sequels. “I was really the line producer
on the first film and I also did some
work on the script,” says Miner. “When
Sean got the money to make it, after
that advertisement which I think he
invested his last dime in, he only gave
himself a couple of months to get
everything done. From start to finish,
Friday The 13th just seemed to happen
in a whirlwind.”
For Cunningham, however, it was
simply a temporary means to an end.
“In the back of my mind I was thinking
that this was just a brief return to
making a puke-in-a-bucket sort-of-
thing because Manny’s Orphans was
going to be a big hit,” he recalls. “But
guess what? That never happened...”
Cunningham and a small skeleton crew
set off to an obscure and largely
undisturbed area of New Jersey in
September 1979 – the film was mainly
shot in a leafy little suburb called
Blairstown – to begin filming their
soon-to-be pop-culture phenomenon.
Of course, as anyone who has seen the
original film (or 1996’s Scream, for that
matter) will know, Jason and his iconic
hockey mask were not even
in the original Friday The
13th, which is more of an
Argento-esque murder-
mystery about some camp
counsellors being knocked
off one-by-one via the
hands of a shadowy
gloved assassin.
However, what really
made this teen-kill classic
stand out from the rest
of the plasma-soaked
pot-boilers of the era were
some especially bloody and
brutal special effects,
courtesy of makeup legend Tom Savini.
“I never really watched horror movies
- but I went and saw Dawn Of The Dead
to find some inspiration,” admits
Cunningham. “So I called Tom up in
Pittsburgh – ‘Hey, did you do Dawn Of
The Dead?’” Another throaty chuckle.
“I think part of the fun with Friday The
13th is it was all done before computers.
I remember that we saved the best
death for Kevin Bacon. I cast him when
he had only done one or two movies,
not knowing that he was going to be so
successful... which is why he was one
of the first to die! We had Kevin lying
on a bed, on a freezing cold evening,
and all of a sudden this arrow comes
out of his neck – and it looks so
convincing. Thank you, Tom Savini!
When we screened that to audiences in
1980 they would jump out of their seats
and shout ‘Holy shit!’ you know?”
It was not just the audiences
jumping out of their seats, either.
Before Friday The 13th even made it
to its second screening,
Cunningham had a young,
enthusiastic, second-
generation movie mogul
looking to launch his own
career with this minimally
budgeted bloodbath.
“I screened it at
Paramount and Frank
Mancuso Jr. decided to
take a gamble,” recalls the
director. “He was looking
to step out of his father’s
shadow, and he chose to
do something that [he] had
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