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

by Peter M. Bracke

  I also learned that the camera adds 10 pounds. After the movie was over, I was standing in the lobby, and this group of kids behind me goes, "That's the guy! That's the guy in the movie!" And this girl goes, "No, the guy in the movie was fat!" So any kind of ego boost I might have gotten was completely destroyed.

  From left: Domestic one-sheet; domestic video poster; United Kingdom one-sheet (sans knife).

  BONNIE HELLMAN:

  I went to the theater to see it and all I could think was, "God, my head is so big!" My head was like the whole screen.

  CRISPIN GLOVER:

  I've always been glad to be able to work. I aspire to try to do things that I like, but there are certain films that I really am proud of, and then certain films that I'm just glad I did it because I was continuing my career. But I don't regret any of the films that I've done in my career. And I certainly don't regret The Final Chapter.

  CAMILLA MORE:

  I never went to see it. I was kind of selfish—I just used it for what I wanted it for, to have something else to put on my resume. I could take out the love scene and put it on my reel, and now suddenly I have a scene with Crispin Glover. That's what actors do, they build up—these little vignettes lead into bigger things. It was only Carey and my dad that went to the opening. He was in New York at the time. And the theatre was just loaded with teenagers, and they were all cheering and crying when people died. It was very, very exciting.

  Now, years later, I've finally seen the movie, and it's one death after another. To the point where it's really not terribly scary—I think that things have got so much more sophisticated in terms of the horror content. I did feel in our Friday that the quality of acting was above the others. Any good notices the film got I would like to think was a kind of begrudging acknowledgement that there was some sort of talent in this schlocky movie.

  CAREY MORE:

  I don't think I thought much of it, either. And right after The Final Chapter, Camilla and I got this great movie to do in France called Le Jumeau, which is "The Twin." We played these American heiresses, so it was all very luxurious. We lived in Paris for a year filming that, wearing Chanel and it was really fabulous. So when The Final Chapter came out, we probably were already gone and on to other things.

  JUDIE ARONSON:

  I saw it in a regular movie theater. I brought my mother, and she screamed at the screen when I died. All I remember is being really embarrassed.

  BARBARA HOWARD:

  My sister went to Times Square to see it first, and she said it was so weird—everyone was screaming and cheering, even when people died. And she was point to the screen, "That's my sister!" Then my mom and dad went to a movie theatre to see it, and they were like the only adults there. They said it was like nothing they had ever done before. I never could have gone to see it with my parents, if only because of the sex parts. But at least I bring my family new experiences!

  TED WHITE:

  We were about two days from being finished on the show, and the producers called me into the office and said, "Ted, how would you like to have your name listed in the credits?" I said, "I don't want my name on it. Just put Jason as 'Jason.'" Well, Mancuso heard that and started to give me a fit. I said, "Don't say one word to me, you little bastard. It's my name, and if I don't want it on this piece of shit, it's not going to be on it." And from that day to this, he's never spoken to me. And I've seen him several times since.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  I like Ted. I certainly don't have any hard feelings toward him. To be honest, whoever is playing Jason—it isn't like Tom Cruise. If they take their name off a movie, it doesn't mean anything to anyone, except maybe Ted. Maybe it was his statement about whatever he was never comfortable with about the role. But the movie turned out well and that's all that matters.

  TOM SAVINI:

  The last day of filming The Final Chapter was the opening scene, where the police arrive and Jason's body is lying there. There was a moment after we finished the final shot, where Joe Zito said, "Jason's gone. He's dead." Then, after a long pause. Frank Mancuso said, "Yeah—it feels kinda odd to know he's really gone. Jason is dead, and Mrs. Voorhees is dead, and we've seen the last Friday the 13th." And I think, at the time, they really did believe it.

  ERICH ANDERSON:

  Whenever people ask me which Friday the 13th I was in, and I say The Final Chapter, they all howl.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  Out of all the Friday the 13th films, I like The Final Chapter the best. I felt comfortable, creatively, with it as the end of the series. I really thought it was going to be the last. But because of the film's success, it did go on, and that was the motivation of Paramount. That's when I stepped back, as far as being involved with the series as intimately. And after that, for me personally it was never quite the same again.

  JOSEPH ZITO:

  Today, the Friday the 13th pictures are watched alone or with a few friends on video, but a really interesting thing happens inside a movie theater with a thousand people—you can feel the collective audience identification shifting. It's almost like a horror film taking place inside the audience where they are identifying with a character, but if the character then turns them off in some way, they slide and start identifying with Jason. He becomes a hero and a villain. That really is the art of constructing one of these things. And it's not happening by accident. Part of the job of directing such a movie is figuring out how to get the audience into a space where they experience it in a way that's fun and entertaining and not black, dark and depressing experience. I think that is probably the one point that was missed the most by critics of these films. You have to have a sense of humor about reviews. It's only important that the movie work for the person prepared to buy a ticket to go see it. It's not important that it works for somebody who never in a million years would find themselves in that movie theater if they weren't paid to write about it.

  What also happens with a film like Friday the 13th, which has been so sequelized, is that the stakes keep changing. The audience is going in with a certain psychological mindset, and if you want to make this latest entry engaging or surprising in any way at all, you still have to also somehow respect that dynamic and expectation. Anyone who makes a film like this has to be aware that that is going to happen, and try to manipulate that so that it works for you.

  I remember going to the Lone State Theatre in New York, which back then had like a thousand seats. It's a strange experience for a director. You stand in the back of a theater and you see a thousand people making a lot of noise. And at the end, they all rise to their feet, dancing around in the aisles as Corey is killing this guy. It's like a rock concert. And they're all silhouetted against a white screen. That image burns into your brain, seeing them there with their hands in the air, cheering the death of Jason. If anything, The Final Chapter taught me the power that a single movie image can have.

  5. Repetition

  It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment when a series of motion pictures becomes more than the sum of its parts. For Friday the 13th, that moment may have been when its popularity insisted that it outlast its own self-generated demise. Few modern movie franchises can commit suicide and live to tell the tale, and no one, not even the most diehard fans of the series, expected another sequel after The Final Chapter. And had there never been another Friday the 13th, it would have been a perfectly respectable end, both creatively and commercially, to a storyline that detractors complained was already so thin that it could hardly support one movie, let alone a series of them. Jason was dead and gone, and there seemed few potential avenues left to explore that could legitimately sustain a long-term, aesthetically valid franchise. Of course, the prospect of wringing a few more bucks from one of their least expensive—and, dollar for dollar, most profitable—investments was difficult for Paramount to ignore. The surprise this time, however, was that the critics were not alone in having had their fill of all things Jason. Frank Mancuso, Jr. had surmised that the public's appe
tite for Friday the 13th had been sufficiently satiated by The Final Chapter, and the young producer was eager to at last graduate from the series that launched his career to bigger and better opportunities.

  For the second time in the series' history, Friday the 13th was creatively rudderless, a ship without a captain. But once again the uncredited—yet always omnipresent—specter of Phil Scuderi would save the day. Just as Scuderi had stepped in to shape Part 2 after the departure of Sean Cunningham, so too would he serve as the surrogate stepfather to the inevitable Part V—aptly (and some would argue nauseatingly) subtitled A New Beginning—while a reluctant Frank Mancuso, Jr. opted to take a more hands-off role as an executive producer. Scuderi would both select a new director, one considerably removed from the sensibilities of mainstream Hollywood, and a new script that dared to do the unthinkable: it didn't bring back Jason. One of the most controversial chapters in the history of Friday the 13th was about to unfold.

  FRANK MANCUSO, SR., Chairman & CEO, Paramount Pictures:

  It was our sincere intent for The Final Chapter to be the last film in the series. And then, of course, it had this huge opening success, and we had to rethink it all. This was a bottom line-based reality. Quite simply, the public still wanted to see these films. So until they really stopped coming, why not continue to make more? And sure enough, they're still coming to see them today. And how many years has it been? 25?

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR., Executive Producer:

  I was done on The Final Chapter. I really was. Because I probably took the hardest hit. I can't speak for anyone connected with the first movie, but my feeling was that after Part 2, if somebody had issues with Friday the 13th, more often than not it would be my name they used. And even though you have supporters telling you, "Fuck those guys!" it ain't their name in the paper. They're not the face being associated with all of this.

  However, I had this peculiar situation because my father was at Paramount, and Phil Scuderi and the guys from Boston only knew me and really only wanted to deal with me. So I said, "Let me be the point person for what I would call larger-scale decisions. I'm not going to micromanage this thing. I'm not going to be on set every day. However, I'll make sure the movie comes in when it's supposed to, and for the right amount." That became my approach. I would call it more of an executive producer's series of functions for Part V, VI, VII and VIII. I would meet with people, talk to Phil about directors, and approve the cast and the storyline and some of the more significant effects. And then I sort of gazed at it from afar. I certainly wasn't involved with any particular level of intimacy, other than when I really wanted to be.

  TIM SILVER, Producer:

  I had been working on some Afterschool Specials for the ABC network, and one of the producers, Ken Wiederhorn, had directed something called Meatballs 2, which was overseen by Frank Mancuso, Sr. It was Ken who invited me to meet Frank Jr. about Part V. I'm not even sure if I'd seen any of the Friday movies, but I knew of the series.

  I was originally hired as production manager. It was only once the film was pretty much put together, maybe a couple weeks before we started shooting, that Frank Jr. got the opportunity to produce The Two Jakes, with Robert Towne directing. So he called me into his office and asked me if I wanted to produce Part V. I said, "Sure. How much more are you going to pay me?" And Frank says, "Nothing." But it was still a good deal so I said yes.

  By the time I came onboard Part V, it was pretty clear, in talking to Frank and watching him work, that he needed to break free of Friday the 13th. I barely see myself as the producer of the picture. From a creative standpoint, Frank really controlled the film and is largely responsible for the success of the series. The supervision of the script, the casting, the shooting… as purely a businessman who is responsible for seeing the Friday the 13th success continued, Frank was able to do it in the bat of an eye.

  JOSEPH ZITO, Director, The Final Chapter:

  I had a lot of license on The Final Chapter because it was my impression that there was never going to be another Friday the 13th. And that was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it was gonna be known as the last one, and I had an obligation to the fans to not disappoint them with a cheat of an ending. But on the other hand, I thought if I could leave it open somehow, maybe Paramount would change its mind and make some more.

  I didn't have this conversation with the studio, but the idea was to have Tommy Jarvis give that off-kilter look at the end, so that maybe that could help create a Part V, VI and VII. I thought—naively, I might add—"Well, if they get another sequel they're really going to win big, and maybe they'll ask me to do more films, or it will be good for my career." And what did the studio say? Basically, "Thanks." No more than that. Still, keeping it open-ended was great. It worked out, didn't it? So it's fine.

  Director Danny Steinmann (left) coaches child actor Shavar Ross on the set of Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. Steinmann would come to be known for his intensity on set.

  BARNEY COHEN, Screenwriter, The Final Chapter:

  It was obvious, once Frank Mancuso, Sr. saw the dailies of what Joe Zito was doing, that Frank didn't want it to be The Final Chapter. We always assumed that the Tommy character would be the next Jason. What was strange, though, is that in Part V, they didn't take it all the way. Joe and I weren't talking to anybody at the studio by that time anyway, but we just assumed it really would be Tommy as the killer.

  TIM SILVER:

  Martin Kitrosser had written a draft of what would become the basis for Part V before Danny Steinmann arrived, one that had originated back for one of the other sequels, I think it was Part 3. The screenplay had come to Frank from our partners on the East Coast, and it wasn't going to work for various reasons. Many things in the script would not have made it onto the screen for release—the violence, for one, tended to be of a nature that would have likely gotten an X rating. So Danny hired a writer friend of his, the late David Cohen, and they rewrote the entire thing.

  DANNY STEINMANN, Director & Co-Screenwriter:

  I wrote and directed a movie called The Unseen. I didn't get to do a cut of the movie because they wanted to get it out right away, so I took my name off of it. What was released was a bastardized version of my film—it wasn't my vision at all. Then I ended up doing Savage Streets, a teen street gang picture with Linda Blair. We ran into budget problems about three weeks into shooting, and the producers had to raise more money to keep the movie going. They ultimately had to show some early cut footage to entice potential investors, which is how I met Phil Scuderi and Steve Minasian. They ended up passing on Savage Streets, but said I should call them as soon as I was done working on the film. They told me to come up to Boston and meet with them. There, they offered me a two-picture deal: the next Friday the 13th, and what would have been a sequel to The Last House on the Left.

  I had only seen the first Friday the 13th at that point, but I accepted their offer immediately. I was given almost total creative freedom. The only things I had to do had come from Scuderi. I had to deliver a shock, scare or kill every seven or eight minutes—preferably a kill. Most importantly, I was to turn Tommy into Jason. And that was not a suggestion—it was an order.

  FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:

  Part of the difficulty of any particular series of films, especially something like Friday the 13th, is that you cannot realistically progress the plot. You can't take it into a different realm. Otherwise, you're flying in the face of what the people want. The reason The Final Chapter was the end of it for me was because if I was to stay intimately involved, they would have had to radically change the formula—I was getting bored to tears.

  The way Phil worked is that he'd say, "Oh, this guy's a good guy—let him do this next time." That's how I got my shot. Martin Kitrosser was the script supervisor on the first one, a good script supervisor, and he made a couple changes to the scripts that we liked, so he eventually wrote the third one with his wife, Carol Watson. So Martin was somebody who Scuderi knew and talked to and ex
changed ideas with about Part V. And at that point, I was more of a custodian than anything else. I just wanted to make sure the films got done, that Paramount got what they wanted out of the movie. I thought, quite frankly, that it was time for other people to bring their passion to it, because I felt like I was getting totally stale on new ideas and other ways to invigorate the series. Phil was passionate about Martin's concept for Part V, so it would not be reasonable for me, now that I decided to take a backseat aside from a few suggestions here and there, to then start vetoing everybody's script ideas. If everybody involved really felt like this could work, then great.

  While few would likely call A New Beginning a character study, it does make a sincere attempt to explore the mind and madness of Tommy Jarvis. The Friday the 13th films have always centered around a single protagonist, usually a female, but Part V made a considerable departure from the established formula by making its lead character a male. As the story begins, five years have passed since the events of The Final Chapter, with Tommy no longer a child but a young man. Due to the age and unavailability of Corey Feldman, who had quickly become one of the most in-demand child performers of the 1980s, a new actor was needed to take on the role. The script also relocated Tommy to a half-way house—in the woods, of course—populated by at-risk teens with "emotional problems" ranging from unexplained speech impediments to undiagnosed nymphomania to mental retardation to an unhealthy fixation on chocolate bars. This required a new batch of young actors to portray, if no less a diverse ensemble of modern teenagers, then certainly a quirkier one. Part V also introduced a much more colorful array of adult characters than had been seen in previous Fridays—cops, caretakers and bona fide crazies who would populate the fictional community surrounding Pinehurst Sanitarium. Because in this installment, the ancillary characters would function not only as potential victims, but as suspects—with one of them ultimately being revealed as the "new Jason." Borrowing a cue from the original Friday the 13th, the identity of Part V's evildoer was—until the final reel—to remain a mystery.