For years, it’s been a fan’s dream to see different, multiple Friday the 13th cast members from different films appear in the same movie. All it took was the woman with the chilling and ki-ki-ki-killing namesake of Jason to do it. Deborah Voorhees of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning was herself a dream warrior of sorts, writing and directing her ideas to the screen along with an array of actors spread across the first cinematic decade of Camp Crystal Lake’s bloody history.
Voorhees who played Tina in part V directed and coproduced October’s meta-horror film 13Fanboy where a deranged fan stalks a group of actresses from several Friday’s along with Halloween’s Dee Wallace and a few guys that donned the historical hockey mask. Dreams and camp-fire nightmares came true.
The cool factor is, all Friday actors excluding Corey Feldman, play themselves on camera. Along with Voorhees, and Wallace, Tracie Savage (Part III) Judie Aronson (The Final Chapter), Lar Park-Lincoln (The New Blood), Jennifer Banko, (The New Blood), Ron Sloan (A New Beginning), C.J. Graham (Jason Lives) and Kane Hodder (Part 7, 8, Final Friday, Jason X) all appear, some in the same scenes. While other Friday alumni make special cameos.
Though, no matter how big, bloody and high Jason’s body count gets, if and when another’s made, Deborah’s the only authentic Voorhees in the whole series. “That’s right, that’s what I tell people. Jason Voorhees changed my life in more than one way. I no longer have to repeat my name. When I was young, before Friday the 13th I had to say my name, then again, usually spell it, twice. Now, I say it, spell it and it’s done.” Now it’s in the horror hall of fame. “Right, exactly.”
In September, Voorhees attended the Sharonville HorrorHound Weekend convention where 13Fanboy was shown for select VIP attendees. A few years back she attended the event in Columbus joining a Friday V reunion cast panel. This year not only toted the return of ‘The Hound’ but gave Voorhees the chance to expand coverage, support and fan awareness. “I had a really nice time. I always find they really run a nice convention.”
13Fanboy played early the first day. “We did a sneak peak, for a handful of VIP’s. I would’ve liked to have opened it up to more people but it went well and very well received. It wasn’t just people I knew. I wanted people I didn’t know, kind of an unfiltered reaction.” A Fanboy experience for the fanboy’s.
Though, she’s going out of her way to clarify that her movie isn’t a fan film. It’s getting a theatrical release with streaming and on demand. One reason for the confusion is it has fan in the title. “When we were raising funds there were two other fan films raising at the same time.” People were confusing them, especially since one (Friday the 13th Vengeance 2: Bloodlines) also cast C.J. Graham.”
There’s a lot of fanfare and fan films on YouTube, each with different budgets, stories and levels of passion. Some even tell stories fans have wanted to see, such as Jason’s father. “My film is looking to be a franchise in its own right.” Many are passion projects for the people involved. 13Fanboy is a passion for Voorhees though it has no direct connection to the Friday the 13th universe.
It started as a love letter to fans. “I really wanted to create something for them. They kept asking and talking to me saying I really wanna see a film bringing back some of the people. What people typically said was they wanted a Friday the 13th film with these people in it. With the rights to the film in question, you couldn’t buy the rights now. Who do you talk to? Plus, it raises the bill a lot. We couldn’t do a Friday the 13th film, but… having a fanboy stalking the actresses in the films, that we can do.”
They started an Indiegogo account offering fans a chance to creatively participate in the making and filming from submitting ideas, name in end credits to appearing on camera/being killed. “It went really well, we got a portion of our budget that way.” What they didn’t get through Indiegogo was received through investors.
The basic plot has a young fan, banished to a basement by abusive parents whenever he misbehaved. All he had for comfort and company were old VHS stacks of Friday the 13th and Halloween movies and eventually mentally unraveled. “For him, we were his family. He starts writing letters and we don’t respond, he feels slighted and abandoned by his family, the kind of movies that appeal to me are when I have some kind of understanding of the villain as a human being. You have conflicting feelings. You still want to stop him but at least have some feeling for them.” He sees them as their screen characters, not the real person.
Voorhees says the stalker’s a fanboy but it’s a mystery, you don’t know who it is, or who’s involved. It’s a horror, slasher, thriller and who done it, all in one. We can ‘potentially’ safely assume it’s not going to be Dick Wieand (Roy, Part V) but Voorhees slyly winks saying, can’t rule anything out.
Meta-horror has been used to describe the movie. Fans might auto-think Wes Craven’s New Nightmare but the actors never revert back to franchise characters and are themselves on screen, though Feldman plays a sleazy producer, so unfortunately no symbolic Jason vs.Jarvis re-match or Jarvis-Fanboy feud. “No, never, that would be crossing copyright laws. Dee Wallace, is Dee Wallace, that’s how we wanted it. Judie Aronson, Tracie Savage, myself all of us are playing ourselves.”
It’s the darker side of life imitating art with several cast members having real life stalker situations in the past.
Voorhees kicks off what happens in the movie. “My granddaughter Hayley Greenbauer plays the role of Kelsie Voorhees, she sees me murdered as a child. She grows up finding out I’m not the only one, the killers still out there and she and Dee Wallace become targets.”
Halloween Kills opens a week before. Though it’s not exactly Michael Myers followed by Jason, both movies attract the same audience. Voorhees hopes her movie’s a companion to HK, not competition. “We open a week later on the 22nd. The film opens in select theaters around the U.S. We’re also negotiating with drive-ins about pairing us with Halloween Kills which would be a wonderful pair to see. We’re trying.”
She says it’s possible that some of the movie characters that didn’t make it to the end of their respective films may or may not survive the fanboy or be the ‘final girl’ as them self. “Someone might survive; there are lots of twists and turns in this film, a lot.” Though she agrees it would be poetic justice if Hodder died in a sleeping bag on camera. Either way it’ll be serious fan eye candy seeing cast members from different Friday’s in the same movie.
It would’ve been incredibly ambitious to get actors from every film but Voorhees didn’t want all the cast from the same movie. “I wanted to get people from different ones as opposed to just one film. What I’ve seen from fans, the first one they see, is usually, not always, but usually ends up being their favorite. I picked from some of the favorites out there.”
Adrienne King (original Friday) was involved but had to pull out due to stalker related issues. “She had a very dangerous situation. It wasn’t related to Friday the 13th but the topic was tough on her.” Aronson and Park-Lincoln also had issues with stalkers.
Though, they do have help from the original movie from the ‘first Jason’ Ari Lehman, contributing a song along with Jason Lives director Tommy McLoughlin. “We actually have a fan who wrote a song called “13”, which ended up being a theme song.”
Voorhees wanted a completely new and unique look for the stalkers mask. “I put out a handful of queries to talented mask makers and those who knew the horror world well.” They found the perfect mask maker, offered some rough sketches and ideas and the result is what you see..
Legally she could’ve used a hockey mask in the movie but using one similar to any of the other masks could’ve caused issues. “The hockey mask itself can’t be copyrighted.” Their entertainment lawyer is Larry Zerner (Part III), they have ties all around. He said they’d be risking an unneeded legal fight if they went specific so they used what’s seen on screen.
Voorhees’ ties to Jason and Camp Crystal Lake go back to A New Beginning. Though the ending’s well known and still a subject of impassioned fan debate and argument, no one knew going in it was another Friday. The working title was Repetition, a joke in itself.
Her last name gave everyone a chuckle but if she’d not been the right person for the job, Tina would’ve been someone else.
Another character who’s gained cult status and their own fanbase was Reggie the Reckless (Shavar Ross). ”We were in some scenes together. He was a sweet young kid. He’s a really nice man. I have a feeling, he’d definitely tell you he had a fun time and by what I saw, on set, he seemed to really enjoy himself.”
Voorhees has said she imagines Tina having ultra religious parents and she was fine, but was sent there for her ‘sinful ways.’ “Yeah, Tina was gregarious and more free-loving. She didn’t see anything wrong with nudity and for them that was sinful and bad. It was something that needed to be corrected when it should have been perfectly fine for Tina to be who she was.”
As for her on screen boyfriend Eddie’s background, “I would say, given his personality, probably gotten into trouble with the law for some minor infractions and ended up there.”
Her death comes in the woods when garden shears are jammed into her eyes. “I’m not 100% certain who’s hands those were. I know when I screamed, there was a man (standing above her), where you just saw boots. When I opened my eyes, I was looking at a man looking straight down at me. He had the biggest grin. I had to totally fake being scared. No idea why he was smiling but seemed to be extremely happy to be there. It’s a little confusing.”
All tongue in cheek jokes aside, her character helped a lot of adolescents at the time, “I’ve heard on more than one occasion I was the first nude woman they ever saw or their first crush, or the first time they saw a set of boobs. I think that’s kinda cool. Think about how important that moment is in a young boy’s life. To be a part of that for so many is pretty special.”
Many fans still wonder, how did he NOT hear her scream after he ‘washed up?’ “That’s exactly right. I’m still pissed off at him about that, he should have. It would’ve been really smart to have a shot where, he’s at the water, hears the scream and hurries back. It would’ve added intensity to the situation.”
The shot of the crow landing on the branch and flying away after Eddie’s death could have been Poe inspired, aka the raven sees all. “You know, I do think that’s what that’s about.”
Her first day on set was the sex and death scene with makeup taking several hours . For years there’s been speculation about cut footage from the scene adding to the film’s legend and lore. “I’ve watched some of the other people talk about it. I don’t know why they fibbed. I do think they could’ve stretched it out a little longer. We kissed and pretended we were having sex. It wasn’t much to cut. I think it’s a way of selling it.”
Another rumored shot to exist was of the garden shears going through the eyes. “That’s 100%, incorrect! That never happened. To do that they would’ve had to make a full head of me, they never did that. It’s in the folklore of Part V. There are a lot of fibs about my situation and scene.”
Another iconic scene was Violet’s dance. “No, I wasn’t there for that. “ It’s a scene marked in time in the ‘80s.
The ending got a lot of blowback by fans over the ‘imposter’ Jason. Voorhees makes an interesting, somewhat overlooked point “It’s more in keeping with the original. The original was a mystery as well, a grieving parent, responding irrationally to people around who had nothing to do with her child’s death.”
Voorhees is happy with the Friday she’s in though it’d been a dream to act or direct the original Psycho, though she shares space with Janet Leigh on a top 13 list of sexist horror kills.
She’s also a big Bad SEED fan, “I love the idea of this adorable, well spoken little girl, with pig tails as a serial killer, I think it was too juicy. I’d really like to do an updated version. I know there was an updated version with Rob Lowe but haven’t seen it yet. I have my own ideas of what I’d wanna do with that.”
It could be argued that Jason’s innocence was taken in his (original) death and turned into the ultimate stalking Bad Seed. Though 13Fanboy has several nods and winks to the franchise; some being in your face while others are more subtle, requiring full attention. Certain film aspects cater to the YouTube, social media generation and fans will appreciate the convention footage.
She’s signed some unique things at conventions including hedge clippers. “I have. The most unusual thing I signed and must have been hard to move was a full size canoe. His goal was to get it to all the people in all the movies to sign.”
London calls for Voorhees in October where she’ll be doing a promo tour for the movie and cameo in a friend’s short film who helped arrange the visit.
13Fanboy will be out October 22nd in select theaters around the country, VOD platforms and In Demand PPV with eventual DVD’s and Bluray’s via DeskPop Entertainment.
In a sense, it is a new beginning as she’s helping keep the slasher years alive. She jokes when they hit 13Fanboy Part V fans will be mad it’s a copycat and not a real fanboy.
