For those who haven’t seen Jason X, 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 invite you to take a closer look at the Friday The 13th universe. This is Crystal Lake Confessional.
As the 1990s drew to a close, series creator Sean S. Cunningham was still bent on a matchup between Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. But while that film withered in development hell, he had another problem: If New Line Cinema didn’t have a Friday The 13th film in the works by 2000, the rights would revert back to Paramount Pictures. To remedy this, Cunningham decided on a stand-alone sequel that would eventually become the sci-fi romp known as Jason X.
Directed by Jim Isaac and produced by Cunningham’s son Noel, Jason X finds a cryogenically frozen Jason unthawing aboard an ill-fated space excursion 400 years into the future.
As the first feature to be filmed entirely in digital, New Line was confident with Isaac at the helm seeing as he had worked on Return Of The Jedi and Enemy Mine as well as the Cunningham’s Deepstar Six. But it was the sharp-witted pitch from first-time screenwriter Todd Farmer to completely seal the deal. Jason X is violent, brilliantly paced, and surprisingly a lot more fun than the synopsis suggests. All of which comes back to Farmer’s knack for humor and horror.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Farmer regarding his work on Jason X. He talks candidly about the development process, his love of horror, and how he took Jason from the depths of Crystal Lake to the final frontier.
Coop: So, you were kind of brought to Hollywood by Dean Lorey, who co-wrote Jason Goes To Hell. Was that how you directly got involved in Jason X?
Farmer: In a round-about way, yes. Dean convinced me to move to L.A. and gave me my first writing gig. I was living in Dallas at the time sort of working as a handyman. Once in L.A., I wrote the glorious screenplay HUNTED for Dean. It was about bigfoot. Then we followed that with VAMP CAMP. It was about vampires running a summer camp. Some of the best oral sex jokes ever written, I might add. Dean later introduced me to Sean S. Cunningham. Dean had this idea called LYCANTHROPE, a werewolf comedy. He suggested I write it, he’d direct and Sean would produce.
Coop: I mean, you can’t really go wrong with comedic werewolves…
Farmer: To be honest, I’m not sure why we never shopped it around or if we did. I thought it was a hilarious screenplay. Dean and I wrote the story. We may have even co-written it. I can’t recall. I’ve killed so many brain cells since then that Obi-Wan felt the disturbance.
Coop: Does it still exist?
Farmer: Unless Cunningham has a copy, I’m sure the screenplay is long dead. That’s way back from the scriptware days. I’m certain I don’t have a copy. Take that back, I have an old TXT file of it. Years ago I found someone with the old scriptware program and they took a dozen of my old screenplays and exported them to TXT. The formatting was all screwed up but the story was mostly salvageable. Wow, I don’t know about your dear readers but what a fascinatingly boring turn this interview just took. I will try to do better in the future.
Coop: Well, they’ve stuck with this series thus far, so I’d like to think we’re okay.
Farmer: Anyhoo, after those early adventures, Dean suggested I stick around and work for Sean. So I did that for three years. It was during the Freddy vs Jason years. I think Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff were writing it when I came in. I eventually did a draft New Line politely passed on and returned it to us in the same envelope we had mailed it. Unopened. I think the King of the Hill guys were next with thier it-was-all-a-Pamela-Voorhees-
Coop: How did you approach writing Jason Goes To Space?
Farmer: Pissed off mostly. I was addicted to EverQuest at the time and felt betrayed I had to stop playing to write a Hollywood screenplay!
Coop: The director, Jim Isaac had plenty of experience with creatures and science fiction, did you two work well together?
Farmer: I liked Jimmy quite a bit. He wasn’t the stereotypical director that had been planted in my head. He’d come from horror and from FX and not just any FX, but Cronenberg FX. And yet he was so soft-spoken. While the idea to travel to space was mine, the story was very much a cooperative approach with Jimmy. Some great lines and beats came from Noel Cunningham and an in-plain-sight theft of Cameron’s Aliens structure. But that’s fine.
Coop: If James Cameron could rip off Dances With Wolves for Avatar, I’m sure it’s okay for Jason X to borrow from Aliens.
Farmer: Well, as everyone knows, years later it was My Bloody Valentine‘s brilliant 3D that completely and without overstatement inspired Cameron’s little Avatron movie (with a splash of Ferngully of course). When it came to the physical action of typing the words, the approach was to be real. In my head, it was always to reach the reality of Ridley Scott’s truckers-in-space who bring on board an alien. We were to be students in space who bring on board a psycho killer (que Talking Heads).
Coop: Jason X filmed in the summer of 1999 during a time when Scream was still popular. So was humor the primary focus in your script?
Farmer: No way. Didn’t even cross my or our minds. Granted there were some funny moments that I hope came from the character’s actions. The bit between Professor Lowe and Janessa S&Ming for a grade was there from the first outline. I always chucked at his orgasmic cry of “You passssssss!“. That scene in itself was structured because I was annoyed by gratuitous nudity…
Coop: It’s difficult to talk about the Friday The 13th franchise without discussing gratuitous nudity.
Farmer: Horror, in my opinion, was the greatest genre ever created but being mishandled by a bunch of white men with a checkbook in one hand and their c**k in the other. And this is not debatable because horror is currently the most successful genre in the world. There is a level of sophistication to it now. As it should be. I never understood why horror had to be so stupid when it came to nudity. I like T&A as much as the next guy/gal but to stop the story to reveal that always seemed weak to me.
Coop: I had a similar discussion with Part 5‘s Deborah Voorhees in this article series.
Farmer: I’m not saying I’m Doctor Brilliant but in my film, the character KM wanted to be a real girl so Tsunaron attempts to install nipples on a robot. Voilà! Boobs! But it’s also a plot point because she’s in love with him and later it’s her realization that he loves her back that turns her into a fembot. Well, that was always the intention. But look at it this way; who wasn’t slightly turned on when Sigourney stripped down in Alien? I was but it wasn’t some oddly out of character action.
Coop: Right, it serves a purpose and it’s anything but gratuitous.
Farmer: She didn’t stop the story to take a shower with super sudsy soap. She stripped down to climb into the suit. I could bitch about this stuff for days. It’s the reason I later did the nudity myself. If we’re gonna write that women disrobe then we better be willing to put our d*s on the line as well. Or a in my case, my junk didn’t make the cut. The point is, by week three of Scream‘s release, the orders came down from on high to make it funnier and self-aware. So we all smoked some pot and had premarital sex.
Coop: According to the interview I did with Jason Goes To Hell director, Adam Marcus, working with Cunningham wasn’t great. Did you have a lot of pressure on your script? Were Sean and his son Noel, accommodating?
Farmer: I don’t recall pressure on the script, no. Pressure really isn’t the right word. Not sure what is. You cannot accuse anyone willing to risk putting Jason in space as not being accommodating.
Coop: Did you get along with Cunningham as you did with Isaac?
Farmer: Of course, Sean and I didn’t always see eye to eye on the creative. Was that it? Perhaps it was the technique we didn’t see eye to eye on. Sean was very much a student of film structure. He read books, took classes, he was rather insatiable when it came to the mechanics of screenplays. I was predominantly gut. Which is risky and maybe even irresponsible. But either it worked for me or it didn’t and I could not tell you why. Of course, I was also an arrogant prick.
Coop: Aren’t all young writers in Hollywood?
Farmer: Sean had delivered and reinvented himself several times. Friday the 13th wasn’t his beginning. He’d already been out there fighting the fight before that. Spring Break was not only a complete departure but a game-changer in teen-comedy. And House? A Haunted house haunting you with your own soldier past? I still prefer Deepstar Six over Leviathan. Yet there I was telling him to let me write and that he should stick to producing. And his reaction wasn’t anger, he looked at me and said “I didn’t get into this business to let others make the movie that was no fun”. And he was right.
Coop: Despite Cunningham’s track record, I understand the approach to filmmaking.
Farmer: And we simply had different approaches. I came at it with my gut, and I still do to this day! He came at it from a scholarly place. We likely parted ways after Jason X for this reason. At least, I assumed that was the reason. It wasn’t that my way was better than his, it was just that two heads make a monster.
Coop: My favorite element of Jason X is how it’s business as usual for Jason even though it’s set in space 400 years into the future. Did you consciously make Jason the focal point with that in mind?
Farmer: Consciously? Likely no. For me, I was creating my version of Ripley with Rowan. She was the girl from our time… or close to it. Rowan was the fish not only out of the water but in space! I assumed she would be our main guide on the journey. Jason being Jason was mostly Kane.
Coop: Right, and there’s a reason why Kane Hodder’s portrayal of Jason is so important to the franchise and the fans.
Farmer: I still fully believe Freddy vs Jason and the Friday ’09 owe Kane a big thank you. Kane kept the franchise alive for years, from convention to convection. He wasn’t just protective of Jason, he was Jason. Of course, Derek Mears, one of my best friends, took Jason to a whole new dimension in ’09 but without Kane, there is but one dimension. Don’t get me wrong, Kane’s a nut but it’s that particular brand of nut that made Jason X Jason as grounded as he was.
Coop: No doubt he owned the roll every single time he played it!
Farmer: I recall a part in the script where KM, after attaining Trinity Matrix form, knocks Jason to the ground. The screenplay and the blocking called for the cameras to be rolling as Jason got up. Kane said “Nope. No way. Not gonna happen. Rising, climbing back to your feet is an awkward, vulnerable and specifically human movement. We should never see that of Jason.” And he was right.
Coop: Were there many rewrites on your script for Jason X?
Farmer: There were a couple of rewrites. Early drafts opened with more futuristic high school antics. Lost in rewrites. There used to be countermeasures protecting frozen Jason, like robotic spiders. Michael De Luca, the head of New Line at the time, had dealt with CGI spiders in Lost In Space and warned it was a nightmare. So that was lost in a rewrite. There was a lovely antigravity scene that we couldn’t afford. So that was a rewrite.
Coop: Is it true Betsy Palmer was asked to return as Pamela Voorhees?
Farmer: There was a part written for Betsy Palmer in the VR sequence in the end. I had Jason kill her to show that he was not only physically different but mentally changed as well. I was told I was insane and to rewrite it, so I did. Later she was written out completely when a financial agreement became evasive.
Coop: Did Noel have any involvement in those rewrites?
Farmer: Noel came up with the idea of using cryofreezing for a death, so that was a rewrite. And at some point, my lack of nudity became an issue so I rewrote to create some naked VR campers and Noel called me up with the pot/premarital sex line. Rowan had a romantic interest that I hadn’t written very well. He played more like her sidekick and that came out in rehearsals so the poor kid was let go and sadly it was the easiest rewrite yet because I simply gave his lines to others and no one even noticed he was gone. Again, my fault, not the actor.
Coop: For your first film, that wasn’t too bad though!
Farmer: There was also a fella who rewrote me, I forget his name. He’d written a comedy book called How to Write An Unfunny Comedy Book and had used those very techniques to create the first production draft. I was back in L.A. at the time and oblivious. Jimmy called me and with embarrassment told me not only had the rewrite happened but asked if could I rewrite it. Since that draft had become the official white pages, it couldn’t be thrown out. So I basically rewrote someone’s rewrite back to what it was before he rewrote it. Then I flew back to L.A. and Sean and Noel added some stuff. I’m not sure what. Finally, Dean Lorey and I flew back to Toronto and spent a weekend doing some punch up dialog. So yeah, just a couple of rewrites.
Coop: In addition to writing Jason X, you also have a small role! Your scene is easily my favorite sequence in the entire film. It had to be surreal being on the set of a movie you wrote.
Farmer: It was wonderful and it was exciting! I’d get goosebumps every single time I was introduced as the writer. It was also overwhelming and humbling. I had written some throwaway piece of action where one of the grunts was trying to radio the others by taping an earpiece. Never thought about it again. Until I got on set and saw that someone had constructed those tiny earpieces. Every single actor had to go get ear molds made so that their personal earpiece with a futuristic exterior would fit comfortably. It was one of those “oh sh** be careful what you write!” moments.
Coop: I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of writing something and have it be an issue for everyone involved!
Farmer: It was terrifying and horrifically stressful. Suddenly 100 people’s jobs are because of you. I worried the movie’s success or failure could impact their future jobs. I loved the cast and crew and hated the idea that my stupid movie might hurt their futures. In the end, you simply don’t know what you don’t know. And until you’ve made your first movie, there’s a lot you don’t know. There’s a lot I didn’t know. A lot I still don’t know.
Coop: You’re sort of the go-to guy for horror. The Messengers, My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry, even treatments for Hellraiser and Rob Zombie’s Halloween 3, do you have a favorite?
Farmer: Impossible to have a favorite! I like them all for different reasons. They’re all unique in different ways too. Jason X was my first so how can you beat that? Messengers started as Scarecrow and it was the project that introduced me to director Patrick Lussier. I later rewrote that original script to be the prequel. That never happens. My Bloody Valentine was crazy fun and helped start the 3D craze. Heavenly Sword, which few even know about, was my first video game adaptation for a game I loved.
Coop: One of my favorites has to be Drive Angry. In many ways, that was the Nic Cage film that kind of made him this icon of self-awareness.
Farmer: Drive Angry was almost exactly what we wrote. We did one tiny polish then we sold it. We did some production rewrites but storywise it was exactly what we wanted. Production-wise, we may have made some tweaks. Oh and Fichtner, right? And that’s just the crap that got made! Halloween and Hellraiser were both great to work on and with huge regrets we couldn’t share those stories with others. The same goes for a dozen other screenplays and treatments: Ghost Rider, Fright Night, The Fly, Exorcist, Riddle Me This, Past Tense, and the list goes on and on. I love them all!
Coop: What are you currently working on?
Farmer: The garden mostly. Tomorrow I’m flying out of the country for a scout. I’ll be the one in the hazmat suit. My producing partner, Ita Kennedy, and I have numerous projects including a naughty little horror to be shot in Glencolumbkille, Ireland. We also have a rock n roll biopic that I’m passionately in love with. And I’ve sold a true crime that will hopefully move again when the world starts to turn again.
Coop: Are you still working with Lussier on any of these?
Farmer: Lussier and I are out to actors on our next scary romp. Plus F.J. DeSanto and I sold our comic to Netflix with Michael B. Jordan and Joe Robert Cole attached. I’m also developing something with my friend Jarrell and something else with my friend Brian. Not to mention another dozen stories in different stages of development! During the pandemic, I took an old screenplay of Dean Lorey and I and wrote it as a novel. I’m about to send it to him for his pass. So, there’s all that!
Coop: Would you ever consider writing a new Friday film? Perhaps one where Jason goes up against Drive Angry‘s Milton?
Farmer: No. (laughs)
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