25 years later, you can still hear the screams, Shot in Jersey, "Friday the 13th slashed its way..

The Star Ledger ^ | 06.13.05 | MIKE FRASSINELLI

[Coleus]

It was the summer camp equivalent of "Jaws."

Instead ofscaring people out of the water, the first "Friday the 13th" movie had people shaking like a leaf when they went into the woods.

But unlike the buzz that surrounded the making of "Jaws," no one could have predictedtriskaidekaphobia -- fear of the number 13 -- would grip the nation after the movie opened on ... you guessed it, Friday, June 13, 1980.

Made for under $1 million and released 25 years ago today, the movie was shot over a fewmonths in Blairstown and around Warren County.

Lead actress Betsy Palmer, who played the killer mom Mrs. Voorhees, proclaimed the script "a piece of dreck! Only I didn't say it in Jewish." But she figured the 10-day, $10,000 acting job would pay for her new car and nobody would ever see the film, anyway.

Ari Lehman, who played the young version of the Jason who later donned a hockey mask and hacked up campers, earlier had been in a movie about soccer-playing orphans that didn't go anywhere. He, too, figured "this would be a little horror film that didn't go anywhere."

Elwyn Barker, Blairstown's mayor at the time, recalled a few movie people who "looked a little bit different" showing up at a town meeting asking for permission to shoot scenes locally. Town officials approved the request without much thought and went on to a busy meeting agenda that night.

So imagine everyone's surprise when the movie became a granddaddy of slasher flicks, one of the highest-grossing films of 1980 -- taking in nearly $40 million domestically -- and thenspawned 10 sequels and a television show.

"Who would have thought?" Palmer said last week from her New York City apartment.

The fictional "Camp Crystal Lake" in the movie was the actual

[Coleus]

http://friday-the-13th-movie.wikiverse.org/

[Coleus]

It was the summer camp equivalent of "Jaws."

Instead of scaring people out of the water, the first "Friday the 13th" movie had people shaking like a leaf when they went into the woods. But unlike the buzz that surrounded the making of "Jaws," no one could have predicted that triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13 - would grip the nation after the movie opened on . . . you guessed it, Friday, June 13, 1980.

Made for under $1 million and released 25 years ago today, the movie was shot over a few months in Blairstown and around Warren County.  Lead actress Betsy Palmer, who played the killer mom, Mrs. Voorhees, proclaimed the script "a piece of dreck! Only I didn't say it in Jewish."

But she figured the 10-day, $10,000 acting job would pay for her new car and nobody would ever see the film anyway. Ari Lehman, who played the young version of the Jason who later donned a hockey mask and hacked up campers, earlier had been in a movie about soccer-playing orphans that didn't go anywhere.

He, too, figured "this would be a little horror film that didn't go anywhere."  Elwyn Barker, Blairstown's mayor at the time, recalled a few movie people who "looked a little bit different" showing up at a town meeting asking for permission to shoot scenes locally. Town officials approved the request without much thought and went on to a busy meeting agenda that night.  So imagine everyone's surprise when the movie became a granddaddy of slasher flicks, one of the highest-grossing films of 1980 - taking in nearly $40 million domestically - and then spawned 10 sequels and a television show.

"Who would have thought?" Palmer said last week from her New York City apartment.  The fictional "Camp Crystal Lake" in the movie was the actual Camp NoBeBoSco, a Boy Scout camp in Hardwick Township. Scenes also were shot at such locations as the Blairstown Diner, the Blairstown Water Works and the Moravian cemetery in Hope.  The plot: When camp counselors aren't paying attention, a young boy named Jason Voorhees apparently drowns at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957. The camp gets the nickname "Camp Blood" after two camp counselors are murdered the next year, and the mayhem continues when counselors try to reopen the camp on Friday the 13th, 1980, Jason's birthday.

Following chants of "ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma" (short for "kill, mommy"), Mrs. Voorhees stabs and axes her way through all but one of the remaining people of the camp.  A quarter-century later, some officials at the Boy Scout camp are sorry they ever allowed the movie to be filmed there.  Every Friday the 13th, camp officials brace for visits by trespassers and vandals. The cabin where camp counselors were pierced in the film - including a little known actor at the time named Kevin Bacon - has had its door kicked in by vandals.

Fires also have been set on the premises.  Still, for most locals, the association between the movie and the camp is a source of pride.  While visiting Florida, Barker decided to take in "Friday the 13th" at a local theater. When he told people he was the mayor of the town where the movie was filmed, they were surprised it was so rustic. "Most people think of New Jersey as a very urban area, and they can't visualize the mountains and open space we have here," Barker said.  Warren County's public relations department also has fielded calls from people across the country wanting to know how to get to "Camp Crystal Lake."

A SCRIPT TO DIE FOR

The venerable Palmer, now 78, was an accomplished Broadway actress living in Englewood and driving an unreliable Mercedes when her agent told her about an offer in the fall of 1979.  It would be for $10,000 and it would be nearby. The offer came at the right time. Palmer wanted to buy a new Volkswagen Scirocco for $9,999. And she was eager to do another movie, her first since the 1960s.  But Palmer hesitated when the agent revealed it was a horror film.

After seeing the script, in which she eventually gets beheaded, she took the offer, explaining, "Nobody will ever see this."  "And here we are, 25 years later, and I get fan mail from all over the world," Palmer said with a laugh. "What do they call me? I'm the 'Queen of the Slashers.' I can't believe it."  For years, Palmer would ask fans of the movie why they liked it. Recently, it dawned on her.  "Everybody wants a mother who will kill for you and will die for you - and I do both."

Her son, Jason, was played in the movie by Lehman, now a 40-year-old musician living in Chicago.  In a dream sequence in the movie, Jason arises from the lake to put a stranglehold on the camp's lone survivor.  He made the trip from Connecticut to New Jersey three times to film the scenes. One time, the teenage actor was standing near Sand Pond and staring at the water. Kevin Bacon asked him what he was doing.

"Getting into character," Lehman announced.  With that, Bacon cracked up and called over another actor to share what the rookie had to say.  Lehman, who fronts for a group called the Ari Ben Moses Band and is working on a heavy metal music project called "First Jason," said when he arrived in Blairstown one cool fall day, it struck him as too nice a place to have a slasher film.  "It seemed a very odd set for a horror movie," he said. "It was very bucolic and had farms."  But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him.  "Summer camp, that's one place that people like to tell ghost stories," he said. "The setting did make a difference. All of us have been at camp, and camp brought out the kid in all of us."