Welcome campers to Camp Crystal Lake, the birthplace of the legend of Jason Voorhees!

After the success of “Halloween” an abundance of holiday themed Horror’s cropped up and the most successful of them was Friday The 13th.

It’s funny how Jason Voorhees is a Horror legend nowadays, but in this film he is merely a tale, a mentally disabled, deformed little boy who drowned in the lake. there’s no hockey mask to be seen and no pounding footsteps in the forest. but there is blood, death and sex. Well it is a slasher film!

After being closed since Jason’s death and the death of camp councilors, Camp Crystal Lake is being renovated and reopened, but it looks like someone isn’t happy about it, someone other than Ralph, the town drunk.

It’s cheesy, it’s campy (no pun intended), it’s a perfect 80’s slasher film. The casting is fantastic, Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer and a very young Kevin Bacon, special effect’s and make up by Tom Savini and the score done by Harry Manfredini, what more could you want?!

This film is seriously overshadowed by its own legend of Jason and it would’ve worked as a stand alone film (which it was supposed to be). the BIG ending was not scripted, It was Tom Savini’s idea and hence the sequels were born.

Miscellaneous facts about the film:

Sally Field auditioned for the role of Alice Hardy.

Steve Christy is named after Steve Miner, Associate Producer for the film.

The film has been spoofed a number of times, most notably in Saturday The 14th

Sean S. Cunningham has been quoted as saying that the type of actors that he sought for the film were “good-looking kids who you might see in a Pepsi commercial.”

Estelle Parsons was originally signed on to play Mrs. Voorhees.

Adrienne King at first did not want to be in the film because of the graphic violence in it, but she changed her mind.

Betsy Palmer said that if it were not for the fact that she was in desperate need of a new car, she would never have taken the part of Pamela Voorhees. In fact, after she read the script she called the film “a piece of shit”.

One critic was so angry at Betsy Palmer’s role in the movie (which had angered many of her fans), that he published her address in his magazine, and encouraged people to write her and protest her. He published the wrong address.

Most of the location and set was already there, they only had to build the bathroom set.

The movie was filmed at Camp Nobebosco in New Jersey. The camp is still in operation to date, and they have a wall of Friday the 13th paraphernalia to honor the fact that the movie was set there.

Tom Savini was one of the first crew members on board for the film because the producers idolized his special makeup effects in Dawn Of The Dead.

The filmmakers never intended to make this the launching pad for the series that followed. According to Victor Miller Jason was only meant as a plot device and not intended to continue on his mother’s grisly work.

Composer Harry Manfredini has said that contrary to popular belief, the famous “chi chi chi, ha ha ha” in the film’s score is actually “ki ki ki, ma ma ma”. It is meant to resemble Jason’s voice saying “kill kill kill, mom mom mom” in Mrs. Voorhees’ mind. It was inspired by the scene in which Mrs. Voorhees seems to be possessed by Jason and chants “Get her mommy….kill her!” Manfredini created the effect by speaking the syllables “Ki” and “Ma” into a microphone running through a delay effect.

The film was made a budget of $550,000.

The scene with the snake was not in the script and was an idea from Tom Savini after an experience in his own cabin during filming. The snake in the scene was real, including its on-screen death.

Victor Miller admitted that he was purposely riding off the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween

Victor Miller’s working title for the script was “Long Night at Camp Blood”.

At one point, Mrs. Voorhess slaps Alice around a few times. Having worked onstage for years, Betsy Palmer was used to really striking her co-stars with a cupped hand along the jawline to achieve the scene. Sean Cunningham had to tell her about faking the blows and cheating with camera angles.

There is a township named “Voorhees”, New Jersey, which is about eight miles away from Haddonfield, New Jersey, which was inspiration for the fictional town where the movie Halloween played. The documentary _Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (2006)_ shows a picture of a road sign which lists “Voorhees” right under “Haddonfield”.  

During the first few weekends of the film’s release, makeup/effects artist Tom Savini would go into theaters for the last five minutes of the show to see the audience react to Jason emerging from the lake and grabbing Alice.

There is rumored to be a deleted scene featuring the murder of Claudette. The crew of the film dismissed this, including Tom Savini, who said he never even worked on the opening scene. There is, however, a still of Claudette with a machete in her throat, although that may have been shot purely for promotional material.
Raz

Written by

Raz

I have an obsession with all things Horror and it's an honour to share my passion with you all!