RICHARD FEURY, Second Assistant Director:
Friday the 13th was really marginal in the context of the New York film community. There was porn, there was soft-core porn, and then there was horror. The better projects were all Director's Guild, and at that point I wasn't in the DGA, and neither was Steve Miner. So when Part 2 came around, and Steve called me up and asked me to again do still photography, I said, "Well, I'm a first A.D." I ended up as Second Assistant Director.
The feeling when we began Part 2 was that we all knew what was needed to make the film a hit, so there was no longer the same element of surprise. But we also wanted it to be a better film, and it was. We wanted it to be more polished, more professional. We all really went into Part 2 with the attitude that we didn't have to make an Academy Award-winning film, but because of the success of the first one, we had to top it.
PETER STEIN, Director of Photography:
I actually shot a scene in the first Friday the 13th where Alice wakes up in the hospital and says, "The boy, is he dead, too?" I don't remember what the deal was, but Barry Abrams, the original DP on the original film wasn't available so I shot it and it worked out pretty well. I am still not a real horror film fan, but I thought career-wise, Part 2 would be a very good move, knowing it would be a Paramount film. And we all thought this was going to be a bigger, better movie, and that we would all be in it together, gaining experience and shooting a feature.
RON KURZ, Screenwriter:
In 1978, I was trying to finish a satirical anti-nuke novel, but with a new infant son in the house I was finding it impossible to write at home in New Hamsphire. So I rented an apartment in Boston to get away to write. While there, I hooked up with Phil Scuderi, then under the banner of Georgetown Productions, when he was making a non-union Animal House rip-off but having trouble getting a screenwriter he could work with. I fit the bill, and we hit it off immediately. Although I was a member of the Writers Guild, and no way was Phil going to hire a union writer, but I needed some cash flow to keep my family afloat so I went to work using a nom de-schlock. Our first movie together was King Frat.
After Phil Scuderi got a green-light from Frank Mancuso for Part 2, I was given the screenplay assignment. And with Paramount involved, I thought, "Screw this, I'm going legit." I eventually came clean with the Writers Guild about my errant ways on the original Friday, which was one of the smarter things I've ever done in my life. Honesty pays. I'm still getting quarterly residuals on Part 2. Although, despite my contributions, it was too late to do anything through the Guild about Friday the 13th. Victor Miller got it all.
Anyway, Steve Miner was great. As I remember it, he had little if anything to do with the writing of the script, but after it was finished I did go down to Westport and spend some time with him in pre-production, making a few changes he wanted. Steve wasn't afraid to involve me. He was always positive and gracious, with a wonderful sense of humor. He was intent upon doing the best he could. Phil was taking a chance with him and had him under strict orders to follow the script, word for word. And Steve did. I've never seen a finished film that so closely matched the script.
STEVE MINER:
Saying there were some mistakes in the script of the first Friday was not the way I approached Part 2. I came to the project thinking that there were some very good things about the first film, mainly the structure. I felt that the overall framework worked. We tried, however, to improve upon some of the character and dialogue flaws. We attempted to make the characters a little more realistic. We did avoid "Strip Monopoly..."
New camp, new counselors. Top right: Tom McBride (seated), Russell Todd, Kirsten Baker, John Furey, Amy Steel and (far right) Lauren-Marie Taylor: Bottom left: Tom McBride (seated, from left), Lauren-Marie Taylor, Kirsten Baker and Russell Todd. Bottom right: Director Georgetown Productions financial partner and Friday backer Phil Scuderi.
BARRY MOSS, Casting Director, Part 1:
I got a call from Steve Miner, begging me and Julie Hughes to do Part 2. I don't know what we were thinking, but we said no. We got a little arrogant. We were young and stupid. I loved Steve, and he was very angry at us. I've always regretted that. Looking back on it, I realize we were bailing out on him. He wanted us for the support because he knew who we were. And of course, after that, we were never asked back for any of the Paramount sequels. So we recommended Meg Simon to do it.
MEG SIMON, Casting Director:
I was from the theatre world. I studied set design, and I was a manager and then a Broadway producer. I probably cast over 50 Broadway shows. Then I formed a partnership with Fran Kumin, who had come out of Yale. We were these young women who had a couple of Broadway shows running and were working with a lot of hip young theatre directors. And we had just started our business in 1980, so it was really cool to get a movie.
We used an old Broadway audition studio called Broadway Arts on 7th Avenue, between 56th and 57th. We had the cheapest room available, and probably spent a month on the casting. It was pretty straightforward—attractive young people who looked good covered in blood. I think at that point any young actor in New York was eager for work. No one thought this was going to make anybody's career, nor did anybody think it would hurt. And Part 2 was going to be shot during the actor's strike, which may have made our jobs a little bit easier because a lot of other union movies weren't shooting then.
RON KURZ:
I tried to conceive and flesh out likable, believable characters for Part 2. Scott was named after my oldest son. Ted and his antics was the personification of my younger brother John. And for the lead, Ginny, I wanted a touch of every intelligent, free-spirited girl I'd ever known. And I was delighted that they cast Amy Steel. She is a wonderful actress and her performance as Ginny was perfection.
AMY STEEL, "Ginny Field":
I was living in Florida and a friend of mine wanted me to come to a modeling agency with her. The agency took me on and then up to New York. I was about 19 or 20 years old. It was all fast and fun. I did a lot of commercials, then I got the audition for Part 2. It was big. I was doing this job in the Poconos and they said, "You're up for a role in Friday the 13th." And I was like, "Come on!"
I had to show up at the audition and pretend I was walking through the woods, screaming. And it was total typecasting—the outdoorsy, strong girl with blonde hair. And when I got it, it was great. It's nice to be wanted in any capacity, and Friday the 13th was cool. I just said, "It's sequel time!"
MEG SIMON:
In some ways this was simple as casting gets, because it's all on the page. The characters usually are defined not by characteristics but a characteristic. You did want everybody to be really pretty, but you had to look for personality, somebody who will make the characters more interesting and bring in a fully developed personality, like Amy Steel did. We all thought she was terrific. She had everything we were looking for. Great spirit, great personality, she had talent, and she was gorgeous! And comedy was always good, too, so somebody like a John Furey or a Stu Charno or a Bill Randolph—they all had a great sense of humor—could bring something to the film.
JOHN FUREY, "Paul Holt":
I had been an athlete in high school and college, and acting was the nearest thing to getting the attention from sports that I could find. When I first started out, I was very money motivated. I really didn't think about acting as a career—I thought I'd just do some commercials. Then an agent told me to take an acting class, and only then did I start to like it more and take it seriously.
I'll tell you something strange, and this is an absolutely true story. I was born on a Friday the 13th, and the first time I read for Part 2 was on a Friday the 13th. So I consider Friday the 13th a very lucky day. My audition was kind of a fluke. Steve Miner said, "Pick a couple of scenes you want to read." I read the campfire scene. I thought he sort of liked me, but you never know. Then my agent said Steve wanted to meet with me again, and that was it.
I did have reservations. I had never seen a horror movie be
fore. I didn't see Friday the 13th. So Steve actually took me to go see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—it was insane. So he kind of had to talk me into doing Part 2.
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR, "Vickie":
I was only just graduating high school when the audition for Part 2 came up. I started acting by doing Burger King commercials; that's all I had done. So it was just another reading. My feeling was, "If I get it, great. If I don't, I'll go do another Burger King commercial." Then after I got the part, because I was about to turn 18, my mother had to sign a waiver to even let me go. At first I was a little wigged-out about being at a camp, because growing up in the South Bronx, you don't go to camp; you go to Fire Island, you know? So I had to psych myself up. But it was an adventure for me, and I welcomed it.
Clockwise from top left: Bill randolph as Jeff; Lauren-Marie Tayor and Tom McBride as Vicky and Mark; Marta Kober as Sandra.
RUSSELL TODD, "Scott":
My first real acting gig came from reading Backstage. There was an ad for this movie called He Knows You're Alone, which was Tom Hanks' first movie. And in the opening of the movie, I'm making out with a girl in a car and you hear this tapping outside, then I get killed. She screams, and then you realize that it's a movie within a movie. That eventually got me an agent and he set me up on Part 2.
I had seen the first Friday the 13th. It is what it is. There was no pretense or anything. And even though it was a horror film, to me that wasn't a negative. To be part of something that was popular was exciting. I don't know if people felt the same when they were doing Part V, VI or VII, but being part of something that was really recognizable, whether people thought it was a quality film or not, at least meant it would last and be remembered.
STU CHARNO, "Ted":
I've been playing piano since I was 7 years old, and before I was an actor, I was a jazz musician. I wrote music with comical lyrics that I performed in clubs, though I never considered becoming an actor. Then one evening, while listening to a friend sing at a club, a woman at a table next to mine, after glancing my way repeatedly, sidled her chair up to mine and asked me, "Are you a comedian?" I instantly said, "Well, I feel funny." She laughed and handed me her card. She was a talent agent for actors, and suggested that I study acting and that she wanted to represent me. Right from when she started sending me on auditions, I booked movies, back to back. My first film was The Chosen, then Friday the 13th Part 2.
Frankly, I was surprised that they were making a sequel. In those days sequels weren't quite as rampant as they are today. Of course, if something makes money they'll try to do it again. But I was happy to get the work. And as a beginning actor, you usually have very little idea of preparing for a role. It is just your natural personality coming out. I immediately knew which role they wanted me to play. The character Ted was the practical joker. Steve Miner just said, "Stu, you got any good jokes?" And I think all of the jokes I told in the film were ones that I came up with at the time. Steve was great that way. He knew when to direct and when to just let the actors go.
BILL RANDOLPH, "Jeff":
I got a BFA from Suny-Purchase, which has a good theatre department, and then moved to New York City. I was doing stage work when I got Part 2. They had an open call. I went in and was fortunate enough to read for Steve Miner. Seeing the first movie and then reading our script, it was obvious I was Kevin Bacon's carbon copy. You couldn't be more formulaic if you tried. But Kevin and I, being struggling actors in New York at the time, we were friends and had mutual girlfriends. And the last thing I wanted to do was be him. So I went up there with an idea of Jeff being more of a street kid from Jersey, and the only reason he was up there was because of his girlfriend and to get laid. And with this huge truck that he has, his only other interest is cars. It was also the first time he'd ever put on a pair of shorts, first time he's ever had tennis shoes. So I went into the audition with an almost Blues Brothers kind of hat, and shades, and black socks, and smoking cigars all the time.
JACK MARKS, "Deputy Winslow":
Meg Simon and Fran Kumin had cast me in something prior to Part 2. I got along really well with them and they looked upon me favorably, so after they had me in to read for this cop character, they just said, "You're hired." My family all got a big kick out of it, because I'm repelled by blood and I knew this was one of those blood and guts movies. Horror is not a genre I appreciate, and above that, aesthetically, it is such a dead end. I've done a lot of theatre in my life, where you try to make an emotional connection, and this is just the opposite. But I thought, "I'll make a couple of bucks. How bad could it be?"
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
The only thing that worried me was, right before we took off for filming, they had a screening of the original Friday the 13th for those of us who hadn't seen it. And we all looked at each other after we saw it and thought, "Where did these people go!?" Because at that time nobody had quite made it. Kevin Bacon hadn't made it; he was still doing a lot of stage work. So the big joke was, "Well, you never saw any of those people again, so maybe they really did kill them off!?"
"We were all so different, from different backgrounds and different types of work," remembers actor Russell Todd of the cast of Part 2. "It is the socialization of it that I still remember most, to be young and working, and that we all became a family during that time. And, eventually, that you have to move on. It was so sad when that project ended."
No one could fully know it at the time, but in the character of Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th introduced one of the most enduring villains in motion picture history. Few had regarded his appearance in the original film as the key to its success—the audience would cite the film's creative death sequences and attendant grisly effects as its main appeal. For the sequel, crafting a believable explanation for the character of Jason would prove a challenge for screenwriter Ron Kurz. Working closely with an uncredited Phil Scuderi, the pair fashioned a script that faithfully replicated not just the original's overall structure, tone, pace and plot, but its characters, murder scenarios and suspense sequences—to the extent that some claim Part 2 is more remake than sequel.
Sean Cunningham and Victor Miller were not the only ones nonplussed by the promotion of Jason to the sequel's star antagonist. Special makeup effects impresario Tom Savini would turn down the follow-up to the film that, along with Dawn of the Dead, made him a household name to horror fans around the world. Savini's departure also meant that Part 2 was now without its biggest "star," leaving Steve Miner to scramble to find a replacement who could not only equal the shocking illusions Savini and his collaborators had orchestrated in the original film, but successfully evolve Jason into a terrifying, murderous presence. Requiring its performer to wear a burlap sack, utter guttural sounds in place of dialogue and endure countless hours in the makeup chair, the role would prove so physically demanding that it ultimately needed two actors to bring the character to life. But even if the Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th Part 2 was in his formative years—and without the hockey mask that would later become his indelible trademark—he was still a creation that would ultimately provide the foundation for the iconic monster to come.
RON KURZ:
I couldn't really keep Jason as a child. You must understand, back then we had no idea Jason would become part of popular culture. And Sean's idea of an annual series of anthology-like films was never discussed with me. I merely wanted to make Jason work in the script at hand. So I tried, with Paul's campfire speech and, later, Ginny's barroom ruminations, to flesh him out into an understandable character. And having him obsessed to the point of keeping an altar with his mother's severed head, with avenging her death and continuing her mission, offered the motivation needed.
TOM SAVINI, Special Makeup Effects, Part 1:
Jason doesn't exist, OK? Jason died in the first movie. For Jason to be around today means what? He survived by living off of crawfish on the side of the lake? For 35 years? Nobody saw this kid walking around and growing up? It asks you to accept a lot. That was
part of my concern about Part 2 when they offered it to me. I got the script and here's Jason running around. I said, "What do you mean, Jason's running around?" So I turned down Part 2 and did The Burning instead, which had sort of a Friday the 13th premise anyway.
STEVE MINER:
It was a disappointment not to use Tom Savini again because he has such tremendous creative energy and is a joy to work with. And after Friday the 13th he even had a certain box office appeal. So I turned to Stan Winston. He said that he wanted to do it but that he also had a bunch of conflicts. He told me to call Dick Smith, who then highly recommended Carl Fullerton. And when Carl brought a severed head that he had made for Wolfen to our first production meeting—it was so amazingly lifelike and extraordinary—I knew that he'd be up to the job.
CARL FULLERTON, Special Makeup Effects:
I had applied for an apprenticeship at NBC-TV in New York for the simple reason that Dick Smith used to be the head of the department there. At the time, Dick was at the forefront of makeup. I finally had the opportunity to meet him when he would come in from time to time. Several years went by, and he got a very large project called Altered States and needed some people to work for him, basically to do grunt work. Dick recommended me for Part 2. He had described Friday the 13th to me as the lowest form of sex and gore picture. I suppose that the whole appeal of it is to prurient interest and an audience's appetite for violence. I thought it was extremely comical—perhaps that's because I'm in the makeup end of the business. Tom Savini did some fine work in it, but the dialogue and situations were extremely laughable. I was amazed that it was such a success.
I had to interview for Steve Miner. I drove up to Connecticut, and the only examples of my stuff that I had were some photographs and a decapitated head. I was exhilarated to have the opportunity to work, to have a job. Initially, Steve told me that I should stick somewhat with Tom's concept of Jason at the end of Friday the 13th. Well, you can't stick with a concept "somewhat"—you either go with it or you don't. So I did a thumbnail sketch of what I thought Jason should look like and showed it to Steve, and I'm sure with all the other things on his mind he said, "Yeah, that looks great."
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 15