A Personal History of Horror Films in 101 Quirky Objects #13: Tom Savini’s blood tube in Friday the 13th (1980)
by Vince Stadon
“You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday…” – Mrs. Voorhees
Sunday the 1st. I begin watching Friday 13th for the first time in decades. Twenty minutes in it occurs to me that this film might be best experienced in daily chunks. I’d never do this with any other movie. I’m not a movie snob, but I do like to treat films with respect and watching them piecemeal feels impertinent. Friday the 13th, however, is a film about moments, specifically the killings, so it seems fitting to watch it a killing or two at a time. Twenty minutes in, there’s been three murders: in a prologue set in 1958, two Christian camp counsellors are killed after having pre-marital sex—Barry (Willie Adams) is stabbed in the stomach and Claudette’s (Debra S. Hayes) killing is left ambiguous; in the present day, hitchhiker Annie (Robbi Morgan) has her throat slit open by machete. And that’s all I can take for the day. It’s Sunday, and it’s nice out, and I want to go to the pub for a bit of food and a few beers.
Monday the 2nd. Hungover, I reflect on how weird and scary things got in the pub garden yesterday and how lucky I was to make it home alive. I watch another twenty minutes of Friday the 13th until we discover the fresh corpse of Ned (Mark Nelson), whose throat has been cut. Ned is an annoying prankster character with strong incel vibes, so I’m not sad to see the last of him. This thought got me musing on the murders in slasher films, and how audiences tend to root for the killer rather than the often annoying and/or anonymous victims who populate these films as proxy moving targets to be hacked up, stabbed, battered, slashed, etc. In this regard, slasher films operate like whodunnits, where the audience cheerfully applauds each murder and awards points to the most inventive ways of bumping off victims. A drop of two of arson in the bouillabaisse is just going to illicit yawns, but a corpse fed into a woodchipper is going to illicit a much stronger response. Friday the 13th is a slasher film whodunnit, with the killer’s identity withheld until the last act. There’s not a brilliant and eccentric detective at Camp Crystal Lake, sadly; though even if there was, he or she would have been stabbed in the eyes or disembowelled or chopped up with an axe before they could point an accusatory finger at the bloody killer.
Tuesday the 3rd. What bothers me about the pub garden incident, and what’s haunting my nights, is that I’m not a strong swimmer, so even if I could have jumped into the river to help with the rescue, I probably would have just added to the problem rather than helping. But still. I should have tried to help. Maybe if I tried to help, I wouldn’t feel so guilty. And so scared.
Wednesday the 4th. I skipped yesterday but today I watched another four minutes of Friday the 13th. Minutes after Ned’s death, his blood drips onto the post-coital Jack (Kevin Bacon), who had been having sexy times with Marcie (Jeannine Taylor). Jack is on the bunkbed below dead Ned; Marcie has gone to the bathroom. As Jack treats himself to a smug after-shag smoke, he is impaled through his throat by an arrow, which the killer pushes with force into him from under the bed, the arrowhead piercing through the throat and twisting around as blood pumps everywhere. This is probably the film’s most famous scene/kill, probably because the effect is very good and because it’s Kevin Bacon. Everybody loves Kevin Bacon.
Thursday the 5th. Kevin Bacon isn’t the only famous actor to pop up in ‘80s slasher films. Tom Hanks is in He Knows You’re Alone (1980); Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander are in The Burning (1981); Johnny Depp has a sizeable role and a memorable death in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984); and George Clooney is in Return to Horror High (1988) and Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988). I’ve never seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes. Why have I never seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes? I’ll bet it’s a lot better than Ocean’s 12 (2004).
Friday the 6th. After Kevin gets it through the throat, Marcie gets it in the face with an axe. That’s got to hurt. It certainly looks convincing. The effects were done by macabre makeup maestro Tom Savini, who became a kind of rock star-type hero to fans of horror film gore, splatter, and slashing. A fandom sprang up around these movies, with the magazine Fangoria being its semi-official organ of record, so to speak. Fangoria did for prosthetic effects and blood tubes what Playboy did for bikinis and bunny ears. I sent review copies of my books Hounded! My Lifelong Obsession With Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles (MX Publishing) and Counting Draculas: Binge Watching the Vampire King (ATB Publishing) to Fangoria, but they ignored me. But that’s okay. No, really. One day I will be bigger than Fangoria. And then they will come begging to me. On their bloody knees. Tom Savini likes to appear in all the films he’s involved in, but he didn’t get the chance with Friday the 13th. Instead, it’s Savini’s assistant blowing blood through a tube attached to Kevin Bacon’s throat to make it splurt real good, and who is also Mrs. Vorhees body double for the beheading, as Tom looks on with an approving smile.
Saturday the 7th. Periodically, I get the feeling I’m being watched. I look out of the window, and I think I see a blur of movement, a man quickly stepping out of sight. There’s something in his hand, I think. Back to Friday the 13th and we’ve barely had time to process the murders of Ned, Kevin Bacon, and Marcie, when Brenda (Laurie Bartram) is killed by being impaled to an archery target by several arrows. In the rain. Although, sadly, we don’t actually get to see this kill. It feels disappointing when we don’t see the kill. I’m only in it for the kills now.
Sunday the 8th. When I was eighteen, I watched all seven Friday the 13th films in an overnight marathon at my local cinema. It was great. The audience would cheer every kill, chant “tits and ass” every time a young actress disrobed gratuitously, and of course mimic the famous “ch ch chah chah” music by Henry Manfridini, which I’ve now learned was actually “ki ki ki, ma ma ma”, or “kill mommy.” I couldn’t sit through a Friday the 13th marathon now. There are five more entries (including the remake), for a start. I can’t even sit through one Friday the 13th movie in one go.
Monday the 9th. I’ve just realised what it is in the man’s hand. It’s only a blur. It’s only a feeling. But I think I see a glint. I think it’s a machete. Back at Camp Crystal Lake, lead counsellor and David Crosby lookalike Steve (Peter Brouwer) gets murdered by a stab in the gut right next to the Camp Crystal Lake sign! That’s where I’d want to be killed—right by that sign. By David Crosby. Camp Crystal Lake is actually in New Jersey, which sounds mad to me, from England. New Jersey, to me, is rainy, industrial mafia territory run by Tony Soprano. It’s all meat-packing warehouses and strip clubs. How can it have a summer camp by a lake?
Tuesday the 10th. Friday the 13th is in its final act. Final Girl Alice (Adrienne King) discovers the bloody corpse of Bill (Harry Cosby) impaled to a door with yet more arrows (there’s more arrows in this film than in a Robin Hood movie). Alice runs into Mrs. Pamela Vorhees, a nice, friendly middle-aged lady in a light blue sweater. I think everyone knows by now that Jason isn’t the killer of the first Friday 13th—his mum is. They have such nice names, Pamela and Jason. I was tempted to name my children after them.
Wednesday the 11th. Another thing about the man I keep not seeing. The man with the glinting knife. I think he leaves a pool of water where he stands. I think he’s soaking wet.
Thursday the 12th. Alice survives Friday the 13th by beheading Mrs. Vorhees with a machete. I don’t know how much force you’d need to exert to decapitate a nice, friendly middle-aged lady in a sweater with a machete, but I’m glad Alice puts in the effort. Mrs. Vorhees has been killing everyone to avenge the death of her son Jason, who drowned in Crystal Lake in 1958 while everyone was having sex. Or something like that. Jason was just a kid in 1958, but he comes back from the dead (in a shock epilogue stolen wholesale from 1976’s Carrie) by leaping out of the lake and grabbing Alice out of a boat. And then he comes back as an adult in the next film and in every further instalment; the last one I caught was Freddy vs Jason (2003), a kind of live action cartoon featuring two iconic serial killer monster things smashing, hacking, ripping, dicing, crushing, burning, and stabbing their way from Elm Street to Camp Crystal Lake, and which had me musing: just what the hell is Jason? He's a drowned weedy teenager who comes back from the dead (as a ghost?), grows into a hulking adult who then stops growing/aging (he'd be in his sixties now), and becomes utterly indestructible. He's the Paul Rudd of monster serial killers.
Friday the 13th. Everywhere I go now I hear that “ch ch cha cha,” and I see that machete glinting even in the darkness, and I feel him nearby. Thirteen is unlucky because of Judas sitting at the table with the other disciples. I think I’d rather take my chances with Judas rather than with Jason, though I do like the idea of Jason Vorhees being at the Last Supper. I have finished the film, and I enjoyed it in these bite-sized chunks of gore. Today is Jason’s birthday, and I think he’s going to kill everyone who was having sex while he was drowning. I wasn’t having sex while he was drowning, but I was briefly thinking about it when I saw a woman dressed in a light blue sweater, and I did refuse to get into the river to save him. At any rate, it’s the last time I’m ever drinking at the Hockey Mask Inn.
More obvious picks for an object to represent this film: just about all the murder weapons, including a machete, an axe, lots of arrows, and a bowie knife; the native American headdress; the archery target.
Friday the 13th (1980); 95 mins; US
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham; Written by Victor Miller; Produced by Sean S. Cunningham; Cinematography by Barry Abrams; Music by Harry Manfredini
Betsy Palmer (Mrs. Voorhees); Adrienne King (Alice); Harry Crosby (Bill); Jeannine Taylor (Marcie); Laurie Bartram (Brenda); Kevin Bacon (Jack); Mark Nelson (Ned); Robbi Morgan (Annie); Peter Brouwer (Steve Christy); Ronn Carroll (Sgt. Tierney); Walt Gorney (Crazy Ralph); Willie Adams (Barry); Debra S. Hayes (Claudette); Sally Anne Golden (Sandy); Ari Lehman (Jason)
