Injecting Life Into a Familiar Boogeyman

In 1979, movie producer Sean S. Cunningham was struggling to support his family and pay the rent. The modest success he’d had seven years earlier with Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” had evaporated, and he was failing to find distribution for a children’s soccer comedy he’d made.

Cunningham made a list of titles that would make the film more appealing to potential buyers. One of those titles was “Friday the 13th.” He couldn’t use it for his soccer comedy but, believing that any movie with a title like that would sell, Cunningham took out a full-page ad in Variety announcing the start of “the most terrifying film ever made.” He had no money, no script and absolutely no idea what the film would be about.

“This was just a potboiler. [It] was just going to pay the rent until my soccer movie really took off,” Cunningham says from the patio of his Encino home. “It turned out just the reverse was the case.”

Although the soccer movie has never seen the light of day, “Friday the 13th,” the story of a group of teenagers butchered one by one while staying at a remote summer camp, grossed more than $100 million worldwide when it was released in May 1980.

Made on a budget of $500,000, it was one of the most profitable films of the year and became, along with “Halloween,” one of the defining films of the 1980s horror subgenre known as the slasher movie. A seemingly never-ending stream of sequels followed, the latest of which, “Jason X,” will be released Friday by New Line Cinema.

Cunningham “wasn’t creatively interested or passionate about making a ‘Friday the 13th, Part 10,’” “Jason X” director James Isaac says. “What did excite him was the concept that it doesn’t have to be a certain thing. You can take this franchise and make anything you want out of it.”

Not wanting to get bogged down in the repetition that had nearly choked the life out of the concept, Cunningham, Isaac and screenwriter Todd Farmer tossed around new ideas for the series and its star, hockey mask-wearing killer Jason Voorhees. The idea they settled on: Jason in outer space.

Set in the year 2455, “Jason X” transplants the requisite group of teenagers from the traditional summer camp setting to the now-abandoned planet Earth, where they discover Jason’s cryogenically frozen body.

After taking him on board their spaceship, they head for home. Along the way, Jason thaws and gruesome deaths naturally ensue. Although teenagers are ostensibly the heroes of the films, it’s no secret that the fans are rooting for Jason and measure the success of each installment by the manner in which he dispatches his victims.

“Jason X,” with a higher body count than any other film in the series, will be difficult to top. Several of the deaths--involving liquid nitrogen, an extra-large drill bit and other tools--are showstoppers, but at a time when even commercials boast amazing special effects, severed heads don’t have the same effect they once had.

“You can’t rely on the circus of special effects anymore,” Cunningham says. “You can only compete with the unexpected story.”

In that respect, the filmmakers accept that they headed down a worn path. In the 22 years since the first “Friday’s” release, the relatively limited idea of the slasher film has been deconstructed (“Scream”), parodied (“Scary Movie”) and thoroughly run into the ground (multiple sequels to “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween”).

“We’re not going to change the principal reason that people go to the” movies, Cunningham acknowledges. “But you could certainly dress it up and make it look different and better and treat it with a little more respect.”

For the daunting task of giving Jason a face-lift, Cunningham hired a relatively untried director--albeit one with impressive credentials--to helm the $13.5-million feature. Isaac, a longtime visual effects man for decidedly highbrow horror director David Cronenberg, brought along several members of Cronenberg’s creative staff, notably Academy Award-winning makeup effects artist Stephan Dupuis and even Cronenberg, in a cameo role. Their participation wasn’t guaranteed.

“I called a few people that I’d worked with,” Isaac explains. “I said, ‘I’ve got this project and I want to direct it.’ And they’re excited. They say, ‘What is it?’ and I said, ‘It’s “Friday the 13th Part 10.”’” Enthusiasm disintegrated into “wait a minute.”

Cunningham tries to distance himself from many of the negative connotations associated with “Friday the 13th.” After the success of the first film, he says, he wanted nothing more to do with dead teenagers.

“I was very innocent in the business,” he says. “I didn’t want to keep making ‘Friday the 13th’ over and over again. I didn’t realize what people wanted was more of the same.”

Without Cunningham, producer Frank Mancuso Jr. gave the public what it wanted. Again and again. Between 1980 and 1989, eight “Friday” pictures were released to steadily diminishing returns.

Cunningham eventually got the rights back in the early ‘90s in the hopes of collaborating with his old friend Craven, the director of “Last House,” on a film starring their creations, Jason and Craven’s Freddy Krueger of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series.

“I spent a long weekend trying to think up what the concept would be and I just could not figure out anything that wouldn’t be ‘Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,’” Craven says.

“They’re both villains. You can’t have them against each other without wanting to root for one or the other, and I don’t know who you’d want to root for there.”

While “Freddy Vs. Jason” languished in development, Cunningham produced “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday” instead. The film grossed only $15 million domestically, and it looked as if lack of interest would succeed in doing to Jason what axes, guns, drowning and toxic waste had failed to do.

“The Jason budgets have been getting smaller and smaller,” Isaac says. “Eventually the franchise will die out and become one of those franchises that go right to video. My feeling was: Let’s treat it like a real movie. Let’s not just default to the lowest common denominator. If you approach a movie like you’re going to do a low-budget slasher, then that’s what you end up with.”

Cunningham is also determined to take the high road. “We consciously decided not to be self-deprecating or self-referential. We’re not making fun of the genre or the people in it or the people who like it.” Longtime fans of the series, those who enjoy, as Cunningham tactfully puts it, “more circus than story,” won’t need to worry too much: All involved concede they’re not doing “2001” here.

Kane Hodder, the stuntman-turned-actor who has played Jason more times than anyone else and probably feels the deepest connection with the character (he has the word “kill” tattooed inside his lower lip), doesn’t think the changes are too dramatic.

“People were concerned at the beginning--’Oh, it’s Jason in space,’” he said. “But if Jason’s still the same, then who cares where it happens?”

The gamble seems to be paying off, in anticipation anyway. At the official “Friday the 13th” Web site (where the discussion topics have titles such as “Jason: Feeding on Fear?” and “The Adventures of the Hockey Mask: A Look at the History of Jason’s Famous Mask”), the fans seem split.

Although some don’t appreciate their favorite boogeyman’s being tinkered with, most seem willing to support the film no matter where he goes. As one clear-eyed poster puts it, “This may be disappointing to a number of fans [who] would like to remember Jason as the menacing woodsman, but the Jason of today is the only Jason we’ve got.”

Development continues on “Freddy Vs. Jason,” although it seems they’re closer to a rumble than ever. Cunningham hopes to start shooting by the end of the year. After that, Jason’s days (or at least Cunningham’s involvement in them) may be numbered.

“Horror films are meant and designed for younger people, certainly younger than I,” says the 60-year-old producer. “The central issue [they] deal with is fear of untimely death. I’m not worried about untimely death anymore. I’m worried about timely death.”

“Jason Goes to Tampa” anyone?