Horror I Have Missed: Friday the 13th

Hey folks and welcome back to the Aimless Adulteration. Given it is Friday the 13^th I always make a big production of whatever stills I have on hand and give you all a Happy Friday the 13^th reference here and there but this time around I noticed something vital. Ya see long before the resurrections, zombification or even the potato sack days, Jason was a deformed boy that was mocked and picked on by the kids of the camp. His mother Pamela was the cook at Camp Crystal Lake and his father was nowhere to be found. Then one day he was out in the lake and he drown. You think that may have had some repercussions. This is the original Friday the 13^th.

Got..something..itching my throat.

Fresh off of Here Come the Tigers and Manny's Orphans director/producer Sean Cunningham (The Last House on the Left, Case of the Full Moon Murders, Here Come the Tigers, Manny's Orphans, The New Kids, House, House II: The Second Story, DeepStar Six, The Horror Show and Terminal Invasion) and writer Victor Miller (The Black Pearl, Manny's Orphans, Friday the 13^th, A Stranger Is Watching, Another World, Guiding Light and All My Children) are peddling Manny's Orphans but there is no guarantee on whether it will be a hit and when the residual checks will start happening so what do you do?

Not so footloose now, are ya?

Well you hook up with FX and SFX make-up artist/stuntman/actor guru Tom Savini (Dead of Night,Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Maniac, Eyes of a Stranger, The Burning, The Prowler, Nightmare, Midnight, Day of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) fresh off of Romero's Martin, get some Karo Syrup, food dye, a few tricked out weapon props and some fresh faces to be butchered. So the summer of 1979 with gore gags planned and plenty of dribbly blood at the ready, our cast and crew set off to make some records...okay they didn't know that a half million dollar budgeted slasher film was going to launch several sequels, give Paramount a substantial paycheck and would be loved for multiple generations.

So let's set the story shall we? An ambitious young man Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer of Love of Life, Friday the 13^th, As the World Turns, One Life to Live, All My Children, Arthur and Person of Interest) decides to buy up the property of Camp Crystal Lake and get this camp back up to specs for kids to come out for the summer and get out of their parents' hair and maybe learn a few things about the wild.

His counselors/clean-up crew consists of: easy going Jack (Kevin Bacon of Animal House, Footloose, Quicksilver, She's Having a Baby, Tremors, Flatliners, Queens Logic, JFK, A Few Good Men, Wild Things and Stir of Echoes), wise cracking smart ass Ned (Mark Nelson of Friday the 13^th, Bloodhounds of Broadway, The Seventh Coin, The First Wives Club, Suddenly Susan, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Spin City and Law & Order: Criminal Intent) good girl Alice (Adrienne King of Inherit the Wind, Between the Lines, Saturday Night Fever, Hair, What's Eating Gilbert Grape and All American Bully), sweet Marcie (Jeannie Taylor of Friday the 13^th and The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana), no nonsense Brenda (Laurie Bartram of Another World, Emergency!, The House of Seven Corpses and Friday the 13^th) and cool and collective Bill (Harry Crosby of Riding for the Pony Express, Friday the 13^th, The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, Double Trouble and Hollow Venus: Diary of a Go-Go Dancer). The spunky cook, Annie (Robbi Morgan of What's the Matter with Helen?, Friday the 13^th, Forbidden Love, The Fall Guy, I Married a Centerfold, Dutch Hollow and The Sub) didn't know the dangers of hitchhiking or Camp Crystal Lake.

Whaddua mean I look like John Holmes in a yellow slicker?

Thankfully we get the first appearance of Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney of Heavy Traffic, Cops and Robbers, King Kong, Day of the Animals, Nunzio, Friday the 13^th, Endless Love, Trading Places, Easy Money, Seize the Day and Friday the 13^th Part VII: The New Blood) who creepily warns her of the impeding doom of Camp Crystal Lake and really got his message out.

Slowly but surely, the cast starting getting weeded out like so much chaff from the wheat but on this dark and stormy night, it is not uncommon for the phones to be down, or the generator to suddenly stop working or the cast to separate like the herd of derp they have become.

Is there a smart one among them? Will sex, drugs and booze assure their tombstones?? Who is the killer??

Really a quick trip to the local library (No Google then, the savages) would have pointed out issues of Camp Blood as the was a boy that drowned in the lake in 1957, some counselors that were murdered in 1958, unexplained fires and even an attempt to reopen the camp in 1962, the water was bad. That last one is vague. Algae perhaps? Rivers of blood? Dead bodies floating to the surface? That stinky smell of dead raccoon?

Any rate to point out the impact this film had is YET ANOTHER remake, reboot, re-imagining is trying to go under way for 2017 after the less than satisfactory remake in 2009 with a failed concept by then Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman of Friday the 13^th Part 4: The Final Chapter) who stated he wanted to have a match of of Jason vs Jarvis and that was in talks and develop since 2012 and went nowhere. Apparently fans begged for this and Feldman felt obligated to at least try. Sorry Corey, guess the studio didn't see it the magnum opus that Freddy vs Jason was.   Gah, what a unflushable turd that flick managed to be.

Ax her anything, she won't respond.