To celebrate today’s date, we asked our contributors and some friends of the site (in alphabetical order)…
WHAT WAS YOUR INTRODUCTION TO ‘FRIDAY THE 13th?’
Jon Abrams
I’ll start by saying that when it comes to the more modern icons of horror, Michael Myers is my guy. He’s the one I’ve had the most nightmares about. But as a kid of the VHS-and-basic-cable era, I didn’t encounter Mike in his proper introduction, 1978’s HALLOWEEN. That isn’t even the first HALLOWEEN movie I ever saw, which would have been HALLOWEEN III (the one without Michael Myers). Nope. I first met Mike the same place I first met his good pal Jason Voorhees: The haunted house at Ward Acres, in my hometown. I probably first met Freddy Krueger there too, although I was best acquainted with Fred out of all those guys, since he had a spot on the wall of my best friend, Jason Patience, and haunted me every time I slept over at his house.
So yeah, the first time I encountered Michael Myers, he wasn’t portrayed by Nick Castle, nor was Jason Voorhees being played by Ari Lehman or Steve Dash or Richard Brooker or Ted White or C.J. Graham or Kane Hodder — under the mask was some dipshit local teenager in a cheap costume, his identity lost forever to time.
Or did a small Jon Abrams cross paths one Halloween season long ago with the real Jason Voorhees, doing a HELL FEST-style cameo by sauntering through a neighborhood haunt in plain sight? We can never know.
The first FRIDAY THE 13th movie I ever saw had to have been JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, which I would say perfectly set the tone for my relationship to the franchise: Excited by its imaginative possibilities, briefly thrilled by its sinister joys, vaguely disappointed by its failures of execution.
The authentic first encounter, then, had to have been the best: Walking over a rickety wooden bridge with the smell of stage smoke in the night air, with a cheap “Camp Crystal Lake” sign in my peripheral vision, and suddenly — some kid in a hockey mask jumping out from around a corner, swinging a rubber machete — and me, screaming my first-grade head off. I remember clutching the hand of Mrs. Roberts, the mother of another of my childhood best friends, also named Jason — funny how many Jasons I had in my life back then! I was terrified, and Mrs. Roberts, God bless her, finally started hollering back at all the ghouls, chastising them for scaring me too bad. Sometimes I wonder why I always liked Pam Grier best of all onscreen shit-kickers, and sometimes I don’t have to go wondering off too far. They oughtta make a PAM (Grier, not Voorhees) VS. JASON.
Matthew W. Anderson
While I was familiar with the franchise of FRIDAY THE 13th, I never actually saw one of the movies until I finally saw FRIDAY THE 13th 3D on TBS. Of course, it wasn’t in 3D, and I didn’t know it was supposed to be either (I was probably 11 or 12 at the time) and it was cut to ribbons for content. I was also rather confused as to why Jason didn’t have the hockey mask when the movie started (of course, he’d get his mask eventually).
Phil Bailey
FRIDAY THE 13th was literally the first movie I ever rented on videotape, Betamax no less. There were very few offerings at that time, but I remember the poster and hearing people talking about it coming out of a twin cinema a few months earlier so it was a must watch. So thanks to the permissive nature of a single parent, 11 year old me got to watch Pamela Voorhees wreak havoc twice in one weekend on the 19″ Magnavox in the family room.
Alexis den Boggende
Brett Gallman
It’s funny: I’m not 100% sure which FRIDAY THE 13th movie I saw first, nor can I firmly remember what my first encounter with Jason was. Unlike my first, lucid memories of Freddy — who I first saw on the FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES episode “Rebel Without a Car” — my memory regarding Jason is much more fuzzy and scattered. As I got into A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I do remember my dad explaining there was another guy named Jason, but he was in the FRIDAY THE 13th movies. Naturally, my curiosity was sparked, and I can recall an ill-fated attempt to pluck THE FINAL CHAPTER from a high shelf in World of Video, the video store where I would hang out thanks to my parents being friends with the owners. To this day, I still don’t understand their cataloging system because it was in a section far away from ELM STREET and the other horror movies; instead, it was in a back room, near STRIPES, which always caught my eye because it featured a Ghostbuster on the cover. Anyway, the sight of a knife through a bloody hockey mask must have given my parents some pause, so I didn’t leave with the tape; in fact, I don’t know that I was ever too successful in hitching a ride to Crystal Lake from the video store because I remember scouring the TV guide for airings of the movies for years.
One airing has remained etched in my memory, and, for all I know, it’s the first time I ever watched a FRIDAY THE 13th movie. Long before my family had access to satellite TV, we relied on over-the-air broadcasts from our local affiliates. One of them — Channel 46 out of not-so-local Charlotte, NC — emerged as one of my favorites thanks to its frequent horror programming. Channel 46 was barely accessible during the day, but on especially clear nights, it could be enjoyed in all its analog glory. One fateful night in the early ’90s — almost certainly a Friday the 13th since my parents wouldn’t let me stay up late on a school night — the channel aired FRIDAY THE 13th PART III, which immediately chilled me to the bone with that early glimpse of Jason lingering behind the clothesline in Harold and Edna’s backyard. Despite being well-versed in Freddy’s exploits by this point, I could still be scared by horror movies, and I couldn’t help but take a peek out of the window to make sure Jason wasn’t lurking behind my grandparents’ clothesline. PART III might be best remembered for its 3D gags and its groovy disco theme today, but, on that night, it was hitting a little bit too close to home. Truth be told, I’m not even sure I finished the movie since I don’t remember much beyond that opening scene. But I am sure I would have been excited to see it pop up in the upcoming listings of the TV Guide again so I could give it another shot.
Valenti Govantes
Besides HALLOWEEN and EVIL DEAD, FRIDAY THE 13th is my favorite horror franchise. My introduction to the franchise happened during the ‘09 remake’s promotional period. Probably because of the remake, I noticed various television networks were showing the entire franchise more often. The first Friday the 13th movie I ever watched was FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3 on Fuse, when I was about ten years old. The scene where Vera gets shot in the eye by Jason using the spear gun really stayed with me (helps that Jason awesomely shoots the spear straight at the camera). Many years later, I still feel director Steve Miner should get more credit as a major creative force in the franchise, since PARTS 2 and 3 really perfected FRIDAY THE 13th’s classic atmosphere.
Matt Konopka
I don’t want to scare anyone, but I’m gonna give it to you straight about Jason:. I can’t honestly remember my first introduction to the hockey-masked titan of terror. I know, I know, that’s a copout, but it’s true. It feels like he’s always been there, lurking beneath the surface of the waters of my mind. Deep as I dig into the grave of memory where Jason lives, I can’t find that first moment that he took Manhattan, err, I mean my nightmares. Was it stumbling onto the tail-end of his epic battle with Tina in FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII late one night? Was it sitting down with one of Joe Bob Briggs’ double features on TNT’s Monstervision? Was it seeing his image for the first time on the cover of a Fangoria magazine? I’m just not sure. What I can tell you is the effect he had on me.
Jason was a new beginning for me as a horror fan. From the second he leapt out of the water to pull Alice down under in the original FRIDAY THE 13th, he was an icon. A legend. A death curse that we couldn’t get enough of. He’s the one that made me afraid to spend the night at my mom’s cabin by myself, even as an adult. He’s who I think about every time I hear a twig snap in the woods. He’s the reason I ran around as a kid annoying all of my friends with a constant repeat of ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma any time we were scared.
Some of my best memories have been spawned by Jason. As a kid, a friend and I would take turns putting on the hockey mask and stalking each other through his house. I’ll never forget running down a hallway, only for a plastic machete to swing out of a doorway and catch me in the throat. So much for surviving a FRIDAY THE 13th movie. When we first met, my wife was new blood to the horror world. She found her gateway into the genre through Jason. FRIDAY THE 13th went from me watching Jason movies in my basement alone to getting to share those marathons with someone I love every year.
I suppose what I’m trying to say with all of this is that those who judge us for our obsession with the FRIDAY THE 13th movies can go to Hell. Jason Voorhees made horror fun for me as a kid. Inspired me to write stories like his. Gave my wife and I something special to celebrate with each other. Maggot head or not, Jason Voorhees is family. Always has been. Always will be. Forty years from now, when I’m on my final chapter and the calendar turns to Friday the 13th, I’ll have a dumb smile on my face because he’s still there. Still there. Still there.
Katelyn Nelson
I can’t quite remember my own first encounter with Jason and his ki-ki-killer mom. My most vivid memory is instead of FRIDAY THE 13th as a series. Coping with the early days of the COVID lockdown, I embarked on a journey to watch the entire franchise (or, as much of it as I could find), while I worked from home and tried to parse through some intense anxieties about a killer we couldn’t see, through the lens of one I could. Jason Voorhees remains one of the most enigmatic, campside-tale monsters in franchise-horror history for me, and I find myself parsing through just what they might have been trying to do with and about him with what might be considered alarming regularity.
I did, however, canvas some family and friends to see what their first FRIDAY THE 13th memories are. Some of my favorites include: my mom, eight years old at a sleepover battling a lemonade-induced migraine and looking askance at the father of her friend, who was intent to scare them through the window for their troubles; a family member’s husband, who’s most prominent memory is wanting to watch it for the ladies, as slashers of the ’80s were wont to make you want to do; a family friend who “LOATHES horror” but who found it comical because the makeup was so outlandish. General consensus in my personal circle seems to have considered FRIDAY THE 13th somewhere between unusually comedic and impactfully haunting, in however way Jason managed to make his mark on them.
Vito Nusret
Matt St. Clair
Andy Marshall-Roberts
My first experience with FRIDAY THE 13th was late one weekend when I was around eight or nine. My mum was flicking through the channels, grumbling that nothing was on, and then FRIDAY THE 13th was on one of the cable channels, possibly the Horror Channel.
She said, “This is meant to be good” and watched it for a little bit until Kevin Bacon was on-screen, getting stabbed through the neck with an arrow. I remember it so viscerally, especially the elastic snap of skin as the arrow pierced through, and I remember the adrenaline pumping through me as I watched it. It was just unexpected, even though I’d watched loads of horrors at this point. My mum kinda sighed at this point and switched the channel over to something else.
Eventually, she went to bed and I got the TV to myself. By the time I got the film back on, it was the arrival of Mrs. Voorhees, so I got to watch the end. I vividly remember Mrs. Voorhees’ crazy soliloquy, speaking in Jason’s voice and uttering “Kill her, mommy! Kill her!” The whole subsequent chase just terrified me, and I remember feeling that chilling sensation when someone ‘walks over your grave’ at the thought of being outside in the dark and the cold, chased by someone who wants to kill you.
Never saw it again until I was sixteen and I discovered Amazon online shopping. I started picking up the Friday films once a week, and the rest is history. The elastic snap of Kevin Bacon’s throat stabbing still makes my stomach twitch slightly, despite having seen much worse!
Jeff Seemann
Here’s the story behind my introduction to FRIDAY THE 13th…
It’s the summer of 1980, and I’m eleven years old. My parents took my older brother and I to the drive-in – I don’t recall what was playing, but I’m betting it was a double-feature of something for us kids and a comedy for my parents.
Back then, drive-ins were all multi-screen. On the screen to the side, FRIDAY THE 13th was playing. I was paying attention to that, despite not being able to hear it. The first slasher kill I ever saw was Annie getting her throat sliced up against a tree.
My mother turned around at some point to see how we were, and spotted what I had been watching. They moved the car closer to our screen so I couldn’t see any more horror, but the damage had been done. I was hooked on horror from the moment I saw that kill. From that day forward, I was all about horror movies. Weekly trips to the video store always included one scary movie for me. To this day, one of my biggest passions is going to filming locations of classic horror films.
Today, I am a filmmaker that specializes in horror. My directorial debut came out last year, TERROR TRIPS. It’s about people that do tours of classic horror locations, of course. It’s on Tubi and Amazon Prime. I’ve also worked on the new WRONG TURN, HAUNT, STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT, and I recently produced MUTILATOR 2.
The best part of this story… In 2019, I took a trip to the original Camp Crystal Lake (Camp NoBeBoSco in New Jersey), where they give tours to horror fans quite frequently. Annie (Robbie Morgan) was in attendance that day, and I got to tell her that it was HER death on screen that initiated my love for horror and led me to a career in horror movies. A full-circle moment, at the campground and with the actress, celebrating the movie that sparked my whole career.
FRIDAY THE 13th will always be #1 on my list for this reason and more.
Sheri White
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Tags: Friday the 13th, halloween, Horror, Jason Voorhees, The Big Question
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