Kinda makes his character’s death by protruding arrow point kinda ironic, eh?

What seemed to be a clear case of pencildick has become a awkward mystery to debunk, one I’m not quite sure I want to investigate further: so I’ll leave it to Xoom The Truth to throw some theories around in their hilarious 2008 article. But the point of this post is this video that popped up (damn, that’s the second unintentional double entendre in just this sentence!) on Youtube. It made me LOL. Don’t misinterpret that as netspeak, I actually laughed out loud.

I always suspected there was a secret reason Bacon rarely discusses the film besides its less than stellar reputation. Can you imagine the actor having to see this blown up on 35mm back in ’80?

A prime example: towards the end of the film we briefly experience Jason struggling to stay afloat as flashback when his mama Pam Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) unfurls exposition upon Alice (Adrienne King). Its brevity gets the point across but is the initial seed for a viewer to see more of the lovable spud-head, and it’s a story angle that spins off some meaty questions, like were the counselors that let him drown Barry & Claudette? And if not, were they actually fucking, or was that Mrs Voorhees’ own opinion of events? Of course, many would scoff and roll their eyes at looking “too deep” into this movie, certainly a film so cheap and nasty, as those that made it describe it.

But it is the film itself that presents the questions.

Pamela’s flashback of Jason drowning is a possible falsity, as it was denoted in the script that it was to be portrayed as a fantasy version, with specific instructions for post-production to mix the audio of Jason’s please for help to sound “filtered, echoed and distant”. Again, to Miller’s credit.

Other films in the series have shown that coy sense of “don’t trust memories” subtext. I find it interesting that in Freddy Vs Jason (2003), writers Shannon & Swift chose to finally show the circumstances surrounding Jason’s drowning in full… but framed within his own nightmare. It was an admirable subtlety on their part that offers an automatic seamless retcon should future films want to canonically elaborate on the original concept, because it represents only Jason’s possibly exaggerated memory of that fateful day.

However just because that out-of-reality factor (nor our thoughts on the overall film), the scene shouldn’t be overlooked for what it was fundamentally designed to be: the origin of Jason Voorhees.

In this new series of articles entitled The Slashed Script, I’m going to examine scripted scenes that didn’t make it to screen for whatever reason, or not in the way we ultimately saw them. It’s easy to belittle the Friday the 13ths for their dumber, less ambitious movies and moments, but quite often they weren’t planned that way, they were quite smarter on paper and got fucked up during the development or filming process – or in some cases, the other way around – written poorly and only enhanced and improved along the way.

I’m looking forward to getting into that, and while this won’t be chronological by film at all, it seems fitting to start at the very first torn out pages – I’m talking about the lost opening murders in Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980).

Let’s set the scene: In the movie you saw, the then-unidentified Mrs Voorhees sneaks up on Crystal Lake Camp counselors – scrumptious Claudette (Debra S. Hayes) and amorous Barry (the appropriately-named Willie Adams) – during some early 80′s foreplay. Out comes the blade, the boy is jabbed under camera frame and falls whilst clutching his dribbling stomach, and off the girl’s slo-mo reaction the screen fades to white before segueing to credits. It’s a simple, understated opening – quite different then the gorefest to come, in that the opportunity for a double-murder was passed up for the decidedly more sophisticated story move of setting up the element of dread!

Originally the scene was just as red as the rest, and took place in the woods at daytime instead of inside the barn at night. Read for yourself, the scene from one of Victor Miller’s later screenplay drafts then come back below for some commentary.

Wait, what? Pamela was going to lose her finger? It be so, friends. A phased-out plot point, the hidden stalker throughout the film would be seen to be missing a digit which would connect the dots that it was the same assailant from the beginning. After seeing so many slashers, you would think that would be bloody obvious, eh? But in these formative days, the “formula” was still being prepared and tested – there were no rules so writer’s and directors would have to gage on gut alone how much information the audience needed to understand the mystery, no matter how simplistic.

Remember, Halloween‘s killer was known – Friday the 13th was installing a hidden identity angle to differentiate. And a certain amount of trial and error was par for the course. Obviously cooler heads prevailed come filming and Betsy Palmer and her hand double were spared the trouble of crimping their finger under a prosthetic stump for hours on end.

As for poor Claudette, as the lobby card up top shows, her intended on-screen icing got a little further than paper – okay, make that much further. Exactly how much, well no one can quite agree on that. This is one of the greater unresolved Paramount mysteries. The comprehensive Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete Friday the 13th is considered Jason’s bible – it certainly is in my home, okay? Although it contains an additional image of Claudette going under the hatchet, the text was unusually fleeting and somewhat elusive when it came to describing exactly what was shot.

Cunningham acknowledged that the scene underwent many changes, originally featuring a boathouse chase (excised by the time of the the script I’ve excerpted from), and several attempts to shoot it didn’t get far, first due to first snow then a generator failure. Tom Savini oddly didn’t even acknowledge Claudette’s fate being committed to film beyond it being a nixed plan – and he was the FX man. Yet we have multiple points of photographic proof that Claudette’s throat being opened by steel! So the money shot was filmed and trimmed just short of the fatal blow. Personally, I believe it would’ve made Annie’s FX moment redundant, so one of them had to go – a sacrificial lamb!

The iconic image of Jason Voorhees has become a staple of popular culture, yet before the hockey mask became a symbol of fear the character was just a scared young boy. In Sean S. Cunningham’s 1980 original, Jason had drowned in Crystal Lake in 1957 due to the negligence of a group of camp counselors, prompting his mother to exact bloody vengeance on those whom she felt were responsible. Whilst the character later became the antagonist of the franchise and the focal point of each subsequent movie, Jason was first portrayed by a fourteen year old called Ari Lehman. Born in New York on May 2nd 1965, Lehman spent most of his childhood in Westport, Connecticut. His earliest passion was for music and studied classical and jazz on piano, which would ultimately lead to a scholarship at the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Lehman had also developed an interest in acting and, after discovering that auditions were being held in Westport for a family movie called Manny’s Orphans, decided he would try out for a role. The movie, directed by fellow New Yorker Cunningham, was a blatant attempt to capitalise on the success of The Bad News Bears, which had been released by Paramount Pictures in 1976. Desperate to escape the stigma of his first production, the rape-revenge exploitation picture The Last House on the Left, Cunningham and his screenwriter, Victor Miller, had developed two sports comedies; Here Come the Tigers and Manny’s Orphans.

Despite only being a minor role, Lehman’s performance had made a suitable impression on Cunningham and, some time later, would be contacted regarding another project. Friday the 13th told of a once-popular summer camp that had reopened after many years but, during the renovations, the counselors are killed off one-by-one by an unseen assailant. The final twist would reveal that the murderer was in fact a seemingly sweet middle-aged woman, whose son had drowned in the lake over twenty years earlier. Cunningham’s own son, Noel (who would work as a producer on two of the later sequels), was first considered for the role but eventually the producers decided to call in Lehman, who was approaching his fourteenth birthday. At his audition, Lehman was accidentally handed the wrong notes for his character and, believing the role to be that of Jack (later portrayed by Kevin Bacon), was shocked to discover a sex scene. The young child would be disappointed, however, when he learned that his part had no dialogue and would only be featured once in the movie. For his audition Lehman was asked one key question by the director, ‘Can you swim?’ Landing the minor role of Jason, Lehmen was led to the make-up workshop of Tom Savini who, with the help of his assistant, Taso Stavrakos, began to create the deformed creature that was Jason.

Lehman soon found himself surrounded by an array of props and monsters that Savini had created for his previous projects, which would include various gruesome body parts. For several weeks, Lehman was subjected to an uncomfortable make-up process, in which a mask and deformed head were designed, which were then fixed with dentures and plaster, that was applied over his skull. During this time, Lehman saw many of the FX gags that would later play a role in the success of the movie being brought to life as Savini, working from a budget of almost $20,000 to create the numerous impalements and mutilations. Some time later, Lehman made his way to where Friday the 13th was being filmed at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Blairstown, New Jersey, for a sequence in which Jason is shown drowning in the lake. During his short time on set, he witnessed the shooting of several of the movie’s key sequences, including the death of both Bacon and Harry Crosby, whose body would be discovered pinned to a door by several arrows.

Despite only being hired to shoot one scene, Lehman would be required to work on an additional sequence after the filmmakers were inspired by the final shot of Brian De Palma’s Carrie, in which Sissy Spacek’s character reaches out her hand from beyond the grave to provide one last scare for the audience. Thus, after the killer has finally been dispatched the movie’s heroine, portrayed by Adrienne King, wakes up adrift on the lake when suddenly Jason’s rotten corpse jumps out of the water, dragging her down under the surface. Once again, Lehman found himself in Savini’s make-up chair for an application that would be more graphic and disturbing then his first appearance. By the time the cameras were rolling for the additional scene principal photography had come to an end and the temperature in the water had dropped significantly. Lehman found himself standing waist-deep in the lake, covered in a thick layer of mud and wearing only a jockstrap. At Savini’s suggestion, Lehman had kept his distance from King prior to the shooting of the sequence in order to provoke an honest reaction from his co-star. His idea worked as, the moment Lehman leapt out of the water, King reacted with pure terror. Between each take, Lehman would reapply a new layer of mud from the bottom of the lake and, after several different attempts, Cunningham was satisfied with the scene and Lehman was finally able to climb out of the water.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Lehman chose not to pursue an acting career after completing work on Friday the 13th. Instead, he returned to New York and continued to study playing jazz on piano, before enrolling at New York University, where he was taught by the likes of Vladimir Shafranov. Having gained acclaim for his work as a keyboardist performing reggae with his group, the Ari Ben Moses Band, Lehman was introduced to the horror movie convention circuit in 2024 and discovered the cult following that he had gained through his role as Jason. This would prompt him to form a new band entitled First Jason, in tribute to his breakthrough role and legacy within the horror genre. Over thirty years after making his brief-yet-memorable appearance as Jason Voorhees and Lehman continues to promote his part in the franchise, not only paying tribute to his character in his music but also contributing to the likes of Crystal Lake Memories and His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th.

If the Friday the 13th franchise is to be remembered for anything, other than the iconic hockey mask, then it will be the elaborate and graphic special effects, which were created by various different artists and workshops, from the legendary Tom Savini and Stan Winston to the likes of Martin Becker and Greg Nicotero. Twelve movies, hundreds of victims – it would be impossible to narrow their gory highlights down to just a few but here’s thirteen of Jason’s most memorable kills.

I couldn’t decide which one should claim the top spot so instead these are listed in chronological order. No doubt you’ll have your own favourites so tell us which you would have included.

Enjoy!

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) – Jack (Kevin Bacon)
Long before the awards and critical acclaim, Kevin Bacon’s claim to fame was his iconic death in the original Friday the 13th. Storyboarded by associate producer Steve Miner (who would later direct the first two sequels) and executed by special make-up effects artist Tom Savini, the sequence saw an arrow being driven through Bacon’s throat from underneath the bed. This relatively complex gag would be created by designing a cast of the actor’s torso, whilst his real body was hidden underneath the bed. With a neck cast attached to Bacon, a hand belonging to stills photographer Richard Feury (who would later be credited as second assistant director on Part 2) reached up from under the bed to pull Bacon’s head down whilst the arrow was pushed through the neck cast. But when the tube that ran the blood from a bag to the neck cast came loose Taso N. Stavrakis, Savini’s assistant, improvised and blew hard down the tube, causing the blood to spray out from the open wound. Although not a Jason kill, this is still a favourite amongst fans.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981) – Mark (Tom McBride)
To prove that Jason Voorhees was an equal rights serial killer, Part 2 saw him dispatch of the franchise’s sole wheelchair-bound victim. Having seemingly scored with pretty-yet-naïve Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), Mark (Tom McBride) waits patiently before heading outside the house, where he is suddenly struck in the face by a machete and sent hurtling backwards down a set of steps. For this highly effective sequence, special make-up effects artist Carl Fullerton designed a mask for McBride to wear, which the balsa wood machete was then attached to. Pulling the blade away from the actor’s face, the footage was then played back in reverse to create the illusion that Mark had been hit in the face by the machete. McBride was then replaced by stuntman Tony Farentino (who would later work on the underrated slasher Alone in the Dark the following year), who was sent backwards down the stairs using a rig to avoid the wheelchair losing control.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (1982) – Vera (Catherine Parks)
Having rebuffed the advances of shy practical joker Shelly (Larry Zerner), Vera (Catherine Parks) finds his wallet in the water and looks through the contents, before realising that a masked figure has appeared from behind the house. Believing it to be Shelly, who had previously scared her whilst wearing his hockey mask, Jason (Richard Brooker) raises a speargun towards her and fires a shot directly into her eye. Yet another gag played back in reverse, the sequence began with Parks reacting to the arrow being pressed against her eye, before the arrow was retracted via a wire and rod. Cutting away, the next shot saw Parks with an arrow attached to her eye as she fell backwards into the water, although this could only be shot once as the prosthetics that the make-up crew had created would fall to pieces when wet. This scene has an important place in the history of the franchise as it would be the first on-screen kill committed by Jason after obtaining his infamous mask.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (1982) – Rick (Paul Kratka)
Accommodating for the 3-D effects that would be the selling point for Friday the 13th Part 3, director Steve Miner took every opportunity he could to have objects jumping or reaching out at the camera; from yo-yos and joints to spears and even eyeballs. The latter would be used for the death scene of Rick (Paul Kratka), the lumberjack boyfriend of heroine Chris (Dana Kimmell). Having returned to find the house deserted, Chris searches for her friends whilst Rick heads outside, only to be accosted by Jason. Grabbing his head from behind and crushing his skull, Rick’s eyeballs burst literally from their sockets under the pressure and leap out at the audience. Weeks before principal photography had begun, Kratka was brought to the FX workshop to have his upper torso and head cast in plaster to create a life-size dummy that would be used for the majority of the sequence. With a mark having been set between the two lenses that were used to capture the images in 3-D, the eyeballs were sent out of the fake skull using wires after several attempts using compressed air had failed to achieve the desired result.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984) – Axel (Bruce Mahler)
Despite having launched his career on the back of his work on the first Friday the 13th movie, Savini had declined the chance to return for the subsequent two sequels, instead choosing to work on other splatter flicks like The Burning and Creepshow. Yet when the possibility to end what he had helped create by killing off Jason once and for all for 1984′s The Final Chapter arose he found the offer too tempting. After two relatively tame sequels, Savini was determined to outdo his own work on the original by creating some of his most brutal set pieces since The Prowler in 1981 (which, coincidentally, was also directed by Joseph Zito). Aside from Jason’s own demise, the stand out death scene was awarded to Axel (Police Academy‘s Bruce Mahler), an obnoxious orderly whose failed seduction attempts with a nurse (Lisa Freeman) results in him watching aerobics on television. Jason (Ted White), having awoken from the slab after believing to have died from his wounds endured at the end of Part 3, sneaks up behind Axel and grabs him by his head, before taking a surgical hacksaw used for cutting through bone and slices deep into his throat. A dummy was created using a cast of Mahler and a saw, whose blade was filled with blood, was placed against the throat, which also allowed for the head to be violently turned as Jason sunk deep into his neck.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING (1985) – Joey (Dominick Brascia)
Sweet-yet-simple loner Joey (Dominick Brascia) is often dismissed by his fellow patients at the relatively laxed Pinehurst mental institution and, after an attempt at helping two of the girls with the laundry results in the clean clothes being covered in chocolate, tries to make friends with resident psychotic Victor (Mark Venturini, also known to splatter fans for his turn in Return of the Living Dead, released the same year). Angered by his persistence, Victor swings his axe down on Joey’s back and begins to hack him to pieces as the other patients watch in horror. Some time later, an ambulance arrives on the scene and one of the paramedics (Caskey Swaim) pulls back the sheet that is covering his corpse to reveal hacked-up body parts. Whilst the murder itself is shown off screen (with only a brief reaction shot from Brascia at the point of impact), it is the following scene when the state of the body is revealed that showed the gruesome handiwork of the special effects team. Not technically a Jason kill, but the murder would become the catalyst for the Jason copycat murders that followed.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6: JASON LIVES (1986) – Sheriff Garris (David Kagan)
Sheriff Garris (David Kagan) would prove to be the archetypal authority figure of the slasher film. Much like A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Lt. Donald Thompson (John Saxon), who would also refuse to believe the fact that a seemingly dead killer was responsible for a recent series of grizzly murders, Garris’ ignorance and refusal to accept the warning from former mental patient Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews, Venturini’s Return of the Living Dead co-star) would eventually cost him his life. Having made his way with his deputies to Camp Forest Green – formerly Camp Crystal Lake, the scene of countless murders at the hands of Jason (C.J. Graham) – Garris soon finds himself alone and takes shelter in the bushes as he watches Jason from afar. But when his daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke), arrives at the camp with Tommy, Jason heads back out of the woods to kill them both, forcing the sheriff to finally face the truth and fight back, resulting in him being literally broken in two. Although heavily censored by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) prior to release, the sequence was achieved by fake legs being bent back over Kagan’s shoulders as Jason breaks his back. In an effort to avoid the same kind of problems with the censors that the previous movies had encountered, director Tom McLoughlin would shoot several versions of the scene, including one which would be relatively gruesome, although sadly this would not be used in the finished print.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 7: THE NEW BLOOD (1988) – Judy (Debora Kessler)
Unlike his contemporaries, namely A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Leatherface, Jason Voorhees has never taken much pleasure in torturing his victims, instead opting for the fastest way to dispatch them. Kane Hodder, who would be cast in the role at the insistence of director John Carl Buechler, would take the character of Jason to new heights by creating a unique body language that he would use through the subsequent three sequels. With Buechler also being a renowned special effects artist, many of the set pieces in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood would be extremely elaborate and graphic, this was until the MPAA ordered drastic cuts to many of the film’s highlights. One sequence would see one of the young vacationers, Judy (Debora Kessler), dragged across the ground by Jason in her sleeping bag and swung against a tree, killing her instantly. Originally, Jason was to have thrown her against the trunk several times but the MPAA ordered the filmmakers to reduce the number of hits, resulting in Jason simply swinging her against the tree once and then tossing her body aside. Ironically, this would make the sequence all the more effective.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989) – Jules (V.C. Dupree)
Although ultimately defeated at the end of each movie, Jason rarely faced a character who was able to match him physically, with his victims often resorting to weapons, water or even telekinesis. In 1989′s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, the latest graduating class embark on a cruise from Crystal Lake to New York City, which soon turns into a fight for survival as Jason (Kane Hodder) makes his way onboard and begins to dispatch each of the teens one-by-one. Although the majority of the deaths would be relatively blood-free (again, due to strict regulations from the MPAA), one that would stand out would be that of Julius (V.C. Dupree), undefeated high school boxing champion who, tired of running, faces off against Jason on top of a building in a rough neighbourhood of New York. With bloody knuckles and gasping for breath, Julius in unable to fight Jason any longer and challenges him to punch him back. In one swing, Jason sends Julius’ head from his shoulders, down the side of the building and into a dumpster in the street below. Showcasing his sick sense of humour, Jason later left Julius’ head on the dashboard of a police car as the other students attempt to escape.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993) – Deborah (Michelle Clunie)
With Paramount having eventually sold the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise to rival studio New Line Cinema (the home of A Nightmare on Elm Street), the series received a makeover in 1993 with Adam Marcus’ Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Ostensibly a rip-off of Jack Sholder’s 1987 science fiction thriller The Hidden (also distributed by New Line), the movie boasted impressive special effects by the always reliable KNB EFX, although predictably these would be heavily censored for the theatrical print. Thankfully, Marcus’ original cut was later released on video and featured in all its glory the murders of horny young campers Deborah (Michelle Clunie) and Luke (Michael B. Silver). With their friend Alexis (Kathryn Atwood) having allowed them to keep the tent for the night whilst she sleeps outside, the couple had begun to make out before moving onto sex, whilst a coroner (Richard Gant) from a hospital who has been possessed by the spirit of Jason appears at the tent, thrusting his weapon through the material and into Deborah’s stomach, before violently thrusting it upwards, tearing her torso in two.

JASON X (2001) – Adrienne (Kristi Angus)
With the regular setting of Camp Crystal Lake having grown stale over several installments, filmmakers had been forced to try new locations in which Jason could continue his bloodbath. New York had failed to impress the fans and so the makers of Jason X, in a last attempt to rejuvenate the formula, sent their antagonist into twenty-fifth century deep space. This new science fiction location would allow for an array of possibilities; some of which would be exploited, whilst others were sadly neglected. The film’s best death would go to scientist Adrienne (Kristi Angus), who is given the responsibility of performing an autopsy on the recently thawed out Jason (Kane Hodder), whose body was found in an abandoned space station. Whilst distracted, Adrienne is unaware that Jason has awoken behind her and grabs her by her hair, forcing her face-first into a sink filled with liquid nitrogen, causing her head to immediately freeze. Removing her and looking at his handiwork, Jason would smash her head against the work surface, shattering her face, before tossing her corpse aside.

FREDDY VS. JASON (2003) – Trey (Jesse Hutch)
Freddy vs. Jason had been fifteen years in the making, pitching the villains from the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises against each other in a fight to the death. Having gone through numerous writers and directors, the task of bringing the concept to the big screen fell to Ronny Yu, who had previously given the Child’s Play series a postmodern makeover with 1998′s Bride of Chucky. The story that was eventually selected saw both antagonists trapped in the bowels of Hell, with Freddy desperate to escape so he can continue his killing spree at his old stomping ground, Elm Street. Allowing Jason (Ken Kirzinger) to escape Hell, he lures him to Elm Street in an effort to evoke enough fear in the town’s teenagers so that he will be able to break free from his restraints and control the dream world once again. Jason makes his way to the former home of Lt. Donald Thompson and his daughter, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), a house which Freddy is strangely drawn to time and time again. Finding a group of teens partying without the supervision of parents, Jason appears over the bed of obnoxious jock Trey (Jesse Hutch) and begins to butcher him with his machete to the point that the bed breaks in half, crushing Trey’s lifeless body.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) – Nolan (Ryan Hansen)
Having made a suitable impression on the executives at New Line with their script for Freddy vs. Jason, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift were given the task of resurrecting the Friday the 13th franchise for Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes (previously responsible for the all-style-no-substance remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher). Taking elements from the first four movies, arguably favourites among fans, the reboot saw Jason (Derek Mears) reinvented as a hunter, who kidnaps a young woman (Amanda Righetti) who resembles his dead mother, prompting the girl’s brother (Jared Padalecki) to head out to Crystal Lake in search of her. Whilst the characterisation would be lacking, even for a slasher film, and the acting would be subpar (with the exception of Mears and Danielle Panabaker, the film’s only truly sympathetic character), some of the murders would be gruesome enough to delight fans of the series. The most memorable of which was the death of Nolan (Ryan Hansen) who, whilst out on the lake with his girlfriend (Willa Ford), is suddenly shot in the head by an arrow.

One of the names most associated with the slasher genre is not a director or even an actor, but a make-up artist. Tom Savini became synonymous with gory splatter effects in the early 1980s after his groundbreaking work on the likes of Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 turned him into a star in his own right. Thomas Vincent Savini was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 3rd 1946. He discovered his love of cinema at a young age after viewing the 1957 Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces, starring screen legend James Cagney. Savini became intrigued with special effects and began to research Chaney, who would often design his own make-up for his movies. Considered by many to be a pioneer in early FX, Chaney would enjoy a prolific and successful career before starring in the silent masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera. Savini began to recreate his work with homemade make-up on his school friends, soon discovering other talented artists such as Jack Pierce and, more importantly, Dick Smith. Savini contacted Smith, an influential make-up designer, who agreed to share various tricks of the trade to the budding young artist.

While a sophomore in high school, Savini met a young wannabe director called George Romero, who came to visit in search of talent for his independent film Whine of the Fawn. Eventually, the project fell through and Savini went on to major in Journalism at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Some time later, Romero announced that he would be shooting a feature locally called Night of the Living Dead so Savini visited him with a portfolio and was offered his first break. During pre-production, the army began drafting for young troops to send out to Vietnam so Savini, in an effort to avoid combat, enlisted early as a photographer. After being sent to the Army Photo School in New York for three months of basic training, the young cadets found themselves at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, where they were given their orders. The realities of war had a profound effect on the young photographer, using his camera to try to distance himself from the violence he was witnessing. Still continuing to practice his passion, Savini experimented with special effects on many of his fellow soldiers, recreating the horror that he had seen on a daily basis.

After returning to America, Savini found himself in Cumberland, North Carolina, stationed at Fort Bragg where he taught film processing in a craft shop. Still dealing with the post-trauma of war, he landed his first professional FX gig on a movie. Dead of Night was a zombie story that had been designed as an allegory on the Vietnam conflict from Bob Clark, the director previously responsible for the camp flick Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. Filmed in Brooksville, Florida in the fall of 1972, the script was loosely based on W.W. Jacob’s 1902 short story The Monkey’s Paw and told of a couple who are informed that their son was killed in Vietnam, only for him to return soon after. But he begins to demonstrate strange behaviour, such as injecting blood in an attempt to stop himself from decomposing. The following year, Clark’s writer, Alan Ormsby (who had assisted Savini with the effects on Dead of Night), co-directed Deranged, a disturbing horror inspired by the life and crimes of Ed Gein.

Around this time, Savini applied his make-up talents to local theatres. After hearing about Romero’s next movie, Martin, he auditioned for the role of the vampire protagonist, losing out to John Amplas. Instead, the director agreed to hire him as a special effects artist, allowing Savini his first big break. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead had been an unexpected success several years earlier and the filmmaker was desperate for another hit. Budgeted at $800,000, principal photography took place in Braddock, Pennsylvania, from August to October 1976. Savin’s input went further than simple effects, also developing an interest in stuntwork, two talents which he would continue to balance throughout the first half of his career. Romero’s original cut for Martin was black-and-white and ran at two hours and forty-five minutes, before being ordered by the financiers to trim it down to a more commercial length and release it in colour. The movie was a minor success and Romero had enjoyed his collaboration with Savini so much that he immediately hired him for his next project.

The first Savini heard of a sequel to Night of the Living Dead was when he received telegram in North Carolina from the director that simply said, “Start thinking of ways to kill people.” Designing a follow up to his successful zombie movie had proved more problematic than Romero had expected. His co-writer, John Russo, had set about writing his own sequel as a novel, Return of the Living Dead, which was first published in 1977. Romero, meanwhile, attempted to develop his own continuation, eventually settling on a concept whilst visiting Monroeville Mall to see his friend, Mark Mason. Watching the blank expressions of the shoppers as they mindlessly wandered from store to store, the basic premise of what would become Dawn of the Dead was born. To help with financing, respected Italian filmmaker Dario Argento invited Romero to Rome to discuss his ideas for the movie, on the condition that he would hold the European rights. Romero returned to Pittsburgh with his script complete and began preparation for what was to be his most ambitious project to date. With a modest budget of $650,000, Romero set about gaining permission to film in Monroeville Mall, where the majority of the picture would be set.

Savini made a list of new and unique ways to dispatch the zombies, which included heads exploding from shotgun blasts or scalped from helicopter blades. With only eight assistants and over two hundred extras to make up as zombies, Savini was facing the largest undertaking of his career. Shooting began on November 13th 1977, with the production on hiatus for several weeks over Christmas as customers completed their festive shopping. Commencing again on January 3rd, principal photography finally wrapped the following month. Romero entered a battle with the MPAA in order to avoid an X-rating (which the censors usually reserved for pornographic material and would thus restrict its commercial appeal), due to Savini’s graphic special effects. After eventually being allowed to release it unrated, Dawn of the Dead was unleashed in America on April 20th 1979 by United Artists, eventually earning a staggering $55m. Savini’s work would soon bring him to the attention of other filmmakers, starting with a struggling producer by the name of Sean S. Cunningham.

A trio of Boston businessmen had financed a gritty and unpleasant rape-revenge film in 1972 called The Last House on the Left, which marked the directorial debut of Wes Craven. Produced by Cunningham, it went on to become an unexpected success but after a string of disappointing family movies he decided to return to the horror genre and, after watching how John Carpenter’s low budget thriller Halloween had become one of the most profitable flicks of the decade, he decided to attempt something similar. Knowing that he lacked the talents of Carpenter, he needed to find another angle, something which would get cinemagoers talking. After witnessing the excessive gore of Dawn of the Dead, Cunningham knew that someone like Savini would be able to turn a generic script into a blockbuster. With a special effects budget of $20,000, Savini made his way to Connecticut to discuss the project and what new, exciting ways characters could be dispatched on screen.

Filming for what would become Friday the 13th commenced on September 4th 1979 in and around Blairstown, New Jersey, with Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco doubling as the main location. Savini and his assistant, Taso Stavrakis, opted to spent the nights at the camp instead of in motels with the rest of the cast and crew, where they could prepare their work undisturbed. Stavrakis would stand in as the killer for the majority of the film while Savini would once again handle the stunts. Cunningham and Savini had agreed that the death scenes had to happen on screen with no cut-aways, including throat slashing and, most famously, a young Kevin Bacon receiving an arrow through the throat. This sequence was carefully orchestrated, with associate produce Steve Miner storyboarding the entire scene. The effect itself was achieved by the actor’s body being hidden under the bed with just his head on display and a fake body lying out in front of him. Savini provided a neck cast that he had used previously on Martin and attached a clear tube from which the blood would appear but, during the scene, there was a blockage, forcing Stavrakis to blow hard down the tube, causing the blood to spurt.

Savini’s work would once again be the talk of the town when Friday the 13th was finally released on the May 9th 1980. Paramount Pictures had acquired the picture and had spent over $1m on publicity, allowing the movie to have the kind of grand opening rarely given to a low budget horror at that time. The MPAA had passed the film through uncut but once the likes of Siskel and Ebert became aware of it they took great delight in dragging the movie’s name through the dirt, unintentionally giving it even more publicity. When Friday the 13th made an astonishing $39.7m at the box office, every studio and producer in Hollywood began trying to make their own clone, and suddenly Savini was hot property. Paramount immediately set about producing a sequel and initially offered Savini the chance to return, but the illogical story prompted him to decline. Instead, he opted for another summer camp slasher, The Burning, produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein (who would later become major players with Miramax and Dimension).

Despite being scripted before the release of Friday the 13th, The Burning was nevertheless compared to Cunningham’s movie, mainly due to its choice of setting. Filmed in Buffalo and North Tonawanda, New York, for $1.5m, Savini once again providing stomach-turning effects that would become the highlight of the picture. Perhaps the most notorious scene was the raft massacre, where a group of teenagers who are attempting to make their way back to camp for assistance are suddenly attacked by the movie’s villain, Cropsy, as they pass by an abandoned boat. Using a pair of garden sheers, fingers are chopped off and throats are stabbed, in by far the film’s most graphic and memorable sequence. It proved effective enough for The Burning to find its way onto the Director of Public Prosecutions’ ‘video nasty’ list in the UK, where it would remain banned for several years. Immediately after the movie wrapped, Savini was invited by filmmaker William Lustig, who had visited the set of The Burning, to join the crew of his latest production, a low budget serial killer flick starring Joe Spinell, who had appeared briefly in The Godfather. The film had been self-financed, with Spinell, Lustig and producer Andrew Garroni contributing between $6,000 and $30,000 each for the required $350,000 budget. Savini would be paid $5,000 for his work, which would include yet another obliterated head shot, though this time it would be his own.

Perhaps Savini’s most impressive work, and certainly the one which he is the proudest of, was in the underrated thriller The Prowler, released in the UK as Rosemary’s Killer. Directed by Joseph Zito, The Prowler saw a World War II vet returning home to find that his sweetheart had found a new man. Exacting his revenge, the town would cancel the high school graduation dance until thirty-five years later, which would prompt the killer to return. Filmed over six weeks on location in the charming town of Cape May, New Jersey, The Prowler was a stylish and tense thriller that stood out from its contemporaries due to the graphic and convincing murders, including more throat slittings and head explosions. Many filmmakers knew that hiring Savini would immediately lend their film some credibility, with one feature, Nightmare in a Damaged Brain, including his name in the credits though Savini would deny to this day that he worked on the feature. Directed by Italian filmmaker Romano Scavolini, who had drawn inspiration from a newspaper article on the MK-Ultra mind experiments of the 1960’s, Nightmare was an unpleasant and gruesome study of insanity, much in the same was as Maniac, and was guaranteed to attract controversy upon release.

For the next couple of years, Savini became hot property, working on an array of graphic and popular low budget slashers, including Eyes of a Stranger and Alone in the Dark. He would eventually re-team with Romero for the Stephen King anthology Creepshow, which would see him return to his hometown of Pittsburgh. With a budget of $8m, Romero’s horror show would feature such actors as Leslie Neilson (a once serious actor who, after starring in Airplane! in 1980, was revamped as a comedian), Cheers star Ted Danson and Dawn of the Dead’s Gaylen Ross. The following year, Savini would be approached about returning to the Friday the 13th series to assist in destroying the character that he had helped create. The franchise’s antagonist, Jason Voorhees, had since become a pop culture phenomenon and Paramount had finally decided to lay the series to rest. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter would see Savini once again collaborate with The Prowler’s Zito, whom he had created some of his best work with.

Shot on a budget of $1.8m, when Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was released in April 1984 it made over $11m on its opening weekend, guaranteeing that the series would indeed continue. Savini would return back to Pittsburgh to work on Romero’s third zombie flick, Day of the Dead, which would see mankind overrun with the walking dead and forced to take refuge in an old missile silo. Originally planned as a more epic and action-packed sequel, the reduced funding resulted in the director having to rethink his screenplay. Principal photography took place in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island, Florida, and the Nike Missile Site in Finleyville, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1984. Savini had originally intended to portray the role of the villainous Captain Rhodes, having already acted in minor roles in Martin, Dawn of the Dead and Maniac, among others. But Romero felt that Savini would be unable to manage the special effects if he also acted so instead offered the role to Joseph Pilato, who had made a brief appearance in Dawn. Released the same year as Return of the Living Dead, a tongue-in-cheek zombie flick that had abandoned John Russo’s original story in favour of a more comedic approach, Day of the Dead was met with disappointment from Romero’s fan base, who found the movie too cynical and less ambitious than Dawn of the Dead, though it would later develop a cult following.

Having already worked alongside Jason Voorhees, Savini’s next project would see him team up with another modern day horror icon. The rights for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been acquired by Warren Skaaren and Bill Parsley, two major players in the financing of the the first film, who had picked up the copyright in the late ’70s with the intention of Skaaren scripting a sequel of his own. Tobe Hooper’s career had been a hit-and-miss affair in the years since directing Massacre, with the abysmal Eaten Alive followed by the hugely successful Poltergeist. In 1984, he signed a three-picture deal with Cannon Films and began to make horrors that combined elements of science fiction. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 would mark Savini’s slasher swan song, following on with such varied projects as Creepshow 2, Romero’s Monkey Shines and the Dolph Lundgren action thriller Red Scorpion, helmed by Zito. Dawn of the Dead producer Dario Argento had expressed interest in adapting a story by Edgar Allen Poe and had suggested an anthology, with him directing The Black Cat and three other stories to be made by Romero, John Carpenter and Stephen King, respectively, to be released as Two Evil Eyes. Unfortunately, Carpenter was busy working on his science fiction satire They Live and King was also preoccupied, so Argento managed to raise a $9m budget for himself and Romero to shoot in Pittsburgh (Argento’s first feature to be made in America, aside from a sequence of 1980′s Inferno that was shot in New York).

Soon after, Romero began to toy with the idea of remaking his breakthrough movie Night of the Living Dead. The black-and-white classic had already been colorized by Hal Roach Studios in 1986 and the director began to update his original screenplay to accommodate for modern times. As Savini had missed out on the first version, he was finally given the chance to collaborate with Romero on the film, though this time he would be promoted to the director’s chair. The pre-production on Night of the Living Dead was a very frustrating experience for Savini, who would constantly see his ideas opposed by both Romero and the financiers, who believed that the amateur filmmaker would not be able to accomplish what he had suggested. Parts began to be removed before filming had even begun and the friendship between Savini and Romero began to strain. Savini would once again collaborate with Argento on 1992’s Trauma, starring his sixteen-year old daughter, Asia Argento, and several low-key projects during the early ’90s, before turning his attention to acting. His big break in front of the camera came with a supporting role in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn. Appearing as Sex Machine, a biker in much the same vein as his Dawn of the Dead character, Blades, his role saw him become the victim of prosthetics – this time from KNB EFX (of which two of the founders had been Savini’s assistants on Day of the Dead).

This would lead to roles in Children of the Living Dead (which Savini has very little good to say about), Ted Bundy, Zack Synder’s 2024 remake of Dawn of the Dead and Romero’s Land of the Dead. Despite initially being lined up to provide the effects once again, Savini was replaced by KNB and his part in the film was cut after Universal, the distributor, decided that as he had appeared in the Dawn remake then he should not be in Land. Instead, he was given a two second cameo as a zombified Blades. Perhaps his most significant role since was as Deputy Tolo is Planet Terror, which saw him team up once again with Rodriguez, this time for his half of the much-anticipated double-bill Grindhouse. Other roles include Lost Boys: The Tribe, the critically mawled sequel to the cult 1987 bratpack horror, Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, The Dead Matter and the retrospective documentary His Name Was Jason: Thirty Years of Friday the 13th. Not turning his back on effects completely, he has started a Tom Savini Special Make-up Effects Program, teaching budding artists the tricks of the trade.

Throughout its thirty year legacy, the Friday the 13th franchise has boasted some truly memorable moments. But there were several scenes that were cut, either from the script or the finished film, for a variety of reasons. Here’s a few that, in a perfect world, would have made their way into the series…

JASON X:
One scene to have made its way into Todd Farmer’s script but not the movie was a sequence in which an explosion on board the Grendel resulted in a temporary loss of gravity. With both cargo and crew floating aimlessly, ship android Kay-Em manages to grab hold of the wall using her magnetics and attempts to rescue her friends, who desperately try to escape from Jason. This scene would involve several characters who were eventually omitted from the movie (Thorgan, Rizzo, Boeman, DeLongpre) forming a ‘human chain’ as Kay-Em tries to stop them from drifting towards Jason. Sadly, despite a few promising moments, the scene would not result in any zero gravity bloodshed but could still have made an interesting sequence.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES:
Having been rescued from the depths of Crystal Lake by Megan, Tommy Jarvis looks out at the water and declares ‘It’s over, it’s finally over. Jason is home.’ The next scene to have originally been included in writer/director Tom McLoughlin’s tongue-in-cheek script would have been the introduction of Jason’s as-then-unmentioned father, Elias Voorhees. Martin, the cemetery caretaker (who had not been killed in the original script), is knelt down pulling weeds from off of a tombstone when a large shadow is cast over him. Quickly turning around, he nervously says ‘Nice to see you again, Mr. Voorhees…Haven’t seen you in Crystal…er, Forest Green, in quite some time.’ Martin insists to the imposing figure that he has been taking care of both his wife and son’s graves as he is passed his regular payment. Left alone to inspect the resting place of his family, McLoughlin describes that ‘These eyes are truly evil. Cold. Dark. Demonic.’ Elias Voorhees was once again set to appear in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday but was eventually cut from the story.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3:
Instead of the generic retread of the first film’s infamous climax, in which this time the rotten corpse of Pamela Voorhees would jump out of the lake and pull heroine Chris under the water, only for the event to be revealed as just a dream, a planned alternative ending for Steve Miner’s 3D spectacle Friday the 13th Part 3 would have been far more shocking. Having seemingly defeated Jason and survived until dawn, Chris opens the door to discover that Jason is still very much alive and, with a swift blow of his machete, slices her head clean off. Again, this was to have been a dream and the character would have been shown to still be alive at the end, but the sequence would have packed more of a punch. Another effect which the filmmakers attempted saw Jason having his stomach hacked open, causing his guts to spill out at the camera in 3D. Sadly, nervous executives at Paramount chose to ignore both endings and eventually went with the one used in the theatrical cut.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKEN MANHATTAN:
Avoiding the usual criticism of very little of the film actually being set in New York (due to budgetary issues), one minor incident to have been removed from the script was on the characters’ first arrival in the Big Apple. Having made their way to shore after the massacre that took place on board the S.S Lazarus, the kids head off into the city whilst Jason climbs out of the water. His first evil deed would have been to brutally kick a dog, presumably just for the sake of it (Hodder’s performance in the movie was at Jason’s most angry). But, surprisingly, the actor refused to do the scene, stating that the one thing Jason would never do is hurt a dog. A somewhat redundant argument as he succeeded in doing just that in the second film, but perhaps the way that writer/director Rob Hedden had scripted it was a little too savage.

FRIDAY THE 13TH:
The original opening for Sean S. Cunningham’s movie would have been a more dramatic and action packed sequence than the one eventually used in the finished release. Having left the campfire to be alone, young lovers Barry and Claudette were to have taken a walk around the lake as the unseen killer slowly followed them out-of-sight. A chase would have then ensued around the boathouse, instead of them simply being stabbed in the barn. This drastic re-write was necessary as, on the first night when the sequence was due to be filmed, snow would caused various technical problems and a more simplistic scene was required.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD:
Whilst it would hardly have made a drastic change including the brief scene, The New Blood would have originally featured an epilogue after the action packed finale in which a fisherman is seen out on the lake enjoying a leisurely morning, when suddenly Jason jumps out from under the water and drags him down below. Perhaps, with similar sequences having already been used in both the first and third film, director John Carl Buechler decided against using the shot.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING:
Probably the most uninspired killing in Danny Steinmann’s otherwise ultra-sleazy Friday the 13th movie A New Beginning was the death of punk chick Violet. Whereas her friends had been dispatched in a variety of brutal and inventive ways, Violet’s demise came with a simple stab to the gut. But that was not how Steinmann had originally envisioned it. Whilst performing her bizarre-yet-awesome robot dance to the tune of Pseudo Echo’s ‘His Eyes’, Jason would slowly sneak into the room and make his way towards her. Sensing a presence, she turns around as a machete is thrust violently up between her legs, the blade digging deep into her crotch. Realising that the movie would fall foul of the censors (it would eventually take nine attempts to get the film past the MPAA), Steinmann panicked and re-shot the sequence.

For a genre fan like me this commercial breaks the coolness scale early with Kevin Bacon quoting Kevin Bacon from Tremors (1989 – and the best damn monster franchise until Feast, thank you very much). But the real nugget is 25 seconds in – a familiar poster! The Bacon rarely talks about Friday The 13th little own Tremors, and here he opens up the totality of his career for jesty ridicule.

The set-up? His #1 fan – a virtual lookalike (wink) - shows off his shrine-like house devoted to the actor – and new remote gizmo Logitech’s Revue for Google TV gives him instant access to Bacon-centric YouTube videos, inflating his ego to believing he could become The Bacon. Quite funny… and at the same time, the most disturbing role we’ve seen him in outside of The Woodsman.

A thanks to F13 blog reader Matt Murphy.

So, after opening the presents and outlasting the in-laws, head over to blog talk radio and participate in what should be an great discussion with one of the creators of the ultimate slasher franchise!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/familyproperty/2010/12/27/rm4rp-w-victor-miller

However, the really interesting drawing is the collage, of sorts, created for the original 1980 slasher. This salute to the franchise originator shows Crazy Ralph, Mrs. Voorhees and Alice along with some key scenery, such as the Diner Steve Christy eats, the docks of Crystal Lake where the kids swim, and the cabin where Ned and Jack meet their demise.

So, take a look at these awesome illustrations and let us know what you think!