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

by Peter M. Bracke

  When we were about to shoot, Renny Harlin says, "You know what would be good? Let's put live worms all over you." I said, "Sure. But hey, Renny, when I'm supposed to come up out of the ground and scream, let's have those worms coming out of my mouth." So I put a bunch of nightcrawlers in there, which was no big deal to me. And Buechler was like, "Wow, that's who I want to play Jason. Someone who has a real passion. Who will just go for it, and who understands and enjoys the process."

  CJ GRAHAM, "Jason Voorhees," Part VI:

  To be quite honest, I always speculated it would be cheaper to just hire a new guy every time to play Jason, because otherwise you end up in a Freddy Krueger situation, where the actor would be able to demand $250,000. So it is cheaper, but is it beneficial? I don't know.

  When I originally did Part VI, it was not my intent to be an actor or a stuntman. Then once I got into it, I thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool to be the Boris Karloff of the '80s?" Because I am a big boy—I'm bigger than Schwarzenegger—I'm too big to be a leading man. So the best thing I could do would be to capitalize off that bad boy thing and be the big monster character. That could have been a stepping stone to get my name within the market—every time you need that menacing character that wears prosthetics and has to be bad guy, who would you call? CJ.

  If I had a shot to do Part VII and VIII, I would have probably stayed in L.A. and pursued a career there. But I understood that there was some type of relationship between Kane Hodder and the director of Part VII. And I've met Kane. He's a great guy, and he's done a great job. He's gone on to make Jason his own.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  When I first mentioned Kane to Frank Mancuso, Frank said, "He's not big enough." And I said, "He's a great stuntman and he moves well and he's a good actor." Frank always took convincing. And my feeling was that I intended to do a pretty intensive makeup effect all over his body, and if the actor had too much bulk it wouldn't work. I didn't want 250 pounds of hamburger. So we did, for the first time ever in any Friday the 13th movie, a screen test for Jason. I put a skull cap on Kane, and a bulked-out thing with some skeletal elements coming through. And Frank saw it and said, "I see what you mean. Go for it."

  KANE HODDER:

  During my screen test I had to stalk around, walk, and look. I also brought a good friend of mine with me, Alan Marcus, who is another stunt guy. I beat the shit out of him—I literally dragged him across the floor by his hair. Then at the end, I walked over to where the producers were sitting, glared at them, threw the table up against the wall with one hand and just tossed it away. That probably helped to convince them.

  I don't think there was anything that CJ had done wrong. If they ultimately went with me it was because John Buechler was pushing for me. I always thought Jason was a great character but that they didn't really do enough with him. I don't think of Jason too much in terms of character or deep motivations—I assumed that he'd be pretty instinctive and that there wouldn't be too many thought processes going on before a kill. Some of the previous guys, their problem was thinking about it too much.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  People have said that Jason is little more than a moron who doesn't realize that he's dead. And maybe that's true. He's so stupid, he doesn't know he can't die. Kane gave Jason a personality at last. The previous Jasons, to me, just seemed to be there, with no real agenda. They were almost like Michael Myers, in that he's sort of disinterested in what he's doing. He just does it mindlessly. Even in the audition, there was more rage to Kane's portrayal. There was intention. He's like a Harryhausen figure—he's got that internal drama going on. And that isn't automatic. Kane deliberates and figures that out and makes it a moment. Even under all the makeup, Kane could emote. Which I think gave Part VII an edge that the other Friday movies didn't have.

  Once again, in order to avoid the watchful eye of the local unions, the Friday the 13th machine would journey south, this time setting up camp in Mobile, Alabama and its surrounding environs. Production of The New Blood would become a thoroughly riotous affair, enlivened by all-night partying, a gun-toting crocodile wrangler, run-ins with local racists, copious quantities of controlled substances and plenty of covert "male bonding." And once again, filming the required over-the-top death scenes in punishing conditions left many a cast member mentally and physically exhausted. But unlike the familial relationships that developed on the set of Jason Lives and other Fridays past, the cast and crew of The New Blood found it challenging to create a harmonious working environment. Script deletions and character alterations also left many scenes and subplots on the cutting room floor, leaving some in the cast and crew disappointed with the final product.

  Right: "I still get people writing me and asking, 'Dude! Did you write the sleeping bag death? That's my favorite!'" laughs screenwriter Daryl Haney. The audience-pleasing moment has been cited as "Greatest Kill" on many Friday the 13th and horror-related websites. Its conception came to Haney from a childhood memory. "I used to shove my brother into a sleeping bag when I was a kid. Maybe that's why fans like it so much—they can relate to it!"

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  Part VII was probably the quickest studio movie ever made. I got the gig in November and it was in theaters in May. That is a heck of an undertaking in that amount of time. I was in a blind panic to get the movie out. There were six weeks of principal photography, and we did all the live action and special effects simultaneously, shooting with one unit and an additional camera. The plan was to shoot all the interiors first, because we could do those quicker. And everything, all the sets, needed to be built because of the telekinetic scenes. None of that was practical. So that was all done in a warehouse in downtown L.A. Then the production moved to Alabama for logistical reasons—we were hiding, because it was a non-union film being made by Paramount. Plus we were shooting in the middle of winter and we had to have naked kids in a lake, and blow up a house on a lakefront. We ended up shooting about three weeks in L.A., then another two weeks or so on location in Bay Monette, Alabama.

  For me, The New Blood was three separate movies. The first act was Firestarter. The second act was the standard stalk-and-slash Jason movie. The third act was "Terminator vs. Carrie." I think, stylistically and visually, that shows. We opted for more of a soft, white look rather than the harsh look that most of the movies had. That made the women prettier and the effects more forgiving—the whole thing just had kind of a mystical quality. I wanted Swamp Thing. Less gritty reality, because it's fantasy—it's a monster movie more than a slasher movie.

  DARYL HANEY:

  John had this idea about going and shooting someplace in the south, so he went away and did this big location hunt. I saw the tapes he brought back, and I remember the one from Alabama, where he was showing the Spanish moss and everything hanging from the trees. And I thought that was really dopey, because it's a dead giveaway we're not in Connecticut or wherever the movies are supposed to be set. But, of course, when did consistency ever matter with these things?

  BILL BUTLER:

  The area was pretty wild, untamed. We shot on the outskirts of this town where there were literally alligators roaming around and a guy on set every day with a shotgun. We called him the "gator man." His job was to stand by the camera, and if he saw an alligator or crocodile attack, to shoot them.

  LAR PARK LINCOLN:

  He was like 80 years old and moved very slow. I don't know if any alligators were really there or not half the time, but it was pitch black at night and you could hear this rustling in the water. Then they'd call "Action!" and you were supposed to run in and out like it was no problem…

  HEIDI KOZAK:

  It was the South so there were some weird vibes. I was with Craig Thomas and Diane Alameida at the local bowling alley, and the people there—they made some kind of comment about them being black. All of a sudden I remember thinking, "We're not in L.A. anymore."

  LAR PARK LINCOLN:

  I remember we went to a restaurant, and they didn't wan
t to serve Craig with us. That was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that. It was very, very upsetting.

  MICHAEL SHEEHY:

  I visited the set once, and I remember being struck by how laid-back John Carl Buechler was. For a horror film with all these young actors and scary situations, I expected a very intense energy. Instead, John is sitting in his director's chair with his shoes off. He spent a lot of time sitting and overseeing, as opposed to pacing around and yelling like a lot of other directors might be when working with young actors.

  Although, I have always thought the Friday movies worked because you establish Jason, you establish the victim, and then really milk the moment for maximum tension before the kill. So I was somewhat disappointed in the way John handled the victims in Part VII, because Jason would just appear and kill them almost on the spot. I felt the movie might have suffered a bit because of that immediacy. But I guess when you have that many people dying, you can't spend 10 minutes with each one of them.

  DARYL HANEY:

  I'm embarrassed now about how the characters were all such stereotypes. One would be kind of nerdy, one would be bitchy, one would be the jock—whatever. That's as good as you can make a film like that under the circumstances. You've only got a minute to establish who they are and then they get killed. Searching around for names for these kids, I'd name them after kids and friends I knew. I don't know how I eventually came up with the name for Tina, which was a big deal at the time. All I knew is that we couldn't name her Carrie. And one of the things I really wanted to add to the cast was a little bit of diversity. I wanted to have some "black" faces onscreen, because in the past Fridays it was so fucking lily-white up there.

  For the record, I also didn't write many of those fucking lines in the movie, like that horrible thing where the kid goes, "personal penis enlarger" and "I've got a date with a soap on a rope." I died a million deaths when I heard that, because people are going to think I wrote something so stupid. It was horrifying.

  Bill Butler's photo album.

  JEFF BENNETT:

  I ad-libbed a line in the audition that wasn't in the script. I said, "I've got a date with a soap on a rope." And I swear that's why, the next day, I got a call that I'd been cast. And they even kept that line in the movie!

  HEIDI KOZAK:

  When I went to audition for Part VII they were looking for actresses who could bring these characters to life. But I was a little disappointed in who my character eventually became in the final script. I was supposed to be a swimmer on the swim team, and originally she was more developed. And the last script we got, it just didn't seem as developed as it was before. Even with some of the other horror movies I did, like Slumber Party Massacre II, I was able to dig into something, but I felt that with Part VII, that was all written out. It was really hard to get a handle on who this person was or to differentiate her from anybody else. We all did the best we could.

  But I really liked working with John. He was so much an actor's director, and he took such good care of all his kids. He's also not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants director—he really is very detail-orientated and always had a very clear vision about what he wanted and what he saw.

  DIANE ALAMEIDA:

  I remember the first time I saw Kane Hodder in makeup, as the Jason character, in the scene outside the van. And how real it looked. John Carl Buechler, I think his main focus was on the special effects, that they look good. Which was great. That's what was important, for this particular kind of movie.

  The actors, we had the freedom to do what we needed to do. I remember the party scene, where we are all in the kitchen and then I pull Craig Thomas, who played my boyfriend Ben, to the side, and sort of punch him in the gut and say something like, "I love you, squooshy face!" Which is kind of a corny line. But I pulled it off. I just had to think to myself, "Well, he does have a squooshy face!" But Craig and I, we had a good relationship, like he was the next door boy I grew up with. It really easy to act with him, and everyone in the cast. John really did allow for a good camaraderie between us all. I think we were all sort of up and coming, and just glad to be there, and glad to be with each other.

  DIANA BARROWS:

  We shot lots of scenes that didn't make it into the final cut, although that is par for the course in Hollywood. But I was disappointed, because there was a whole sequence developing the relationship between Maddy and David. Maddy even smoked grass for her very first time with him before her death scene—that was so much fun. There were also all these other sequences and little subplots with the characters that never made it.

  SUSAN BLU:

  I thought John was so good at what he did—he really cared about the actors. He really took his time with you to try and develop real characters within this horror movie. We also talked a lot about the telekinesis, how it worked and how to make it realistic, before we'd shoot a scene. It wasn't just about Jason looking as horrific as he could. It wasn't just about the death scenes. It was about a lot of fragile acting between the doctor and myself, and between Lar and myself. There was meat and substance to it.

  JOHN CARL BUECHLER:

  We went against the formula a little bit with Part VII, because Jason isn't the only bad guy. We put in a grown man, the evil Doctor Crews, and wanted him to be vile, a hideous human being. He's a bastard. He's exploiting this girl, her emotions are fragile and on the peak of collapse, and what he does pushes her too far. Otherwise, it would have just been the same old one-dimensional crap. And one-dimensional crap is fine if you do it one time, but if you keep doing it and doing it and doing it, even loyal fans get a little tired of it. That's why Terry Kiser was in the movie. We wanted another kind of monster.

  The actors—Lar was amazing. Susan Blu, she was a voiceover queen at the time and terrific. And Terry Kiser, are you kidding? He is a great actor, that until Part VII he had only been showcased as a comedy guy. But you can only do comedy if you understand tragedy, and actually horror in a way is a lot like comedy—the build up, the anticipation, and the delivery of the punchline. Terry knew that. He can be intense and underplayed at the same time. There were little things he'd do, little improvs, like when Tina is pouring out her heart to him and he'd be absently wiping his eye. That was all him, this amazing shit he'd come up with. He made such a wonderful villain, so much so that when Jason ultimately killed him it was delightful.

  "I wanted the violence in The New Blood to be so outlandish it couldn't possibly happen in real life," sighs director John Carl Buechler. "With the 'ax through the face' gag, we had a geyser of blood that shot out. But the MPAA made us cut out just about the entire effect out of the film."

  LAR PARK LINCOLN:

  I think John wanted Tina's to be a story that stood alone. That you could come in and watch Part VII even not having seen the others, nor have to see anything after. And I was certainly very attracted to my character having her own, separate storyline. I wanted to make Tina and her problems real, instead of comical and stupid. Many actors will draw on very bad things to play a character like this, and to make themselves cry onscreen. But I drew on very happy things—tears of joy instead of sadness. Otherwise, those negative feelings can stay with you over a long shooting period. It also would have made Tina a depressing character, which she definitely was not.

  Directors tend to search for the actress that they have been seeing in their mind, who has that quality they are looking for. So I think sometimes they forget that we're acting, and they fall in love with what you're reading. As an actress, that is what you have trained to do, but that's not who you are. I didn't really realize it a lot at the time, but there was a separation between not only my character and the rest of the cast, but me as a person as well. I thought it was because they were all getting killed and I wasn't. But I stayed within the character the entire shoot. I did not get involved personally with anyone else, because the character was supposed to be 16 or 17 and, of course, I was lying and saying that I was 18 or 19, when I was really 23 or 24. It's just a
lucky thing the camera shoots me very young—it still does. And I had been married five years. I had to be very careful, because neither I, nor my husband, wanted anyone to know that we were married. I knew that if someone had seen me as a married woman who was running businesses they would have never seen me as Tina—mentally tormented, young and left alone.

  HEIDI KOZAK:

  When you have a whole group of 19 to 20-year-olds at some remote location, you can't help but have fun. It was a blast. I think we ended up in Alabama a whole extra week because of the rain, but that was fine with us because we were staying at this great little Marriott hotel. And there was this game going on at the hotel, where you fill up these cards to win stuff, and we were all into that—collecting our tickets. We had dinner together, went bowling and had parties in everybody's rooms. Eventually, people started kind of bonding and going off in their little cliques.

  KEVIN SPIRTAS:

  I am from the world of theatre and tour across the country, so when I am in a new place I like to explore. And to be honest I found Alabama to be pretty boring—I actually drove to the panhandle of Texas a couple of times on my days off. I do remember that while we were on set it was during the winter Olympics, and we would all huddle into each other's hotel rooms and watch the events. That was kind of a bonding thing for us at the time.

  BILL BUTLER:

  You have to understand, this was the 1980s. I can't speak for any of the cast other than myself, but most of the crew were all having fun on a variety of party favors. I was right in the middle of it. I partied my ass off. It was just so fun. Of course I can't party like that anymore, because back then it didn't take me three weeks to recover. That's what I learned most from my Friday the 13th experience. Not to drink six Bloody Marys and do a half a gram of coke in one night. It's true, actually—never mix, never worry.

  JEFF BENNETT:

  Almost everybody on that movie was gay—it was like "Fri-Gay the 13th." Really. And looking back, I could have had a lot more fun on that set. I wasn't willing to look at my sexuality at that time. Back then, it was not something you discussed. In the 1980s, there was like only one gay person on TV, and that was Mr. Furley on Three's Company, and he wasn't even really gay. It took me another two years to finally come out. I did eventually have a thing with Bill Butler. We saw each other a couple of years after the movie, at a party, and it was right after we had both just come out of the closet. And I remember one of the reasons was because I was like, "If Kevin Spirtas is gay, then I am, too!"