David Grove - On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th

Tom Savini touches-up Ari Lehmans makeup for the filming of the climactic lake scene. (Photo courtesy of Tom Savini)

JASON.

However, I objected to Jason running around in the second movie when they sent me the script, as the killer in the first movie is the mother, Betsy Palmer. Jason was just her mongoloid kid, who drowned in part one. To bring him back as the villain seemed too odd to me and I turned down that movie and did The Burning instead.

They didnt offer me Part 3, but when it came to the fourth movie and the franchise was waning, they did offer me part four and I got to finally kill Jason in a movie called The Final Chapter.

Yeah, right. It made so much money that I am sure there is going to be a Friday the 13th Part 13.

Speaking of money, the special makeup effects budget on part one was around $15,000 and out of that came materials, travel, and paying my assistant. Thats all I received because all I wanted at that time in my life was a big screen TV. That was my motivation for doing that movie. Finally, a big screen TV!

Then this low budget movie comes out and makes a gazillion dollars. What pissed me off was reading the reviews and almost all of them said: The star of this movie is Tom Savinis makeup effects. So I made what was left of the $15,000 and they made gazillions, and THAT is one of the many reasons I like this book. It gives the credit where credit is due as far as my contribution to this franchise. (By the way, I made up for it on part four, The Final Chapter. I asked for a ridiculous amount of money.and got it.)

Some of the highlights of what I remember:

Harry Crosby playing guitar in the back seat of the car Taso and I used. He was always with us, wanting to learn stunts and fighting. When we drove, we never turned on the radio cause Harry was our music from the back seat.

When we killed Harry, we pinned him to a door with lots of arrows; one in his eye and the rest all over his body. I designed his death, but for some reason I wasnt there when it was executed. I remember getting a call that he had to go to the hospital because the blood got into his eye and burned it a bit. After a couple of days he was fine.

In front of an archery target, Sean asked me how I was going to make an arrow hit the target close to Laurie Bartram for a scene. I said I would just shoot it. He looked scared. I grabbed my bow and a target arrow and backed off and asked him to point on the target where he wanted it to hit. As he pointed, I pulled back the arrow on the bow and shot it one foot from his finger. Scared the hell out of him, but thats how I did it for the scene.

Robbi Morgan was the girl in the woods who gets her throat cut, and it was late in the day and Sean asked how long it would take to get her ready. The light was fading and they were deciding whether to do it or not. I said a half hour and they said, Do it. Taso and I applied the tubing and the appliance, and painted it, and Robbi jumped on the back of my motorcycle and I rushed her to the location exactly one half hour later and Sean was impressed that wed said a time and stuck to it.

Robbi was kind of a gymnast and Taso had a crush on her so we were together a lot and every now and then you would see the three of us doing handstands or walking on our hands down a road or to the set.

The bathroom set was just that: a set. Its where we staged and shot the scene with the girl who gets the axe in her face. Nothing functioned as it was just a set. One weekend, a Boy Scout troop came through the camp and used that bathroom. You can imagine the mess with toilets that were just non-functioning props.

One day, Taso found a rattlesnake and casually carried it into the production office, scaring the bejesus out of every woman working there. It was the snake used when the kids find a snake in their cabin.

But Jason is still running around in the movies, and here in this book, even though he doesnt exist.

He died in the first movie.

He cant still be running around, killing naked teenagers in the woods with household implements. Ive had this conversation with Betsy Palmer, who did a lot of soul-searching and character-building before she played his mother, and she told me, in her mind, Oh, they never found his body. Well then, I argued, You mean he came out of the lake, disoriented, and here is this misshapen kid living off crayfish or something and nobody saw him, and for 35 more years he is out there still, racking up a body count?