Director: Daniel Farrands
Writers: Thommy Hutson, Anthony Masi

His Name Was Jason would be the result of years of hard work from independent producer Anthony Masi, previously known for his association with the Halloween franchise. Masi was raised in Connecticut and New Jersey and first discovered the horror genre with Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal masterpiece Psycho, but it would be a viewing of Halloween on television that would make the greatest impression. Relocating to Los Angeles in an effort to pursue a career in the movie industry, Masi attended the premiere of Halloween: Resurrection in 2024, where he made the acquaintance of a fellow fan called Paul Swearingen. The two discussed the possibility of organising a Halloween convention and the following year they hosted Halloween Returns to Haddonfield: The 25th Anniversary Convention in Pasadena, California over the Halloween weekend, in which they assembled sixty-plus members of cast and crew from all eight movies in the franchise.

Taking it as an opportunity, Masi decided to film interviews with all those in attendance, which would ultimately make its way into the video retrospective Halloween: 25 Years of Terror. Released by Anchor Bay in 2024, the film was a great success and would help place Masi on the map, whilst also allowing him to launch his own production company, MasiMedia LLC. Following the fifteen-minute featurette The Shape of Horror, which was screened before the original Halloween during its re-release the same year, Masi was contacted by a young filmmaker called Daniel Farrands, who thanked him for his hard work on the convention. Farrands was another life-long fan of the horror genre, having first corresponded with Friday the 13th mentor Frank Mancuso Jr. when he was fourteen. Moving to Los Angeles a few years later, Farrands was granted an interview with Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad, but it would not be for several years until he was given the chance to write his own sequel, 1995’s critically panned Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

At the time of contacting Masi, Farrands was completing work on a detailed and exhaustive book entitled Crystal Lake Memories, which charted the making of each of the Friday the 13th movies. Eager to promote the book, which he had acted as an editor on for author Peter M. Bracke, Farrands suggested a Friday the 13th convention but Masi, who had spent almost a year working on the Halloween event, politely declined. Farrands immediately followed with an idea for a documentary and, with Masi’s previous experience on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, sensed the potential of shooting a new retrospective. The final piece of the puzzle would come with the arrival of Thommy Hutson, whose passion for the franchise had begun back in 1988 when he had snuck into a screening of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. With Farrands having assisted in the creation of Crystal Lake Memories, which had boasted exclusive interviews with dozens of long-lost cast and crew members, the filmmakers had contact details for most of those that they hoped to bring onto the project, whilst Hutson assisted in tracking down other contributors to the series (as would Friday the 13th: The Website’s John Klyza).

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, there were several key figures who were unable to participate, either due to the producers not locating them or simply refusing to take part. Thus, Friday the 13th’s Kevin Bacon, The Final Chapter’s Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover and Alan Hayes and Part V: A New Beginning’s Melanie Kinnaman were notably absent, whilst concerns would surround the mysterious disappearance of Part 2’s Marta Kober. Meanwhile, with Masi having previously worked with Anchor Bay on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror he knew that he had to work with them again on His Name Was Jason, but first there was the issue of copyrights. Over the course of thirty years the franchise had found its way to three different studios; Paramount had distributed the first eight films, whilst Warner Bros. had released the first outside of the United States, and New Line had obtained the series in 1992 and had released three films of their own. Although Masi had agreed on a licensing quote with Paramount, New Line had since been acquired by Warner Bros. and the quote that they demanded was far too much for an independent production. Thus, His Name Was Jason would ultimately only feature footage from the first eight movies.

The productions schedule for His Name Was Jason would prove to be somewhat frantic, with the filmmakers being instructed by Anchor Bay that they would have just thirteen weeks to shoot the interviews, edit the footage and deliver the completed picture. Due to his experience on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, Masi was confident that he would be able to meet the deadline, whilst Ferrand’s association with Crystal Lake Memories made him an invaluable resource of knowledge and trivia. With approximately ninety interviews to conduct, principal shooting took place over a ten-day period on a soundstage in the Burbank district of Los Angeles. Each contributor was allocated one hour, in which they were placed in front of a large screen and allowed to reminisce over their memories and experiences of working on the franchise. With many of the cast and crew having not seen each other for over twenty years, the shoot became something of a reunion as they would pass each other on their way in to their interviews.

The documentary would be hosted by Tom Savini, whose groundbreaking special effects had played a significant role in the success of both the original movie and 1984’s The Final Chapter. The sequences in which Savini provides the narrative whilst being surrounded by props and effects was shot at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Masi would be amazed by how efficient his crew were, who worked tirelessly throughout the three-month production. When it came to structuring the footage during post-production, Masi had already decided that he wanted to avoid going through the franchise in chronological order, as he had already utilised that method with Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and wanted to avoid any obvious comparisons. Instead, they broke up the film into chapters; commencing with a brief rundown of the history of the series, before discussing the writing, casting and method of deaths within each film.

Despite their best attempts, the filmmakers were unable to obtain permission to use footage from the music video for Alice Cooper’s 1986 classic He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask), which had been released to promote Jason Lives. Having made its debut at the Denver Film Festival in November 2024, His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th was released on DVD on February 3rd 2024, the same day that Paramount would finally re-release Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D. Ten days later, the documentary made its network debut on Starz to great acclaim. Shortly after completing work on the film, Farrands was contacted by Paramount’s Tim King, who had struggled to find suitable material for the special edition releases of the first three Friday the 13th DVDs and required expert assistance in digging up achieve material for the later sequels. In 2024, Farrands and Hutson followed up the success of His Name Was Jason with the epic documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, whilst Masi worked on The Psycho Legacy with writer-director Robert V. Galluzzo.

Further reading -
- Crystal Lake’s Bloody Legacy pt.1-14

Over at Amazon.fr, there is a listing for the doco complete with Blu-Ray cover art. The listing does not imply anything will be different from the DVD release. The disc is not for sale yet as you can pre-order the item only. Does this imply that fans in the United States can plan on seeing the series retrospective on Blu-Ray disc in the near future? Time will only tell. The questions is, would it really matter to purchase ‘His Name Was Jason’ in high definition?

Just a heads up for the people who have not seen His Name Was Jason, on Friday May 21st at 5:35 AM,  Encore will be broadcasting the series documentary. Yes, this is very early, but if you have not seen the documentary and have Encore, perhaps you could set your DVR. There are a few other times listed at their website in May.

Other times for viewing as of now are Saturday May 22nd at 4 AM and  Thursday May 27th at 2:40 AM. Iknow these times are not the most desirable, but hey at least the documentary is being aired!

 
HIS NAME WAS JASON: 30 YEARS OF FRIDAY THE 13TH is a two disc set loaded with over 4 hours of bonus material.

30 years ago, a small horror film gave birth to 11 sequels, an endless body count, and one of the most terrifying icons in horror history. Special-effects gore legend Tom Savini is your host for the ultimate documentary with behind the scenes look at the franchise that broke horror box office records and made Jason a pop culture icon. With over 80 interviews from the cast and crew of the Friday the 13th film franchise, including the most recent Friday the 13th film, these firsthand accounts of never-before-told stories and rare behind the scenes photographs offer the ultimate look at the history of FRIDAY THE 13TH!

Special Features/ Extras

Over 4 hours of bonus material.

• Extensive clips are used to illustrate the grisly single-mindedness of Jason’s killing, and various directors, including franchise guru Sean S. Cunningham, weigh in on the heaviness of guiding the various episodes. The 90-minute documentary is just the beginning: fans can delve deep into the nuances of life (and death) at Crystal Lake. A 45-minute featurette on the actors who played Jason and a plethora of other shorts. There’s an hour and 20 minutes of stories from directors, and 30 minutes of screenwriter anecdotes. ‘Dragged from the Lake’ gives light to some amusing discrepancies in the series, as well as detailing actress Adrienne King’s horrifying experience with a stalker.
• Fourteen minutes of fan films give parodistic views of the Jason experience, and ‘Friday the 13th in 4 minutes’ gives a tongue-in-cheek shorthand account of the entire saga. Director Joseph Zito and actor Erich Anderson re-visit the set of The Final Chapter, and actress Gloria Charles takes a tour of the deadly barn from Part 3. Shorter extras include a 5-minute Crystal Lake survival guide (i.e., interviewees reciting the worst mistakes you can make while in proximity to Jason), a quick trip to a Comic-Con, and a tour of Universal Studio’s Friday the 13th horror house. Things round off with a funny bogus ad for the law offices of a character from Part 3, Shelly Finkelstein, the kid that introduced the hockey mask into the series.

Check out all of the pics below. I would love to get this just for the packaging alone. I am sure some collectors already have themselves a copy of this. Thanks to daizab for sending this in.

Yes, we’re a FRIDAY THE 13TH site, but HIS NAME WAS JASON was all kinds of rock, so now that the same creative team are back to conquer Freddy-land, I felt I had to chime in with a show of support. Besides, you just know it’ll be touching on FREDDY VS JASON, though it’ll be from the rarer vantage point of Jason guesting in a NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST instead of the oft-discussed other way around. Read on!

Members of the creative team behind His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th have joined forces once again to bring horror fans the ultimate tribute to yet another landmark slasher series, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy officially began lensing on August 22, 2024, in and around Los Angeles. Starring and narrated by Heather Langenkamp, star of the 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street and two of its sequels (1986′s Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and 1994′s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare), this thrilling 90-minute retrospective promises to be the definitive look at the making of the iconic horror series and the enduring legacy of its wise-cracking, razor-gloved villain: the indefatigable “bastard son of a hundred maniacs” known as Freddy Krueger.

For a quarter century Freddy has slashed his way through the nightmares of two generations of movie-goers in one of the most artful, spectacular, and terrifying film franchises in motion picture history. To characterize the Nightmare on Elm Street series as a modern cultural phenomenon would be a gross understatement. To date, the eight (soon to be nine) Elm Street films have scared up well over half a billion dollars in box office receipts in the U.S. alone, launching the careers of such Hollywood luminaries as Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2), Patricia Arquette (“Medium”), Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential), and even Johnny Depp.

Little did Freddy’s “father“, veteran writer/director Wes Craven, know that his terrifying, child-killing creation would go on to become a cult hero and spawn his very own cottage industry. Today Freddy is practically a household name, with his burned visage, trademark fedora, and red and green sweater appearing on everything from T-shirts to video games to action figures to comic books (Freddy was even the star of his own weekly television series!). It’s safe to say that Freddy Krueger may never rest in peace – nor should he – since his fans keep clamoring for more. Even Newsweek called him “The most popular cinematic maniac since Darth Vader.”

“Freddy is like the ‘unholy spirit’ in the trinity of modern monsters alongside Jason from Friday the 13th and Michael Myers from Halloween,” says co-director and producer Daniel Farrands, who previously helmed the documentary His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th and produced the 2024 Deluxe Editions of the Friday the 13th films for Paramount Home Entertainment. A veteran of the horror genre, Farrands most recently served as a producer of the hit supernatural thriller The Haunting in Connecticut, which has grossed nearly $80 million worldwide. “Freddy and the Nightmare films are icons of our generation, and our documentary will revisit the franchise in an exciting new way that will be respectful to the fans and to the films themselves,” assures Farrands.

Co-director and editor Andrew Kasch (Thirsty) concurs, “The Nightmare series has long been regarded as the most high-brow and creative of the mega horror franchises, so our goal is to make a film that reflects those qualities. While His Name Was Jason was campy and off-the-wall, this documentary will offer a serious chronological account of the creative process – the hardships and triumphs behind one of Hollywood’s most iconic characters. Above all else, this is not a fluff or promotional piece for the upcoming remake but rather will focus on the original series of films that began with Wes Craven’s 1984 classic.”

“The Nightmare franchise has had such a huge impact on the genre and its fans and is truly an important piece of horror history,” adds producer/co-writer Thommy Hutson (His Name Was Jason, Prank). “These films proved that horror could be both terrifying and dramatic, thrilling and groundbreaking. And that’s why we’re so thrilled to bring fans an extensive behind-the-scenes look into Freddy Krueger’s hallucinogenic world like never before. It’s a way of paying tribute to Wes Craven’s original vision which has inspired so many of us … and given us a few really good nightmares, too.”

In addition to the exhaustive feature-length documentary, the two-disc DVD release of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy will feature over four hours of nightmare-inducing extras, including the original documentary I Am Nancy, written, produced and directed by star Heather Langenkamp, which looks back at the last 25 years since her debut as heroine Nancy Thompson and examines the impact of the Elm Street films on young people’s lives.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy will be released in the spring of 2024.

Update – Trailer Added!

Source: Dread Central

Thanks again to Daizab for emailing in the information.

Jason Voorhees has carved his place into American pop culture and is one of the most recognizable cinematic killer in horror history. Now nearly, 30 years later, see how it all happened! With over 100 interviews with cast and crew, behind the scenes footage and dozen of film clips spanning the entire Friday the 13th series leading up to the 2/13/09 remake, there is no better way to get up close and personal with one of the most feared icons of our generation.

BD: What made you decide to do the documentary?

Farrands: I was the editor and, I guess you could call me the co-publisher of “Crystal Lake Memories” with Peter and Geoff Garrett. We had pooled a lot of resources and money into creating “Memories” and it was a big success with the fans, everyone seemed to love it. And it wasn’t long after that that we approached Tony Masi who had done the Halloween documentary, and talked about how it would be an interesting time to do a documentary [on Friday]. But nothing happened for a while, and then the anniversary was coming up, and the remake was announced, and we kind of just put our heads together and said “This is the time, there’s going to be a lot of interest because of the remake.” So the timing was right.

BD: Can you take us through the process of setting up an interview? Many of these people must be hard to find since they are no longer involved in filmmaking…

Farrands: Well the good thing was that we had the contacts because of the book. So all of those people were reachable, so it wasn’t like we had to start from scratch and contact agents and introduce ourselves. And Peter was kind enough to make introductions for all of the people I hadn’t met during the process of making the book. So it was a nice synergy, it worked out really well. And since we had a limited timeframe, it was good to deal with a subject that was so familiar. It was a lot of just calling people, dealing with scheduling. Thommy Hutson, one of our producers, did a fantastic job of getting people lined up. We pulled it off.

BD: Was there anyone you simply could not FIND?

Farrands: A couple people. Some people had sort of chosen to stay away from it… like Melanie Kinnaman from part 5. Certainly Kevin Bacon was someone we really tried for, and Thommy had a couple conversations with Kevin’s people, and they were actually really nice, and even sort of enthusiastic about it, but at the end of the day they just said “no”. One I really tried to reach out to was Marta Kober, Sandra from part 2. She has literally just gone missing, and her family is really concerned for her. I guess she had some issues. I found some relatives that I was able to reach out to, and they said “We don’t even know where she is and we’re very concerned.” It’s pretty sad. So she’s certainly the most difficult one to track down. And a guy named Alan Hayes from part 4 (Paul), we’ve been chasing him for a while and it turns out his name isn’t Alan Hayes at all! His name is Clyde Hayes, and we got in touch with a manager who used to rep him and he didn’t know how to reach him either. People have gotten out of the business and moved on, it’s a challenge to find people who have moved on with their lives.

BD: One thing that people are going to be curious about is why the New Line films don’t have any clips…

Farrands: That’s a situation of studio politics. What happened there was we had been reaching out for months to New Line, and we were doing the show right after Warner Bros. had sort of absorbed New Line. So the people who we had worked with at New Line (when we were doing the book) had been laid off. And New Line couldn’t have been MORE supportive when we were doing the book, and I’m sure they would have felt the same about this. But unfortunately, it had become a Warner Bros. clearance issue; we ended up having to go through the standard channels of Warner Bros., and we’re working with a limited budget on a show like this, and we’re trying to explain that to everyone from the legal people to the producers of the remake to the people who handle these library titles, and trying to explain that this is only going to help promote their titles, their films. But it all kind of fell on deaf ears and they just kept quoting us their standard rates for clips, and at the end of the day we just couldn’t afford to pay the rates that they were charging us. Paramount was very different, they were very generous. We still had to pay money to show clips from 1-8, but they gave us a deal where we could show them aggregate for a lower rate. Warner Bros. wasn’t willing to do that, and I think it’s unfortunate; I think the show would have been a lot better if they had been more cooperative and helping us get something that would have helped promote their franchise. Believe me, it was extremely frustrating to all of us.

BD: And I understand Paramount is going to release special editions of a few more of the films now?

Farrands: Yeah, after we finished His Name Was Jason, I was contacted by a guy who produces the special features for many of the Paramount DVDs, and he had been searching for a guy who really understands the franchise. And I think they had run into some issues on the reissues of Parts 1-3, and Paramount wanted to do new things, new material for 4-6, and consequently we’ll be doing 7 and 8. They wanted somebody with a lot of knowledge to bring something new to the table. And after the things we didn’t get on our show, it was a great opportunity for me to come in and work with the people who actually own this material and be able to give fans more of what they want. I can’t promise that it will have everything that everybody has always wanted to see, but we’re getting there. We’re making progress. We’ve found some amazing things that nobody has ever taken the time to look for. My editor Andrew Kasch and I have just been scavenging the lowest dregs of the Paramount vaults to find the things that fans want to see. We’ve have limited success with some things, but we’re working on it and believe me, there’s so much passion behind it. We’re doing our best to put something out that will hopefully make the fans more satisfied than they were with the previous versions that Paramount put out.

BD: Anything specific you can tell us that we might see?

Farrands: It’s still being worked out, I can’t say a lot. There will be some scenes, especially in part 4, that fans will be VERY interested in seeing. That’s all I can say right now. But there are quite a few clips that have been recently uncovered thanks to our work. And it was a lot of work!

BD: And when will those be in stores?

Farrands: 4-6 will be coming out in June, I’ve been told. And 7 and 8 will come out after that, and I am hearing there will be a new boxed set before the end of the year, but I don’t know if that is official yet.

BD: Will there be Blu-ray editions for any more of them?

Farrands: There’s some talk, I don’t know what they are specifically planning.

BD: OK, so now that we have the Friday documentary to compliment the Friday book, when are we gonna see the Halloween book to compliment the Halloween documentary?

Farrands: (Laughs) That’s been talked about for a while! The difficulty with Halloween is that the rights to the various films are owned by so many different people. You have Universal Studios involved, you got Dimension/Miramax involved, and now you got Disney involved because all of the Dimension movies that were made before they split up with Disney remained at Disney, so that’s another avenue you have to deal with when you’re trying to license photo rights. So it gets complicated and expensive, but it’s something that has been talked about for a long time. If we could do it, we’d love to do it. It was a weird thing when we did “Crystal Lake Memories”, it was two studios and the stars just aligned. We did it at a time when there wasn’t a lot of activity in Friday the 13th. And Peter saw the value of doing it, and I think it was after the fact that the studio people were like “Oh, THAT’s what you were doing!” I don’t think anyone saw it coming. Now that people see the value in something like this, they’re all going to want their share of the coin, and make it more difficult to do stuff like this. I’m just proud that we got that book done. But again, if we could do Halloween, and someone came along to make that deal with the photos and things like that, of course we’d jump on it.

Source: Bloody-Disgusting

REVIEW: Christian Sellers

Thanks to Michael Moore, Metal: A Headbangers Journey and Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, the documentary is no longer something that is reduced to a DVD featurette and has now become a movie in its own right. The one movie that gorehounds have been counting down the days for is His Name Was Jason: Thirty Years of Friday the 13th, a retrospective of the most successful horror franchise of all time. It seems that the filmmakers got everyone in on the act – writers, producers, directors, stars, FX artists, extras and even fans – to reminisce on their memories and thoughts of Jason’s three decade-long killing spree, which would take him from the legendary Crystal Lake to New York, Hell, space and back again.

Let’s cut to the chase – this is a fanboy’s wet dream. Viewers are not only treated to interviews with the cast and crew of each movie, but the filmmakers also treat us to location visits, achieve footage, uncut death scenes (despite the MPAA refusing to release the Paramount sequels as they were intended) and much more. So those who have never seen Jason’s face slide down the machete at the end of The Final Chapter or Tina’s empty eye sockets in A New Beginning will finally get to see Jason handiwork in all its blood-soaked glory. It’s basically a visual companion to Peter Bracke’s excellent book Crystal Lake Memories, which of course is no bad thing.

The structure of His Name Was Jason helps to make the feature more digestible, with the first ten or so minutes giving a brief overview of the franchise and each movie before literally being split into chapters of sorts – first they explore the character of Jason, before discussing what makes a Friday the 13th movie, the inventive kills, the make-up itself, the victims, Jason’s place in popular culture and the future of the franchise. So after fans are given a brief reminder of the events of the previous eleven movies, we are then taken on a ninety minute journey through Camp Crystal Lake’s bloody legacy.

As with anything, there are a flew flaws, though these are minor. As many of the filmmakers had already discussed this series in various documentaries and books they have almost created a script that they recite each time (the best example of this is Sean S. Cunningham, whose recollections are reused almost word for word each time he is asked to discuss the series), though for those who have never read up on the franchise before then they will find what he has to say very interesting. Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, there are a few elements that do not make it into the film, most notably Alice Cooper’s hit single He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask), which was released to coincide with the success of Jason Lives. It would have been a nice little extra for the fans but, again, this is only a minor criticism.

But what is right with the documentary more than makes up for it, as director Dan Farrands (whose previous slasher experience was scripting the 1994 movie Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) and writers Anthony Masi and Thommy Hutson’s love for the project clearly shows with the level of detail that each interviewee gives when recounting their memories of their involvement in the series. And the list of horror celebrities that appear in the film is also impressive. So not only are fans treated to the likes of Kane Hodder, Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Larry Zerner, John Carl Buechler and Todd Farmer, but the feature itself is narrated by none other than Tom Savini, the man responsible for Jason’s original look in the first movie. Others on hand to show their love include directors Adam (Hatchet) Green, Joe (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) Lynch and Bloody Disgusting editor Brad Miska. Though it is a shame that Corey (The Final Chapter) Feldman and Robert (Freddy vs. Jason) Englund are absent as it would have been fun to have heard their thoughts as well.

What makes this little package even more exciting is that it comes in a well presented ’2 Disc Splatter Edition,’ with a bonus disc full of juicy goodies. There are additional interviews with the writers and directors, a Men Behind the Mask featurette that focuses on the actors who have played Jason, The Camp Crystal Lake Survival Guide and loads more. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with a booklet but there is a nice fold-out poster of the front cover (it would have been nice to have seen Jason Craig and Thomas Mason’s poster that they had drawn for the release – now used as our profile picture – but the artwork is still impressive). That said, His Name was Jason is the ultimate retrospective of this ground breaking series and a must for Jason fans everywhere. Order your copy now from the likes of Amazon, as the DVD will be receiving a region 1 release on the 3rd of February.

For further reading check out our interviews with Anthony Masi and Thommy Hutson.