User:Bignole/Friday the 13th (films)

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Reference: Halloween (film) & Night of the Living Dead

NOTE-To any and all readers of this sandbox, it is rather chaotic and spaced between each reference. I do this for my benefit, as editing a section where the info is all crammed it a little hard. It won't appear that way when I have all the info I plan to use.

Contents 1 Production 1.1 Writing 1.2 Casting 1.3 Filming 1.4 Effects 1.5 Music 2 Release 2.1 Critical reaction 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Production

Friday the 13th was produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, who had previously worked with filmmaker Wes Craven on the film The Last House on the Left (1972). Cunningham, inspired by John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and films by Mario Bava, wanted Friday the 13th to be shocking, visually stunning, and "[make] you jump out of your seat". Wanting to distance himself from The Last House on the Left, which he felt was a "painful, cynically-edged film", Cunningham wanted Friday the 13th to be more of a "roller-coaster ride".^[1] This film was intended to be "a real scary movie" and at the same time make the audience laugh.^[2]

Friday the 13th began its life as nothing more than a title. "Long Night at Camp Blood" was the working title during the writing process, but Cunningham believed in his "Friday the 13th" moniker, and quickly rushed out to place an ad in Variety. Worried that someone else owned the rights to the title and wanting to avoid potential lawsuits, Cunningham thought it would be best to find out immediately. He commissioned a New York advertising agency to develop his concept of the Friday the 13th logo, which consisted of big block letters bursting through a pane of glass.^[2] In the end, Cunningham believed there were "no problems" with the title, but distributor George Mansour stated, "There was a movie before ours called Friday the 13th: The Orphan. Moderately successful. But someone still threatened to sue. I don't know whether Phil [Scuderi] paid them off, but it was finally resolved."^[3]

Cunningham surrounded himself with friends when the time came to hire a production crew. Most of them had worked on his previous projects, mostly Here Come the Tigers and Manny's Orphans. Cunningham already had Victor Miller working on the script. After the script was finished, and he had full financial support, Cunningham set out to find the rest of his crew. One of the more important hirings, since Cunningham knew that Friday was going to be "very gory", was going to be that of special makeup effects expert, Tom Savini.^[4]

As casting was underway, Cunningham and Miner decided to scout locations for their fabled "Crystal Lake". Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco eventually opened their doors to the film makers.^[5]

Production was sceduled to begin in mid-September, and last for approximately 30 days, giving the production team an ideal window for making their movie, as the camp only operates from June to August.^[5]

For the most part, the camp did not require any additional applications. Miner recalls the camp site being "almost ready-made for the film".^[5]

[edit] Writing

The script was written by Victor Miller, who has gone on to write for several television soap operas, including Guiding Light, One Life to Live, and All My Children. Miller had written Cunningham's previous directorial efforts, Here Come the Tigers and Manny's Orphans, the former under the pseudonym Arch McCoy.^[6]

The script was written by Victor Miller, who has gone on to write for several television soap operas, including Guiding Light, One Life to Live, and All My Children. Miller delighted in inventing a serial killer who turned out to be somebody's mother, a murderer whose only motivation was her love for her child. "...I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Voorhees was the mother I'd always wanted - a mother who would have killed for her kids." Miller was unhappy about the filmmakers' decision to make Jason Voorhees the killer in the sequels. "Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain."^[7] Subsequently, a homage to Mrs. Voorhees was present in the horror sequel Scream 2 (1998) as a boy's mother ended up being the killer. The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was initially not used in the original script, and was actually suggested by makeup designer Tom Savini. Savini stated that "The whole reason for the cliffhanger at the end was I had just seen Carrie, so we thought that we need a 'chair jumper' like that and I said, 'let's bring in Jason.'"^[8]

Miller, after learning of the success of Halloween from Cunningham, went to the cinema to watch the movie. He returned several times to study the genre itself and the techniques Carpenter used.^[9]

Cunningham's initial outline involved teenagers who were in an isolated setting that had not been used before.^[9]

He knew from the start that Friday the 13th was going to be very gory.^[9]

After the repeated viewings of Halloween, Cunningham and Miller decided that there needed to be a set of rules, most importantly that they needed their isolated location. It was Miller's idea to use a summer camp, more specifically a summer camp that was about to open so that there wouldn't be a worry about all the kids that normally attend camp during the summer.^[9]

It was decided that the camp would need some sort of curse, or a past event that haunts the present. This even would eventually become the drowning of young Jason Voorhees. The kids would need to be alone, with no one to help them, and if any of them had sex then they had to die. Miller explained, "sex equals death."^[9]

Within a couple of weeks, Miller had completed his first draft. Cunningham liked Miller's script, but felt it could use some dialogue adjustments. Minasian and Scuderi, the film's financial backers, hated the script. Ron Kurz, the film's uncredited writer, explained, "Phil [Scuderi] told me that he was approached by a man named Sean Cunningham, all Sean had to offer was a great-sounding title and a tepid script by Victor Miller."^[9]

Kurz would add humour to the script, which he describes as his "forté". After Kurz was finished, and Scuderi was happy with the result, Cunningham was granted an estimated $550,000 to shoot the film.^[9]

That wasn't the only changes to Miller's script. As soon as Tom Savini arrived, he and Cunningham agreed that the ending needed something extra.^[9]

The idea of Jason appearing at the end of the film was not in the original script, nor was the concept of Jason being deformed. According to Victor Miller, Jason was never a deformed "creature from the "Black Lagoon", but, it is Miller's belief that the ending would have suffered if Jason was "a cute blonde kid who looked like Betsy Palmer at 8 years old." ^[10]

Ron Kurz confirms that Miller's version of Jason was that of a normal child, but claims that it was his idea to turn Jason into a "mongoloid creature", and have him jump out at the end of the film.^[9]

By the beginning of filming, Kurz suggests that out of the 97 pages of script, 45 of them were either completely new scenes, or revised scenes that he wrote. But because he was not a full member of the Writer's Guild, Miller received full credit for the screenplay.^[11]

The relationship between Alice and Steve Christy was originally going to be more defined. Alice was scripted to be having an affair with a married man back on the west coast, which was the reason—unprovided in the finished film—she was planning to leave the camp. This was the cause for the deteorating relationship betwen her and Steve, whom she was also romantically involved with.^[12]

Miller wrote a slightly different ending to the film, before Jason was ever introduced. In Miller's original script, Alice climbs into a canoe after fighting Mrs. Voorhees, just like in the finished film. Alice drifts for hours before Mrs. Voorhees attacks her again, in the canoe. Alice then decapitates Mrs. Voorhees in the water, whereas in the finished film this all took place before Alice ever got into the canoe. Alice is found by a couple of state troopers, who spot her as she walks onto the road. At this point Miller’s script ended with a shot of the lake before fading out.^[13] That ending was not used, in favor of bringing a character into the film who would become the franchise's most recognizable character – Mrs. Voorhees's son, Jason. Initially created by Victor Miller, Jason's final design was a combined effort by Miller, Ron Kurz, and Tom Savini.^[13] Miller initially wrote Jason as a normal looking child, but the crew behind the film decided he needed to be deformed. Victor Miller explained Jason wasn't meant to be a creature from the "Black Lagoon" in his script, and scripted Jason as a mentally disabled young boy; it was Savini who would make Jason deformed during filming.^[14] Ron Kurz confirmed that Miller's version of Jason was that of a normal child, but claims that it was his idea to turn Jason into a "mongoloid creature", and have him "jump out of the lake at the end of the film".^[13] Miller later agreed the ending would not have been as good if he looked like "Betsy Palmer at eight years old".^[10]

[edit] Casting

For casing, a New York-based firm was hired to find 8 young actors to play the camp's staff members. The firm was headed by Julie Hughes and Barry Moss.^[15]

Cunningham admits that he wasn't looking for "great actors", but anyone that was likable, and appeared to be a responsible camp counselor. Also, the actors would need to look good, read the dialogue somewhat well, and work cheap.^[15]

Moss and Hughes were happy to find 4 actors, Kevin Bacon, Laurie Bartram, Peter Brouwer, and Adrienne King, who had previously appeared on soap operas.^[15]

King was cast in the role of lead heroine Alice, and Bartram was hired to play Brenda. Kevin Bacon, Mark Nelson and Jeannine Taylor, who had previously known each other, were cast as Jack, Ned, and Marcie respectively.^[15]

It's Bacon and Nelson's contention that it was the fact that the three already knew each other that gave them the specific chemistry the casting director was looking for.^[15]

The part of Bill was handed over to Harry Crosby, son of Bing Crosby. Robbie Morgan, who played Annie, wasn't even auditioning for a role in the film. While in her office, Hughes just looked a Morgan and proclaimed "you're a camp counselor." The next day Morgon was on the set.^[15]

It was Peter Brouwer's girlfriend that helped him land a role on Friday the 13th. After recently being written off the show Love of Life, Brouwer moved back to Connecticut to look for work. Learning that his girlfriend was working as an AD for Friday, Brouwer asked about any openings. Initially told casting was looking for big stars to fill the role of Steve Christy, it wasn't until Sean Cunningham dropped by to deliver a message to Brouwer's girlfriend, and saw him working in a garden, that he was hired.^[15]

Estelle Parsons was initially asked to portray the film's killer, Mrs. Voorhees, but eventually declined. Her agent cited that the film was too violent, and didn't know what kind of actress would play such a part.^[15]

Hughes and Moss sent a copy of the script to Betsy Palmer, in hopes that she would accept the part. Palmer couldn't understand why someone would want her for a part in a horror film, as she had previously starred in films such as Mister Roberts, The Angry Man, and The Tin Star.^[15]

Palmer only agreed to play the role because she needed to buy a new car, even when she believed the film to "be a piece of shit."^[15]

Ari Lehman, who had previously auditioned for Cunningham's Manny's Orphans, failing to get the part, was determined to land the role of Jason Voorhees. According to Lehman, he went in very intense, to which Cunningham just stated he was perfect for the part.^[15]

Robbi Morgan only appeared on-set for a day to shoot all her scenes. Rex Everhart (Enos) did not film the truck scenes with Morgan, so she had to act with an imaginary Enos, or exchange dialogue with Taso Stavrakis—Savini's assistant—who would sit in the truck with her.^[16]

Stavrakis subbed for Betsy Palmer as well, which involved Morgan's character being chased through the woods by Mrs. Voorhees, although you only see a pair of legs running after Morgan. Palmer had just arrived into town when those scenes were about to be filmed, and was not in the physical shape necessary to chase Morgan around the woods. Morgan's training as an acrobat assisted her in these scenes, as her character was required to leap out of a moving jeep when she discovers that Mrs. Voorhees does not intend to take her to the camp.^[16]

Ned used humor to hide his insecurities, especially around Brenda, whom Mark Nelson believes Ned was attracted to. Nelson recalls an early draft of the script stating that Ned suffered from polio, and his legs were deformed while his upper body was muscular.^[17]

Officer Dorf is characterized in the script as "slightly demented". Ron Milkie, who portrayed the motorcycle cop, attempted to make the character "so serious that he's hilarious".^[17]

Crazy Ralph is the town soothsayer, who is considered crazy by the town, but is in fact more sane in some ways than anyone else. He is meant to add humor and irony to the film.^[17]

Various crew members leant their hands and feet to the camera in order to have shots from the killer's point of view. Crew members ranging from Stavrakis, to Miller, and even Ari Lehman.^[17]

Nelson's character, Ned, is believed to have given birth to the "practical joker victim" of horror films. There was no equivalent character in John Carpenter's Halloween, or Black Christmas before that. He served as a model for the slasher films that would follow Friday the 13th.^[18]

"Being an actress who uses the Stanislavsky method, I always try to find details about my character. With Pamela […] I began with a class ring that I remember reading in the script that she'd worn. Starting with that, I traced Pamela back to my own high school days in the early 1940s. So it's 1944, a very conservative time, and Pamela has a steady boyfriend. They have sex—which is very bad of course—and Pamela soon gets pregnant with Jason. The father takes off and when Pamela tells her parents, they disown her because having […] babies out of wedlock isn't something that good girls do. I think she took Jason and raised him the best she could, but he turned out to be a very strange boy. [She took] lots of odd jobs and one of those jobs was as a cook at a summer camp. Then Jason drowns and her whole world collapses. What were the counselors doing instead of watching Jason? They were having sex, which is the way that she got into trouble. From that point on, Pamela became very psychotic and puritanical in her attitudes as she was determined to kill all of the immoral camp counselors." — Betsy Palmer on Mrs. Voorhees's backstory.^[19]

Cunningham wanted to make the Mrs. Voorhees character "terrifying", and to that he believed it was important that Palmer not act "over the top", which had become commonplace since Jack Nicholson's turn as Jack Torrance in The Shining. There was also the fear that Palmer's past credits would make it difficult to believe she could be scary.^[20]

[edit] Filming

One of the few things that Cunningham used from The Last House on the Left was to give Friday the 13th a "primitive look and feel." His reasoning behind this was because he knew he would have very little money for the film.^[2] Cunningham wanted to make Friday a "real viewing experience", while at the same time make it entertaining to watch, unlike his work on Last House on the Left.^[2]

Palmer tried to write out some of her own notes about who she thought Mrs. Voorhees was.^[15]

Cunningham decided to shoot all the day scenes first. This created a challenge; by the time they were ready to shoot the opening scenes for the film, which take place at night, the cold weather had set in and the production generator had died. With no money in the budget to make the adequate adjustments to get the scenes they wanted, the crew was forced to alter the opening sequence. The original opening began in a baseball field, with Barry and Claudette arguing over Barry's involvement with another girl. When the couple move to the lake they are confronted by "The Prowler", where they are chased around the camp before being killed.^[21]

Cinematographer Barry Adams wanted the film to look like a documentary, so he used "practical lighting in the film – from any source [they] could find}, and flashes of the negative to accentuate the shadows and atmosphere.^[22]

To assist the cast while they traversed the woods, Cunningham strategically placed as many as 20 crew members in various spots throughout the woods to give the cast directions on where to turn, so that they would not get lost. This was done for Robbie Morgan, as she ran from the killer, as well as Laurie Bartram, who had to walk through the woods at night.^[23]

In order to keep the audience guessing "when and how" a character was going to be killed, Cunningham would draw out the death scenes, waiting till the last moment to kill the characters. He wanted to create a sense of anxiety in the audience with this technique.^[24]

It took three months just to shoot the final scare of the film, where Jason leaps from the lake and attacks Alice. Initially, the scene was shot during main shooting in September, but addutional shoots had to take place in October and November to complete the final scene. The majority was shot on-location at the Blairstone set, but close-ups were shot in Connecticut near Cunningham's home.^[25]

[edit] Effects

Enjoying the recent success of Dawn of the Dead and Martin, Tom Savini, and his assistant Taso Stavrakis, were hired to do the effects for Friday the 13th with a budget just under $20,000.^[6]

On the night Cunningham was ready to shoot Barry and Claudette's deaths, Savini had not yet arrive. With Savini absent, the script had to be altered to tailor to what the crew could accomplish on their own. Originally, the audience was supposed to see Claudette get hit in the neck with a machete and fall down to the floor with her screaming face frozen in the camera frame. Since Savini had not arrived to apply the machete to Debra Hayes's (Claudette) neck, Cunningham chose to freeze the frame just before Claudette is killed.^[21]

The scene where Bill kills a black snake in one of the cabins was inspired from an experience by Tom Savini. After finding a snake in one of the cabins, Savini decided it would be a good idea to include a scene where a snake is killed.^[26]

Jack's death was not specifically detailed in Victor Miller's script, so it was Steve Miner and Tom Savini that developed the elaborate scene. Miner storyboarded the entire scene, which involved an arrow head pushing its way through Jack's neck, with blood squirting out all the while. Savini started by making a cast of Bacon's neck. The pre-cast neck was made from John Maldonado during the filming of Martin, where a similar scene had been shot. There were at least four people, at any given time, underneath the bed while they filmed Jack's death. Most of the time Bacon, Savini, Stavrakis and the still photographer (Feury) where hidden beneath the bed. Savini and Stavrakis worked the arrow and blood tubes while underneath. Feury was originally only hired to take photographs before and after they filmed scenes for the movie. When Cunningham and Miner realized they needed an extra hand to hold Bacon's head, Feury was elected. The effect did not go as planned while filming the scene, and since it had to be done in one take Stavrakis had to improvise to save the shot. When the moment came for the blood to shoot through Bacon's prosthetic neck, the pump that controlled the blood came loose. Stavrakis quickly grabbed the tube and blew as hard as he could; the result was what Stavrakis calls a "serendipitous arterial spray spurt".^[27]

Savini took a full cast of Jeannine Taylor's face for the scene where her character, Marcie, has an axe swung into her face. The intent of the shot was to show the axe cutting down the side of her face, in full detail. The mould of Taylor's face was not holding together well for the scene—the axe would just slide off the mold—so the team had to resort to a cut-away shot and apply a fake axe to Taylor's face.^[27]

Bill's death was the one death most detailed in the script, which was described as similar to the "martyrdom of St. Sebastian" – St. Sebastion was killed by a multitude of arrows puncturing his body. The scene for Bill's death called for Alice to discover Bill's body pinned by arrows to the door of the generator's cabin. Savini and Stavrakis first built a small ledge onto the cabin door, so Crosby would have something to stand on to give the appearance that he was hanging above the ground. They then applied the fake arrows and make-up to Crosby's face. Unfortunately, the applications used a liquid called "Photoflo"—designed for processing photographs—to thing the fake blood that would be applied to Crosby's face. The chemical was placed over Crosby's eyes, acting like a mask, but when it was removed and the oxygen outside met Crosby's eyes they began to burn. Friday the 13th was the first frilm where Savini had used Dick Smith's "blood formula", and he was not yet sure which chemicals could be used safely around the mouth and eyes, with this new forumula, to saturate and thin the blood. Crosby learned the hard way that Photoflo was not one of the safe chemicals that could be used with the new formula. Fortunately, there were no lasting effects for Crosby's eyesight.^[28]

Apart from applying make-up effects to the characters, Savini would also perform some of the physical effects personally. For the final act of the film, Savini dawned a wig and night gown, pretending to be Brenda, and jumped through a window in the cabin Alice was hiding in. It is insinuated in the scene that Brenda's corpse was thrown through the window by the mysterious assailant who had killed everyone but Alice by that point.^[29]

Like Jack's death scene, Savini had to accomplish the decapitation of Mrs. Voorhees in one-take. Stavrakis stood-in for Palmer, wearing a head and shoulder prosthetic replica of Palmer. Savini swung the machete cutting off the fake head, which was being held in place by toothpicks so it would detach with ease.^[30]

[edit] Music

The music was composed by Harry Manfredini, who first met Sean S. Cunningham when he composed the music for Here Come the Tigers and Manny's Orphans.

Manfredini recals the difficulty of creating the now trademark Friday the 13th theme. He had no money and he was trying to mouth "ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma" into a microphone while playing with symbols and an orchestration. The music was meant to provide a look into "the mind of a madwoman", but only contained three chords. Manfredini modeled the theme after the killer's psyche:

"I Looked at Mrs. Voorhees as someone who heard voices that made her kill. At the end of the film you see Betsy Palmer mouthing the words, 'Kill her, mommy', which kind of reveals everything, and she's using a child's voice too. Really, ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma represetns her saying 'Kill her, mommmy' and I created teh sound by talking into a microphone."^[31]

When Harry Manfredini began working on the musical score, the decision was made to only play the music alongside the killer so it would not "manipulate the audience" into thinking the killer was present when they were not.^[32]

Manfredini pointed out the lack of music for certain scenes: "There's a scene where one of the girls […] is setting up the archery area of the film. One of the guys shoots an arrow into the target and just misses her. It's a huge scare, but if you notice, there's no music. That was a choice."^[32]

Manfredini also noted that when something was going to happen, the music would cut off so that the audience would relax a bit, and the scare would be that much more effective. Since Mrs. Voorhees, the killer in the original Friday the 13th, does not show up until the final reel of the film, Manfredini had the job of creating a score that would represent the killer in her absence.^[32]

Manfredini was inspired by the 1975 film Jaws, where the shark is not seen for the majority of the film but the motif created by John Williams cued the audience on when the shark was present during scenes when you could not see it.^[33]

Sean S. Cunningham sought a chorus, but the budget would not allow it. While listening to a Krzysztof Penderecki piece of music, which contained a chorus with "striking pronunciations", Manfredini was inspired to recreate a similar sound. He came up with the sound "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" from the final reel when Mrs. Voorhees arrives and is reciting "Kill her mommy!" The "ki" comes from "kill", and the "ma" from "mommy". To achieve the unique sound he wanted for the film, Manfredini spoke the two words "harshly, distinctly and rhythmically into a microphone" and ran them into an echo reverberation machine.^[32]

Manfredini finished the original score after a couple of weeks, and then recorded the score in a friend's basement.^[33]

Victor Miller and assistant editor Jay Keuper have commented on how memorable the music is, with Keuper describing it as "iconographic". Manfredini says, "Everybody thinks it's cha, cha, cha. I'm like, 'Cha, cha, cha? What are you talking about?"^[34]

[edit] Release

[edit] Critical reaction

During its initial release, the film was panned by mainstream critics, most notably film critic Gene Siskel.

As of 2006, film review site Rotten Tomatoes calculated a rating of 76% on their tomatometer.^[35]

• Source for inflation costs

• Golden Raspberry Awards^[36]

Nominated: Worst Picture

Nominated: Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Betsy Palmer)

• Mystfest

Nominated: Mystfest Award for Best Film

• This film was #31 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.^[37]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Friday the 13th at the Internet Movie Database
• Friday the 13th at Rotten Tomatoes
• Friday the 13th at Box Office Mojo
• Film page at the Camp Crystal Lake web site
• Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future And You
• Friday the 13th Wiki