With today being Friday the 13th and a full moon here’s a little background on the Indie Film about our boy Jason Voorhees, star of the Camp Crystal Lake swim team.
Produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, Friday the 13th was originally titled, A Long Night at Camp Blood. Which kind of sounds like an R. L. Stine book. Victor B. Miller wrote the screenplay, loving the idea of a movie about a serial killer who ends up being someone’s mother. He was later annoyed with the fact that Jason comes back to life in the subsequent movies; his screenplay didn’t have Jason coming back at all, it just ends with Alice floating in a canoe. (I probably should have had a spoiler warning somewhere but this movie is from 1980 so if you haven’t seen it, sorry I spoiled it for you…).
Filming took place in New Jersey at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, which is a Boy Scout Camp if you couldn’t tell from it’s name. As an independent film with a budget of $550,000, Friday the 13th went on to make about $59.8 million in the box office.
Because of the success of Halloween two years earlier, 1980 was a huge year for horror films. Friday the 13th, The Shining, Dressed To Kill, The Fog, and Prom Night all came out that year. It’s also worth noting that Jamie Lee Curtis was in The Fog and Prom Night. Ultimate scream queen.
The iconic music, was very much influenced from the Jaws score by John Williams. Like the shark in Jaws, Jason isn’t seen until the end of the film and they needed music to make up for the lack of “his” presence. They didn’t have much of a budget so we have the “ki ki ki, ma ma ma” that I always thought was “ch ch ch, ah ah ah.” The score also reminds me of Hitchcock’s Psycho, scored by Bernard Hermann.
We may post mostly about film noir or crime films but we love ourselves some Horror flicks. In fact, the first screenplay John and I ever wrote together was a very Friday the 13th, Scream, Halloween inspired vigilante slasher film called Blood Scout. “You’re dead. Scouts honor.” That and the script to Cannibal Cops are available to any studio executives who may read this article – contact us at [email protected].
Also, it’s worth noting that pulp fiction has its roots in horror. As stated in previous articles, Edgar Allen Poe is considered the originator of the Detective Mystery genre and Sci-Fi and Horror pulp fiction magazines were prominent in the Golden Age of the pulp rags.
