For those who haven’t seen Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, this article contains spoilers.
Jason Voorhees is one of the most enduring figures in horror. Regardless if you love or hate the franchise, there’s no denying its impact on popular culture. Often overlooked is what went into making the 12-film series. Through extensive research and interviews, I’m inviting you to take a closer look at each of the Friday The 13th films. This is Crystal Lake Confessional.
After Friday The 13th Part 5, Paramount Pictures was dead set on course correction. If the subpar ticket sales were any indication, fans weren’t seeing Friday movies for just gratuitous blood and nudity, they were there to see Jason Voorhees.
The title Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives not only signified the return of Crystal Lake’s finest but an explicit promise.
I reached out to Tom McLoughlin, the writer, and director of Jason Lives to talk about how his vision was immortalized and why this entry remains one of the highest-rated films in the franchise.
Coop: First off I want to say thank you for taking the time to do this interview!
Tom: Thank you, I’m privileged! I appreciate these interviews because you know, it’s always great to talk to people!
C: At the risk of sounding gushy, Jason Lives is one of my favorite horror movies. I got into these films when I was really little. Probably too young to be watching them, but my parents didn’t really care what I watched as long as there was no nudity. Seeing as Jason Lives didn’t have any, it sort of became my go-to!
T: (laughs) well, that was one of those accidents that just happened to happen! It’s either fans hate that it happened or some love that it didn’t go for that typical cliche. I’ve always had sort of mixed feelings about it. I didn’t know at the time of shooting that Darcy (DeMoss) was gonna go ahead do her scene as scripted or she would be uncomfortable. I offered ‘women’s rights’! If you’re uncomfortable, we won’t do it!
C: Especially coming out of Part 5! It’s clearly the trashy sibling of the family. No disrespect though, that installment is near and dear to my heart. I did an interview with the actress who played Tina recently.
T: Oh, Deborah? Yes, she is great.
C: So how did you get involved with the Friday The 13th franchise, initially?
T: Well, it actually came about in a strange way. I had made an independent, low-budget horror movie called One Dark Night.
C: Which I own on VHS.
T: Oh really!? That’s impressive! Hang on to that copy because it could be worth something someday! I actually have a BETA copy believe it or not! You best believe I’m holding on to that too!
C: Yes! Pay a house payment!
T: So at that time I kinda wanted to make a movie that was gonna be more of what my horror instincts were. Which kinda came from the Universal Monsters. You know like Dracula, Frankenstein, all that kinda gothic horror style. One Dark Night made its way over to Paramount and Frank Mancuso Jr saw it then contacted me.
C: How did that go?
T: He said “Look, we usually do these Friday films 2 years apart but we’re really upset that the fanbase was not happy that Part 5 wasn’t Jason, and it ended on a note that could be interpreted as the next one is gonna be Tommy Jarvis as the killer.’ He kinda wanted to kill that notion because this is a series about Jason. He said “I would love you to think about writing and directing this sequel. Just think up something to bring back Jason.” I said “Okay, what else?” and he said “That’s it! That’s all I want! Just figure out how to bring Jason back.”. I was incredibly blessed that I pretty much had full directorial control on it. Of course, everything was run by Frank for approval but I was really left alone to make it.
C: With that kind of freedom, how did you prep?
T: I had to go in and do my homework! I had only seen the first Friday The 13th and I really liked it! He did a great job with that! I hadn’t watched the rest but it wasn’t out of any arrogance. Okay, maybe it was…(laughs) no.
C: With 5 movies already in the series, I’m not sure if that would make it easier or intimidating.
T: When you’re a young filmmaker in Hollywood trying to get your next movie, it had to be something involving teenagers getting hacked up in extreme ways by somebody wearing something covering their face. And in my case, I was trying to do a horror movie because that’s all I had to show. But because everyone was going to that, it was sort of the way to get a deal. I felt like it was just something I didn’t want to do. I’d much rather do something of another genre then just do what everyone else is doing.
C: Did you make an effort to catch up?
T: So they gave me the projection room at Warner Brothers and I sat in there for God knows how many hours watching Part 1 all the way through Part 5 back to back. I got a real sense of what has been done in the franchise and from there I thought “Okay, I got to come up with something different.” That’s when I decided that being I had comedy in my background, I want to put dark humor. I also notice none of them really had a strong plot in terms of character conflict. So I thought, why not give Jason an agenda and also Tommy Jarvis an agenda, and see who wins! The story came out of that.
C: From the start, having Jason with a story arc was a big departure from the series.
T: Jason was more than happy to stay down there in his coffin, but Tommy had to see that he was really dead. In the act of doing that, he screws up and causes Jason to come back to life. As far as Jason is concerned he’s like ‘I’m gonna get this mother f****r and anybody in my way is gonna die in the process.’ It wasn’t like he’s out to kill whoever you know, he was just trying to get to Tommy.
C: Jason does have a new sense of urgency in this film, that’s for sure.
T: He never particularly liked teenagers or authority figures, which kinda ties into the whole rebelliousness thing. But by the end, Tommy comes up with this way of returning Jason to where he originally died with the lake. It’s a kind of classic ghost mythology. He succeeds in that. AND Jason almost drowns Tommy. As far as Jason’s concerned he did. But of course, Megan saves Tommy’s life after Jason dies.
C: I always thought it was interesting how Jason kind of wins in his own weird way.
T: You know really, both guys accomplish what they both set out to do. But the twist was the girl was there to actually save the day. That’s where I wanted to go at least from a structural standpoint. We’ve seen 5 of these already and so many imitations, why not have a bit of a satire aspect to it?
C: When I was growing up, Scream was a big movie. I think kids these days don’t even realize this but with all due respect, Scream’s self-referencing humor is sort of a direct lift of your movie. Both Scream and Jason Lives have characters who know they’re in a horror movie.
T: If you wanna know a really ironic story in that, as I was looking into projects, I was sent a script called Scary Movie by Kevin Williamson. I read the thing and I go “Wait a minute, I can’t do another horror satire like this.” and I told my agent to go see what else was out there. My agent goes “Alright I’ll send you something else.” I got a bunch of scripts and none of them were as well-written as that one. So I go back to my agent and go “Hey, what’s going on with that Scary Movie one?” and he says “Welp, you waited too long, Wes Craven picked it up.” Oh well. He’s good. He’ll do a good job. It was changed to Scream and it went on to be incredible.
C: I didn’t even know other directors were in the running for Scream!
T: Years later I had an interview for a series Williamson was doing. I was in a meeting with him and at one point he says “You know, I gotta confess. Your Friday The 13th had quite an impact on me when I wrote Scream.” I said “Oh it did? Well here’s one for you: I turned it down because it was too similar!” he goes “Well do you regret that?” and I’m like “Oh Hell of course I do!”
C: As contrived as it sounds, my introduction to horror was the classic Universal monster movies. Jason Lives has a lot of the same gothic aesthetic. You can watch it in black and white and it’s still just as effective! Was that intentional?
T: Well exactly as you said, the first things I saw were the Universal Monsters too, so that gothic feel is in my DNA. I can’t approach horror without having that element to it. Secondly, I’m a huge cinephile. I just love movies. All genres. And anyone who sets out to make something and has a vision is a hero to me. So I really tried to think about every single shot as to represent something or a really cool way to show this.
C: Yeah, everything just looks like a horror movie!
T: I tried to build suspense in ways I obviously learned from Carptender in Halloween or Friedkin with The Exorcist. You know some of the ones that really had an effect on me. It’s not like I was copying that or take that style, its just sort of the way I interpreted it. Jon Kranhouse, my DP was really good at getting what it was I was going for so it was a really easy collaboration in that regard.
C: Did you miss anything?
T: There was a lot of stuff I wasn’t able to do, cost-wise you know. Crane shots and steady cam shots I had planned and that. The production designer was like “Umm.. that didn’t show up today. Uh, I don’t know why…”. He had his own job and agenda.
C: I love Part 1 but it’s essentially a rip off of Halloween. Part 2 was more of the same but done better. Storywise, each sequel felt like it had less and less of a story. With Jason Lives it’s really the first time in the franchise a movie had a story. It’s not really a slasher film. When you accepted the job, how important was the story aspect going in?
T: Story was extremely important. Because obviously you can’t go off and do backstories on the characters or have too many different subplots going on. But I designed Jason Lives as a thrill ride. You get on board and hopefully, it feels like it just doesn’t stop. So I tried to put in enough internal conflict, even with Jason! Not that it’s specifically stated but that’s what’s going on there with his ‘nothings gonna stop me’ determination now that’s he electrified and undead.
C: Yeah, a lot of fans call him the Zombie Jason…
T: Yeah I never looked at him as a zombie. I never thought about zombies, but that’s how he has been labeled. The Zombie Jason. But to me, zombies are completely different. This is much more like the Frankenstein monster. Maybe even a little Terminator! I told CJ Graham to maybe move in ways that are not quite human or as an undead super-soldier! Seeing as he was an ex-marine he was perfect for it!
C: I didn’t think of the Terminator influence but I do now! CJ has always been my favorite Jason.
T: So yeah that was a huge thing. Trying to find something that really felt like it told a story. I studied screenwriting and all that and I teach at Chapman University and the thing I really try to bang in their heads is Don’t forget the story. It’s not just about getting fancy shots. Stay grounded and have a 3 part structure. Then if you want to work off of that in some other fashion, then do that but you gotta have the structure before you put the shutters on the house.
C: I’m a big music guy so I always joke that Jason Lives is the rock n’ roll, Jason.
T: (laughs)
C: And if it’s a rock song, the scene where Jason causes the motor home to flip over was like the guitar solo. After the solo, the film tightens up and eases into the latter half of the story. Were legitimate action scenes a conscious decision?
T: No, it was really about when I watched all the other ones, I was looking for things that didn’t happen in them. I was putting together things that were unusual for that particular franchise. Part of that was you know, things like a car chase, an underwater fight, the use of children. I mean it’s a camp so. But things like the fight between the sheriff Jason for example. The sheriff picks up a rock and tries to bash his brains in. So all of that was more old school action.
C: It’s a pretty diverse film!
T: A combination of many different genres! Comedy, obviously horror, and action. As many things as I could try to weave in there. The bottom line is it’s a ‘movie’. I’ve always tried to make the distinction between cinema and movies. Cinema has more of an intellectual approach where characters are usually deeper and you think about it after it’s over. But no, this is a fucking movie!
C: Yeah, check your brain at the door and enjoy the escapism.
T: You go and forget about life and have fun! And you’re right about the rock n’ roll! I’ve been in a band since I was a teenager and those early influences from Elvis to The Beatles and Rolling Stones are very much a huge part of me. In saying that, the music aspect of this movie was crucial, and getting Alice Cooper was a wonderful get.
C: I used to try and convince the naive kids in school that I was a cousin to Alice Cooper, so this all comes full circle for me. Was it your decision to get cousin Alice to do music for Jason Lives?
T: We had one Alice song in our ‘temp score’ during production. I think it was the scene where Cort is driving the Winnebago? When I presented it to Mancuso he said “Hey, what do you think if we actually got Alice Cooper to write a song?” I go “Are you kidding?”. Mancuso had spoken to his representation and Alice was looking for something because his career wasn’t where he wanted it to be at that particular moment. He wanted something to kinda kick him back out there and he was a big fan of the series. I said “Yes! That’s incredible!”. So he wrote “The Man Behind The Mask”.
C: Its a great track and still a staple of the franchise!
T: Yeah! You know the first version he turned in was a real rocker, like this old school rock n’ roll! I thought it was great and that’s the one I wanted to use. But then the studio or his PR or whatever wanted it to be more 80s, so they put in this synthesized version. In which I was like “Ehh yeah, it’s good but I kinda like the first one.” but they wanted that so that was fine.
C: The MTV version of course!
T: I asked if he had any other songs and he said yes and we ended up getting additional songs! We sorta had this through line with his music in the movie which was important to me rather than having a bunch of hits from other people. It was nice to have Alice as sort of a voice throughout.
C: With undead Jason, lore, mythology, Jason Lives pretty much set the groundwork for what the series was to be from this point on. Was there any apprehension or cold feet on opening day?
T: Quite honestly Aaron, when I finished it and we showed it to an audience, they just went wild from the time the Paramount logo came up all the way to last note of Alice’s song. I couldn’t even hear or tell what was working on the screen and what wasn’t! I thought “Wow we certainly got a wild crowd in here tonight, so maybe we’re gonna be okay?”.
C: Were you worried about any element in particular?
T: I was really concerned with having a sense of humor about it and if the fans were gonna go for that. Plus, there were a lot of people who were “well I’m not gonna see this one. After that last one I’m done with it.” and that definitely hurt our box office I think. So after the fact, I can think “well maybe I wasn’t so smart?”. (laughs)
C: Right, but I think the movie has legs. It has definitely grown to be a fan favorite.
T: As the years pass, it seems like there’s a generation, maybe guys like your age, who saw it on video and thought “wow this is a monster movie!”. And that was my intention! I looked at Jason as a monster and not so much a kid wanting revenge. Part of that was bringing him back from the dead, he’s got to be unkillable now. I see people doing articles about the Friday films, and they tend to use that shot of CJ holding the spear, or holding the arm holding the machete. I’m very much image-oriented so I tried to give the film what I call ‘postcard shots’ or lobby cards. They used to have those in theaters when you’d see one you’d say “Ohh I wanna see that!”.
C: There are so many shots in this film that feel like live-action theatrical posters!
T: Like the shot of Jason standing on top of the Winnebego. It’s iconic like the caveman standing on top of the dinosaur kind of thing, looking very triumphant. So there’s a lot that sticks in your subconscious. But I never thought in 30? 34 something years later it would be a huge favorite with most people. I go to screenings now and the audience is laughing just as hard, screaming just as loud. It’s just great!
C: Wasn’t all the winks and subtle breaking of the fourth wall, meant for that sort of thing?
T: I love those movies in the 70s and 80s when the audience really did participate, so why not give them stuff that really gets them to react? So that was always my intention.
C: I spoke with the director of Jason Goes To Hell, Adam Marcus and he said your movie is one of his favorites by the way…
T: Oh! Well, that’s nice!
C: Yeah so your movie is one of the most loved and his film is one of the most hated. But I think it has more to do with the installments that do something different with the formula. When you did research before shooting Jason Lives, how did you go about cherry-picking what you liked and disliked with the formula?
T: Well it was a combination of things, Aaron. It was like, you look at all the kills and you say ‘okay is there something I can do that’s different?’ and I have a little bit of moral issue with that. 9 out of 10 it would be a girl as the victim, not just Friday movies but slasher movies in general. I wanted to remedy that. You know come to think of it, there might be more guys killed than girls in my film. I’ve never really counted (laughs).
C: Actually, I think it’s pretty well balanced!
T: Bringing Jason back from the dead gives him super-human strength. So I also tried to create kills that were totally inimitable for someone to do. If you’re gonna kill somebody, you’re not gonna be able to twist their head around and pull it off or you can’t punch their heart out. There was stuff I put in there to let him use his super strength as a way for the audience to go Whoah! That was an obvious strong intention.
C: Aside from maybe The Final Chapter, I care about most of the characters in Jason Lives.
T: I tried to make the characters really likable. What I found in a lot of these movies, they set up these rude, despicable types then kill them and the audience goes “yeah kill that bastard!” and I wanted to go the other way. I wanted you to like these people! When they get killed you think “ah God, I didn’t think they were gonna go. S***, if they’re gonna go, who’s gonna make it to the end!?“.
C: Right, you find yourself rooting for Jason quite a few times in previous movies.
T: Then when you introduce children you think “hey, he’s not gonna kill children in this thing. Is he?”. In fact, I tried to create a scene that literally puts children in harm’s way but Jason responds very unusually. The intent was to make you question why he was doing that. What was gonna happen? It was an interesting angle to be further explored if I had a chance to direct another one.
C: Right. That in of itself was kind of different. Pointing the next installment in a certain direction.
T: I wanted to set up certain things. Like I had Jason’s father show up at the end of the movie. But Mancuso was terrified the audience would be “aw s***, the next one is gonna be about Jason’s dad?” So we had to remove that. There were things I tried to do that gave Jason Lives a little more humanity. A little more caring, and hopefully the viewer would be a little more invested.
C: Was Jason Lives purposely going against the slasher grain?
T: A lot of that comes from my study of classic silent comedies and that like Chaplin or Buster Keaton. You know you like the lead character, they make you laugh. The villain is very villainous and you want to see things happen to them. Those rules applied to this! Plus one of my biggest mentors as a filmmaker was Frank Capra.
C: Oh wow!
T: Yeah people always go “Wait a minute. You like Capra? With the kind of movies you make?”. And yes! It’s very much there. My next film A Date With An Angel was a direct homage to Frank Capra. Even those same rules applied to that film. It’s important to like the characters and being to able to root for them.
C: Seeing as the Friday franchise was in it’s prime during the Reagan era, Conservatism was very much a part of pop culture at the time. There were a lot of people who insist the Friday films were sort of cautionary tales. Teenagers acting out on carnal desires, they die. Was this something you were aware of when you made Jason Lives?
T: You know, I never personally bought that whole concept. You have sex: you die. It wasn’t consistent throughout the films watching them all back to back. I mean somebody had to have come up with that, I don’t know if was a reviewer or something. But it was kind of put out there and it became a thing. You know maybe Jason is out there and he’s a Conservative? I dunno. But I purposely didn’t want to go that route.
C: Right, it just feels like there’s this pre-determined checklist a horror movie needs in order to be accepted by filmgoers.
T: To me from like Halloween on, the audience wanted to see sex and obviously violence! So those 2 elements were always there. It just so happens if they’re close together, you see sex and Jason shows up and kills them! In my film, I wanted to play up the sex scene as comedy. I was raised Catholic so I guess you can take the boy out of the church but you can’t take the church out of the boy. (laughs)
C: Speaking of, there seems to be a subtle line of ‘good vs evil’ throughout Jason Lives that goes beyond the standard killer vs final girl. Like that little girl who says the prayer and all that.
T: Almost all of my work has some sort of God-related aspect to it. That little girl represented that kind of innocence and belief. The Paula character telling her to say a little prayer and all the bad things go away is like ironic storytelling. The little girl closes her eyes, prays, and then Jason is gone! So I tried to play that as warm humor.
C: I love slasher movies, don’t’ get me wrong, but Jason Lives is kind of punk in a sense it actually has some sentimentality to it. It’s one of the reasons why I personally like it the best. A slasher with heart?
T: Yeah. I mean I’m not celebrating the kills in it. The MPAA cut down pretty much every kill significantly. That was because we were at a time where there was just so much the MPAA was sick of. So even though there were scenes that were bloodless! They picked on the sheriff getting bent backward so much I went to Mancuso and I’m like “why that scene? There’s no blood!”. But they said it was cumulative with all the stuff leading up to that.
C: I love that head crush kill with the handsome cop was always one of my favorites. But even with that scene, you see more of his death than you did with the back-breaking scene.
T: Oh yeah. I tried to set up things too. Like when he arrives at the scene and the sheriff is giving all the cops instructions, that guy stops and checks his hair. It’s obvious he was gonna get his face crushed because he was so vain (laughs). It was really a shame to lose so much of that because they did a really good job with that final note of that kill. It’s not that bloody but the way you hear how the skull cracks open, it got cut. There was also the triple decapitation that was cut. What I love about these movies is how they pull off those special effects shots and it really looks real! Or it’s so over the top, it’s funny!
C: Your film doesn’t even swear that much.
T: Right! I wanted to come up with more slang. I did that with my first film too. It’s the dialogue you’ve never heard before but you completely know what they’re saying. Sometimes it would be really extreme like when the cop tells Tommy “if you come back around here you’ll be wearing your balls as earrings!”. Just weird s*** like that! (laughs)
C: It makes it more entertaining. Especially coming out of Part 5. It’s really the worst the franchise has to offer rolled into a single film. Your film sort of turns it back a little in that regard.
T: Danny Steinmann made some good stuff I thought! His background was porn, so when they hire a director that has experience in an element that’s also in the Friday films, that element sticks out. Bruce Green, the editor has all sorts of stories about how he flat out hated editing that movie.
C: Yeah, trashing Steinmann’s approach wasn’t really fair.
T: When they offered Part 6 to Danny he was like “no no no, I’m not going through that again!”. It took me talking with him and telling him my ideas for what I was going to do, I found out he too was really interested in making a film and not just exploitation. But there’s a very specific thing people want to see from these movies and he was doing what he thought they wanted.
C: In hindsight, is there anything in Jason Lives you would change if you could go back?
T: I really would’ve liked to have left the kills alone. I don’t really think they were that intense in comparison to the others. I mean Part 7 got it way worse with the MPAA than I did. John Carl Buechler was a special FX guy and he went in and just did over the top stuff! His Jason looked incredible, more than any of the other ones before or after. But they really took his stuff out.
C: Yeah, Part 7 tragic. Which is a shame because it was really an interesting direction for a sequel.
T: Looking at mine, other than that, I felt my film caught the spirit of what I envisioned. So there’s not a lot of any great regret. At the time, the most frustrating thing was the loss of Jason’s father. At the same time, I completely understood where Mancuso was coming from.
C: As cliche as it is to ask, do you have a favorite scene?
T: The Winnebago sequence. I call it a sequence and not really a scene. The set up with Jason, the banter between Cort and Nikki. I love Tom Fridley and I love Darcy DeMoss. We’re still close now actually! We still literally text each other and Facebook each other every week! Thom Mathews and I are tight, C.J. Graham and I are tight. All of us have become like highschool buddies!
C: After the cold open, the title sequence is a direct lift from the James Bond franchise. How did that happen?
T: My Dad never took me to the movies, but he took me to see Dr. No when I was like 12. It was like a father/son event. Seeing as James Bond was one of the longest-running franchises, I thought “Well Friday The 13th is getting right up in that category now so why don’t we merge the 2 things!” (laughs)
C: With the current state of the Friday The 13th franchise, the lawsuit between Victor Miller and Sean S. Cunningham, do you think we’ll ever get a new Friday film?
T: You know, I think we’ll get another Friday film. If one gets made, I sincerely hope my script Jason Never Dies is the one! If not first but maybe the second one they do.
C: Oh you got one in the works already?
T: It’s different and doesn’t follow the last one made. It takes place in 1999 which was 13 years after Jason Lives where Jason was put back at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Because after all these other ones and hearing fans and stuff, they seem to love the 80s. I don’t really want to make an 80s movie but 1999 was a really interesting time. There was kind of this strange air going on that year and I felt it was a good place to have Jason resurrected.
C: Can we expect more of a distinctive visual flair?
T: It’s set in the winter, which is something we haven’t seen! You know, Jason in the snow! Jason pursuing someone across the lake after it was frozen over would be really cool. I wanted to be all female characters. Not that I’m trying to be political but why they’re all at Crystal Lake is important to the story.
C: How far along are you on Jason Never Dies?
T: After 30 years of stewing on all the elements and ideas, writing the thing, and just as I was about to send it out to Warner/New Line, Sean and Victor got back into their lawsuit and appeal. I thought all the legal stuff was supposed to be over this year but no one has really heard anything though. But I can’t see it going on forever.
C: Yeah, there are some high-quality fan films like Never Hike Alone, gaining serious momentum.
T: I think the studios will fear the fan-films on YouTube or whatever. Fans will get their Jason fix elsewhere in a whole new way. With that being said, my lawyer tried to get my script to Warner Bros and they said “Nope! We’re not even gonna look at anything right now because we’re not sure how long this is gonna go and there’s no point in looking at something we’re not going to be able to make.”
C: If it does get made, are we gonna see your band, The Sloths have music in it?
T: Ah, that’s a very good question no one has ever asked me! I don’t know! It takes place in 1999 and the music we make is more like punk, or what we would consider punk anyway. But I guess we would have to write something new that sounds like something from that era.
C: Is there anything we as fans could do to help you get Jason Never Dies made?
T: Well I’m not an executive at Warner Bros or New Line so I don’t know what they have in mind but the word has spread! But I would love to have a groundswell where it shows people want to see this movie, and we believe in it. Anything that can publicize it, I’m more than willing to do! That can make a difference. It has before.
Catch up with previous installments of Crystal Lake Confessional here.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – –Part 6 – Part 7
Part TS – Part 8 – Part 9 – Part HM – Part 10 – Part FvJ – Part 2009