9 Things You Didn’t Know About The ‘Friday The 13th’ Franchise

To say that renowned film critic Gene Siskel disliked the original Friday the 13th would be an understatement. Siskel loathed this horror classic.

In his now infamous Chicago Tribune review, Siskel not only spoiled the ending of the film, he gave out Betsy Palmer’s address (Jason’s mother) so people could send her hate mail. C’mon, dude. A simple thumbs down would have sufficed.

“Betsy Palmer lives in the little town of Rowayton, Conn.,” he wrote. “I’m sure a letter sent to General Delivery there will get to her.”

Where to stream Friday the 13th (1980)

You’re undoubtedly familiar with composer Harry Manfredini’s now iconic Friday the 13th score, but the spooky tune’s origin story is a fun, fascinating piece of cinematic trivia.

“If you go to the end of the film, you’ll see a close-up of Betsy Palmer’s (Mrs. Voorhees) mouth where she’s saying to herself ‘Kill her, mommy,'” Manfredini remarked during Crystal Lake Memories. “I just went and I took the consonant sound of the ‘KI’ from killer and ‘MA’ for mommy, and went up to a microphone and just went ‘Ki-Ma.'”

They ran the sounds through a device called an Echoplex and it ended up becoming the now famous “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” sound audiences hear whenever Jason is on the prowl.

Friday the 13th III was the first film in the franchise to use the now iconic hockey mask, which of course helped transform Jason into a horror movie icon. In Part 2, Jason just wore a bag over his head, which was practical but not exactly menacing. In Part 3, we initially see practical jokester Shelly (Larry Zerner) with the infamous mask, but later in the film, Jason appears wearing it.

We assume Jason politely asked for the mask, Shelly gave it to him out of the kindness of his heart, and the two parted as friends.

Where to stream Friday the 13th III

Premiering on Friday, August 13, 1982, Friday the 13th Part III would eventually gross over $36 million at the U.S. box office.

Originally released in 3D, the film is a part of cinema history as it was the first movie to knock E.T. from the number one spot at the box office. After 10 straight weeks at the top, E.T. — which earned $8.4 million — was ousted by Friday the 13th III, which grossed $9.4 million.

The film would go on to become the second highest-grossing horror film of 1982 (behind Poltergeist).

Where to stream Friday the 13th III

Friday the 13th Part V was originally scripted to have Corey Feldman reprise his role as Tommy Jarvis. One of the initial ideas was to potentially use the character of Tommy as the new Jason, but much to Feldman’s chagrin, those plans had to be scrapped.

“Unfortunately, Spielberg fucked up all our plans, because he decided he wanted me in a couple of films,” Feldman says in Crystal Lake Memories. “I was forced, quite begrudgingly, to participate in a little film called Goonies, and not participate, as I would have liked, in the full version of Friday the 13th Part 5.“

Feldman made a cameo appearance in the film’s prologue, but his schedule was so hectic that they were forced to shoot the scene in Feldman’s actual backyard.

Where to stream Friday the 13th Part V

Believe it or not, the set used for Camp Crystal Lake is actually a fully-operational Boy Scout camp called Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, located in Hardwick, New Jersey.

The original Friday the 13th was filmed during the camp’s off-season, so the cast and crew had unfiltered access to the camp’s cabins, archery range, and lake during their month-long shoot. Rather than shy away from the camp’s history, No-Be-Bo-Sco offers tours of the campground on various Friday the 13ths throughout the year.

In its early stages of development, Friday the 13th was something entirely different. After identifying that the story should be about a serial killer terrorizing a camp, screenwriter Victor Miller had the totally uninspired idea of titling the film A Long Night At Camp Blood. Luckily, director Sean Cunningham felt that Friday the 13th was the simpler option, and he advertised the film in Variety (before the script was even complete) under his preferred title.

The new title stuck, and the rest is film franchise history.

Do you like scary movies? Kevin Williamson does!

The Scream screenwriter told Part VI scribe Tom McLoughlin that his extremely meta take on the sixth installment of the franchise had a huge influence on him writing Scream.

“I came in on a TV series that Kevin Williamson was doing… and at one point he said to me, ‘You know, your movie… had an impact on me in writing Scream,” McLoughlin admitted.

Ironically, McLoughlin turned down the opportunity to direct Scream, a job that eventually went to Wes Craven.

Where to stream Friday the 13th Part VI

Jason X (aka Jason goes to space) screenwriter Todd Farmer divulged that the tenth installment of the franchise almost featured a return appearance from the original Friday the 13th killer, Pamela Voorhees.

“In the end of the second act of the original script, our heroes create Pamela Voorhees within virtual reality as a final means of distracting Jason,” Farmer revealed.

Jason was initially going to push his mom’s head under the water to show he’d undergone an emotional change, but producers felt that the one constant in Jason’s life was his mother, so it was replaced with him pulling her from the lake to reveal an unfinished computer schematic. Unfortunately, none of these plans came to fruition as producers and Betsy Palmer could never reach an agreement for a return.

The character of Pamela Voorhees did, however, make a brief appearance in Freddy vs. Jason, but she was portrayed by Paula Shaw (and it was actually Freddy masquerading as Pamela as a means of manipulating Jason).

Where to stream Jason X