So what the hell am I referring to that has me grinning like a stupid goon even months after the fact? It started with some Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) ‘contact cards’ of a deleted scene and the holy grail alternate ending posted on Scabboy’s sadly defunct blog. Contact cards are essentially – as far as I can tell – photographic frame grabs from film negative. Where this traveled further was when Forum user Slash Man got the genius notion to compile the low-q black & white frames together like a flipbook animation. The resulting videos, while obviously jerky and lacking original sound, give us a tip-of-the-tongue taste of material we’ve only daydreamed about and will likely never see in full. Extra points for dropping in some Manfredini to feed our ears as well. Play buttons? You know you want to click ‘em…

So this first one is an omitted sequence of part 3′s Crazy Ralph imitator, the biblically-named Abel. He was going to cross paths with Chris and Rick in the woods later on in the film and carry on with his ranting and raving. Not a terribly devastating loss of a scene, it would appear. I’m not sure if this scene is in the novelization as my copy isn’t within direct reach right now – feel free to illuminate.

And here is the gravy: motion of unmasked Jason with Chris’ decapitated head from the dream sequence that was dopily replaced by a pond-bursting Mrs Voorhees with strangely re-capitated head? The powers that be were clearly smoking some of Chuck & Chilli’s weed when they made that ‘creative’ decision. This is one lost scene that deserves to be seen properly someday, somehow.

Friday the 13th Part 3 would continue the tradition of the Grand Guignol-style theatrics that fans had grown accustomed to but and would feature some of the most graphic murders of the franchise, although as a combination of both the added 3-D effects and strict MPAA regulations, each set piece would ultimately be relatively blood-free. Despite this, throughout the duration of its ninety-five minute running time, the victims of the movie would be sliced in half whilst performing handstands, having hands severed and spears fired directly through the eyes. Perhaps the most outrageous of all, however, was reserved for Paul Kratka, whose head would be crushed to the point that his eyeballs literally burst out of his skull.

Director Steve Miner had taken every possible opportunity to have objects of all kinds reach out to his audience in groundbreaking 3-D, ranging from joints to yo-yos, but Kratka’s somewhat unlikely demise would prove the most memorable. The task of providing an array of gruesome gags would fall to Douglas White and his team at Make-up Effects Lab, whose prior experience with 3-D was Charles Band’s low budget feature Parasite. In keeping with not only the Friday the 13th series but the slasher genre as a whole, Kratka’s character, Rick, would put up little fight against the movie’s villain, Jason Voorhees, and would be dispatched with little effort. Although the filmmakers had set him up as the hero (alongside Dana Kimmell’s ‘final girl’), he would prove to be as incompetent and vulnerable as the other males and authority figures.

Two months before principal photography was set to commence at the Valuzet Movie Ranch in Saugus, California, Kratka was brought to the special effects workshop, where his upper body and head was covered in plaster and silicon. The experience would prove somewhat unpleasant for the twenty-six year old actor, whose only method of breathing was through two small straws that had been inserted into his nostrils. The effects team then used an electric saw to cut away the mould cast from around Kratka’s face and from there created a life-size replica of his head and torso. This would be the most demanding effect for White and his team, although the realism of having to perform the gag in 3-D would prove to be even more difficult.

With Rick surviving throughout most of the movie, Kratka’s death scene would be shot near the end of the production, when filming had moved to nighttime. By 3am, Miner was ready to shoot the scene and Kratka had performed his contribution, in which Jason grabs him from behind and lifts him up off the ground by his head. White then brought out the dummy and Kratka took a step back to watch his own death unfold before his eyes. The key to the gag was that White had created a collapsible head for the dummy, which actor Richard Brooker, in the role of Jason, would be able to crush relatively easy. This was designed using fiberglass that could be expanded back to its original form for multiple takes, something which Miner feared would be necessary due to the demands of 3-D.

White’s most difficult challenge was figuring out how the eyeball would burst out of the head and fly directly towards the audience. After discussing possibilities with his crew he had three solutions; one was to fire the eyeball out of the skull using compressed air, but the main concern with this technique was that they would be unable to guide it towards the camera, whilst the dual 3-D lenses meant that it had to hit a very specific target. Another suggestion was to run a rod through the back of the head that the eyeball could be led through, but this would prove impossible to hide from the camera. Eventually, it was decided that a wire would be be required in order to move the eyeball discretely, whilst also being able to control which direction it would run from.

Using a monofilament wire, which is so strong-yet-thin it would remain invisible to the camera, White ran a jerkline through the socket to the back of the eyeball. As Brooker began to crush the head, White pulled on a lever which caused the skull to collapse. At that exact moment, effects artist Martin Becker (who would ultimately work on the subsequent five sequels) pulled the eyeball from the socket using the wire and sent it directly to the target between the dual lenses which, given the angle, would keep the wire hidden from the camera. Miner would later express regret with the sequence, admitting that the effect by today’s standard looks less than impressive, but audiences who saw the film in 3-D back in 1982 gave the appropriate response.

Whilst many actors have portrayed the character of Jason Voorhees over the years, only one actor has the distinction of being the first ever Jason to don the infamous hockey mask. Whilst he had obscured his features behind a sack in Friday the 13th Part 2, the makers of Part 3 knew that they needed something more memorable for the second sequel. There had also been some concerns over the portrayal of Jason in the previous film, with director Steve Miner and the producers feeling that a lumbering killer who lacks intelligence or aggression was not as menacing as they had hoped. Despite Part 3 being set almost immediately after the events of Part 2, Jason would be undergo a significant makeover, whilst the role would also be recast with someone more athletic and agile. Richard Brooker had only recently relocated to America, following a relatively successful career in Europe as a trapeze artist. After discovering an advert in a casting magazine called Dramalogue, which requested a tall actor for a role in an upcoming horror movie, Brooker arrived at the audition and met with Miner who, after a short conversation, offered the young actor the part of Jason.

The task of redesigning the look of Jason for Part 3 fell to Stan Winston, a rising special effects artist who had befriended Miner years earlier whilst he was still a struggling stand-up comic in Los Angeles. Brooker made his way to Winston’s workshop in Northridge, California, where his face was cast in plaster in order for Winston to create a latex mask for the actor. Despite his impressive work, Miner and the producers felt that the new design looked too much like a monster and so Miner turned to Douglas J. White, of Make-up and Effects Laboratories, to create a new Jason. Brooker would be subjected to between six and seven hours a day of make-up for approximately two weeks for his unmasked scenes, in which Jason would now be completely bald (as opposed to the random strands of hair he was given in the second movie). With the make-up finally applied by lunch time, Brooker was unable to eat due to the prosthetics and was instead forced to drink tiger’s milk through a straw. Miner would allow Brooker a certain amount of creative freedom in which to portray the role of Jason, even encouraging improvisation with his movements. The only instruction that the director would give him was that he was not to ask what Jason’s motives were, as he kills without reason.

Even prior to wearing the hockey mask his co-stars were intimidated by the six-foot-three-inch actor, with Steve Susskind (in the role of gluttonous shopkeeper Harold) nervous during a sequence in which his character was to be hit in the chest with a meat cleaver. Understandably, the most difficult aspect of the shoot for Brooker would be the 3-D, in which he would have to conduct each kill in a very specific manner in order for it to pick up on the dual lenses. Much speculation has surrounded who was responsible for the introduction of the hockey mask, but all on set were unnerved when Brooker first walked out wearing the mask, for the sequence in which he fires a spear into the eye of Vera (Catherine Parks). Much of Brooker’s unmasking during the climax of the movie would be cut out of the final cut, as an alternative dream sequence would have shown Jason beheading the heroine, Chris (Dana Kimmell), although the producers eventually settled on an ending that paid homage to the original movie. Whilst Jason’s new mask would become a symbol of popular culture, Brooker’s work on Friday the 13th Part 3 allowed him to become a union member and would lead to a modest career as both an actor and stuntman on movies such as Deathstalker.

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.

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.

Director: Steve Miner
Writers: Martin Kitrosser, Carol Watson
Starring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks, Larry Zerner, Richard Brooker
Producer: Frank Mancuso Jr.
Music: Harry Manfredini
Special Makeup Effects: Douglas J. White

As well as the slasher film, the early 1980s was dominated by 3-D. Just as it had done in the mid-1950s, there had been a major resurgence in the format that had begun with such low key efforts as Comin’ at Ya! and Parasite, which eventually led to a slew of studio pictures that were attempts to revive fledging franchises, such as Jaws 3 and Amityville 3. Friday the 13th had already proven itself to be shamelessly derivative and eager to capitalise on the latest trends and so perhaps it was inevitable that they would eventually turn to 3-D in an effort to boost box office figures. Despite an impressive performance, the butchering of Friday the 13th Part 2 at the hands of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) had left many fans disappointed with the lack of gore that had made the first movie so popular and so Paramount Pictures, desperate for a way to win back their core audience, decided to embrace the 3-D revival.

Due to his hard work and commitment to the production of the second movie, Frank Mancusco Jr. would be promoted to the title of producer for Friday the 13th Part 3, whilst Steve Miner would once again return to the director’s chair. Whilst Paramount had remained at arms length during the production of Part 2, purchasing the movie as a negative pick-up upon completion, they had been impressed with the box office figures and decided to take a more hands-on approach for the second sequel. Once again, however, Georgetown would oversee the development, having financed the first two movies, although this time they would have support from a major studio. With the return of 3-D, Paramount knew that they could make a fortune if the format proved as popular as it had been in the 1950s and at first gave thought to producing Star Trek III using the technology.

To help develop the 3D, Paramount’s Frank Mancuso Sr. had approached Martin Jay Sadoff, who had grown up in his neighbourhood and had made an impression with his experiments with the format. Following his work with Astral Bellevue Pathé, Sadoff was contacted by Tony Bishop, who informed him that he was producing the next Friday the 13th movie and that Sadoff’s name had been suggested. After conducting research on the practicality of how the 3-D could be achieved and shown in cinemas nationwide, Sadoff eventually settled on a camera designed by 3-D pioneer Mortimer Marks. In an attempt to revolutionise the format, Sadoff had spent over a year experimenting with 3-D in an attempt to find a new and exciting way with which to thrill modern audiences. Meanwhile, director of photography Gerald Feil, who had previously lensed the cult slasher He Knows You’re Alone, had also been researching the format for a proposed adaption of the classic tale Peter Pan with filmmaker Mike Nichols (The Graduate) that sadly never came to pass. This would prepare him for what he would experience when shooting Friday the 13th Part 3.

With Friday the 13th Part 2‘s Ron Kurz having passed, the task of writing a script that would not only lend itselt to 3-D but also build upon the previous installments fell to Martin Kitrosser, a script supervisor by trade who had worked on the first two movies and would later collaborate with Quentin Tarantino on each of his films. Kitrosser’s subsequent screenwriting career would prove to be somewhat uneventful, with the highlights including Meatballs Part II (a comedy directed by Eyes of a Stranger‘s Ken Wiederhorn) and the straight-to-video sequel Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker. The script for Friday the 13th Part 3 would ultimately be a collaboration between Kitrosser and his wife, Carol Watson, which would lead to several projects that the duo would work on throughout the 1980s. Unimpressed with their work, Miner and Mancuso Jr. would search for a suitable writer to provide uncredited script doctoring, eventually settling on Romanian-born Petru Popescu who, at the time, was studying at the American Film Institute. Despite not being a fan of the slasher film, Popescu worked on the plot and added humour to the script, although character development would prove to be one of the filmmakers’ lesser concerns.

Whilst the cast of the previous two installments had boasted appearances from ’50s star Betsy Palmer, the actors that would make up Friday the 13th Part 3 (although they would attempt to downplay its association with the franchise during the early auditions) consisted of newcomers, whilst the filmmakers’ attempts to bring back Part 2‘s heroine, Amy Steel, had proven unsuccessful. Nineteen-year old Tracie Savage had already forged a career on television during the 1970s with roles in the likes of Little House on the Prairie, due to her mother, Judy Savage, having assisted through her company The Savage Agency. Another client was Paul Kratka, who had appeared in various commercials and on the show General Hospital. Despite having little knowledge of the horror genre, Kratka was advised that the character he was reading for was a carpenter and so attended his callback wearing a parka, jeans and boots and carrying a power saw.

Kitrosser and Watson had discovered eighteen-year old Larry Zerner on the streets of Los Angeles, handing out tickets for a screening of the second Max Max movie The Road Warrior outside a theatre in Westwood. During his audition, Zerner was instructed by Miner not to act but just to be himself, allowing Zerner to incorporate much of his own personality into that of his character. Having graduated from the University of South Florida, Catherine Parks had been crowned Miss Florida at the Miss America Pageant in 1978, before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Parks had been in Los Angeles less than six months when she auditioned for Friday the 13th Part 3, which would prove to be her first substantial role. With Steel unable to return to the franchise the producers were forced to find another lead to play their heroine, resulting in Kratka being called back several times to read alongside actresses. The role would eventually go to Dana Kimmell, who would request that, for personal reasons, references to her and Kratka’s characters having sex be removed from the script.

Unlike its predecessors, Friday the 13th Part 3 would not be shot on the east coast, with filming instead taking place at the Valuzet Movie Ranch in Saugus, California, due to the technical challenges of the 3-D. Following the complications surrounding the casting of their killer, Jason, in Part 2, the role of the antagonist would go to British ex-trapeze artist Richard Brooker, who would ultimately become the first actor to ever don the now infamous hockey mask. Despite its iconic status in popular culture, this was not the mask that was in the script. In fact, even during filming the producers were unsure on what kind of mask Jason should wear, although Miner knew that the character could not use the ‘bag’ that he had worn in the second movie. Whilst many present on set that day have tried to take the credit for the decision, it would be Miner who would give final approval and thus be responsible for the makeover that Jason would receive.

With the 3-D aspect being the main selling point of the picture, some of the cast felt that Miner and the producers had little interest in the actors, which would result on some of the young cast giving less-than-impressive performances. In keeping with the spirit of the franchise the movie would include several memorable set pieces, most notably the death of Kratka’s character, in which Jason would squeeze his skull so hard that his eyes would burst out of their sockets. With the actor having both his head and torso cast in plaster, a dummy was created with a silicon head which Brooker would be able to crush, whilst the eyes moved along on an (almost) invisible wire. Parks would also receive a rather brutal death, with Jason firing a spear into her eye. To achieve this, the spear was sent through the air via a wire, with the footage then cutting to a reaction shot of Parks, thus creating the illusion of contact. This sequence had to be shot in one take, however, as once Parks fell into the water the prosthetic make-up would fall to pieces.

Paramount Pictures released Friday the 13th Part 3 August 13th 1982, the first to be released on a Friday the 13th. On a budget of $2.25m (then the highest in the series but surpassed the following year by Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), the movie would earn approximately $36.6m at the US box office, not quite as successful as the first film but a far more impressive total than Part 2. The film would be accompanied by a disco theme tune composed by Michael Zager, who had scored minor acclaim during the 1970s, which would be included during the opening credits. The song would become a club hit following the release of the movie and has since become a collector’s item. Perhaps unsurprising, given their track record, the movie was not greeted well by critics, although many fans would also express their disappointment with the movie. However, over the years Part 3 has achieved a ‘so bad it’s good’ cult status and is often considered one of the best in the franchise by fans.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Further reading -
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.1 – Friday the 13th (1980)
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.2 – Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

A terrible visage to behold, the Jason Voorhees – Friday the 13th Part III Premium Format Figure brings to life the legendary horror icon of the Friday the 13th film series. Complete with a hand-tailored fabric costume, each piece is hand-painted and finished, each with its own unique quality and detail that is the trademark of a handcrafted Sideshow Collectibles Premium Format Figure.

There are two versions of the figure being sold. The exclusive figure comes with interchangable hands so to have Jason show off either an axe or machete. Also, that same figure comes with an interchangeable head to display Jason’s face which is something only his mother could love. For more information on this figure or to place an order, visit the Sideshow website!

Watch the preview below and leave your thoughts.

Josh and his Dead End Hollow brand have been churning out some truly spectacular masks from not only the Friday the 13th series, but all different horror genre films. Check out all of our stories and the big interview we conducted with Josh a few months back. Now, Dead End Hollow has finished their first pull of the Triple H (Horror At Higgins Haven).

View the new pics of the unpainted mask below, modeled in some images with a familiar mask and shirt. There should be pics of the mask painted available soon and we will post them when they are ready. If you are interested in purchasing this mask, hit up Josh at his website, http://www.wix.com/deadendhollow/dead-end-hollow.

The images below are of Larry getting his makeup applied for his scene when Chili finds his character after an unfortunate encounter with Jason. Enjoy!