy? [party horn sound]

Ben? Are you coming back or not?

And then - [slashing sound]

That's it. Come to Momma.

Mmmm. Smart and sexy.

[sounds of agony]

The story could have happened anywhere, dude.

That's how they get little kids to shit themselves.

May I please have the wallet... ma'am.

You've got perfect nipple placement, baby.

I've actually said that to a woman before.

Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special.

Jason's out there. And he's hungry.

Ma'am... we didn't find any boy.

Then he's still there.

Yeah, when I was doing the films "Clerks," "Mall Rats,"

"Chasing Amy" and "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back,"

um...wait a minute... I wasn't in those movies.

What the, what the fuck!