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The Latest

• DIABLO is OUT!

  We said it’s one of our most anticipated movies of 2025. Now you can see for yourself. 

• LIONSGATE GOES AI

  They just announced how they’re going to use AI for more than just streamlining post production. They intend to, “transform every movie in their catalog into endless variations for different audiences and markets. An actual quote from Vice Chairman, Michael Burns: “Now we can say, ‘Do it anime, make it PG-13.’ Three hours later, I’ll have the movie.” Gee…exciting. 

• THE REAL KING

  In these parts, we only celebrate one King.

WHAT KIND OF ‘FRIDAY THE 13TH’ MOVIE WOULD YOU MAKE?

Just because we don’t dig on Lionsgate’s Ai intentions doesn’t mean we don’t like to imagine possibilities. 

Heck…

Andrew, DG’s man behind the scenes got to know Herschell Gordon Lewis by pitching him a movie that combined four of his most famous villains–Fuad Ramses, Gruesome Twosome Rodney, Adam Sorg (Color Me Blood Red), and The Wizard of Gore. He loved it, but we ended up making another movie. Nonetheless…

We wanted to celebrate the official holiday for horror fans like us, with one of our team-up pieces. So…

Forget the right issues. Forget the rules. Forget the reality.

If you had an unlimited budget and could make any FRIDAY THE 13th movie you wanted, what movie would you make?

Be advised, all of this comes with spoiler warnings for various movies mentioned.

BEE DELORES

Basic Premise:

It’s not quite a remake and not quite a sequel. Camp Crystal Lake closed permanently 32 years ago following the events of JASON GOES TO HELL. Jason Voorhees has become a myth for the new generation. A group of 20-somethings decides to renovate the camp and reopen it as Camp Magnolia. Ginny’s granddaughter is part of the group, but she fails to tell her grandmother that it’s the same camp as when she was a camp counselor. Ginny, now living in New York City as a licensed psychologist, treats patients who suffer from deep trauma. She doesn’t realize it’s Camp Crystal Lake until the second half of the film. She decides to drive out to the camp to confront her trauma and put Jason back in the ground where he belongs.

Does Ginny rise victorious ala Laurie Strode? Or does she suffer the fate of Sally Hardesty? 

Cast:

Ry Barrett (Jason)

Kevin Bacon (the harbinger of death, aka the Ralph role)

Amy Steel (Ginny)

Counselors and other camp personnel:

I’d cast an unknown actor as Ginny’s granddaughter, but this is the general cast.

Sadie Sink (as the opening kill)

Judah Lewis (as the opening kill)

Fred Hechinger (from FEAR STREET 1994)

Kyle Gallner

Melissa Barrera

Jamsmin Savoy Brown

Georgina Campbell (from BARBARIAN)

Johnny Berchtold (from THE PASSENGER)

Pierson Fode (from MARSHMALLOW)

Giorgia Whigham (from MARSHMALLOW) 

Campers:

Kue Lawrence (from MARSHMALLOW)

Ingrid Torelli (from LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL)

Lonnie Chavis (from THE BOY BEHIND THE DOOR)

+others!

BRETT GALLMAN

The easiest possible answer to in this hypothetical situation (which should happen for real in my opinion — my line is always open, Hollywood!) is to simply point to Nick Antosca’s unused “DAZED & CONFUSED meets FRIDAY THE 13TH” script. For the crowd that understandably wants to go back to the roots (again), here's a ready-made throwback that reads like a wish-list for longtime fans. Not only does it return Jason to his natural habitat (1980s Crystal Lake), but it also features him gloriously slashing through a cast of colorful characters, all of it set to the soundtrack of the era. It ranks very highly on my personal list of “what if?” films, and I no doubt would watch it dozens of times.

But you know, we already went back to the roots the last time out and, by my count, we have five conventional movies featuring Jason terrorizing Crystal Lake, plus two more with other killers, not to mention yet another where Jason battles a telekinetic teenager (RIP, Lar Park Lincoln). On the other hand, we only have one movie where Mrs. Voorhees’ baby boy battles it out with Freddy Krueger, which is at least two fewer than we should have. So if anyone holding the FRIDAY THE 13TH rights ever approaches me for my take, they had best be ready to book a rematch between the two horror icons for FREDDY VS JASON 2. We don't even need to invite anymore characters from other franchises, as a certain comic book series did. We just need Freddy, Jason, and a new cast for them to slice and dice through. I know Robert Englund insists he's retired, but I like to think I could convince him to don the glove one more time (or two — we’d need to have a rubber match after all).

JON ABRAMS

I had a vague idea once for a horror version of THE EXPENDABLES, which strikes me as sort of obvious but still fun to think about. (I’m pretty sure someone somewhere has even done some version of this, with whichever horror luminaries are accessible, although I can’t think of it off-hand and it’s currently Google-averse.) But which way do you go? I don’t see any way to get Jason, Freddy, Michael, Chucky, Leatherface, etc. working together, not even for a minute. So it’s not bad-guys-on-a-mission. It’s the powers of good, working together against a common evil. Once we hit on doing this FRIDAY THE 13TH question, I came up with a way to fit this low-concept into it.

Picture all of horror as a shared universe, or even as a multiverse, if you will. How did that happen? Let’s say it has something to do with that Hell dimension that Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill and all of those folks discovered in EVENT HORIZON. From that spot, you can access any time and place in the history of horror. Obviously that’s very bad, but also it can be very good.

Who's doing the choosing? I'm not sure. Maybe the great forces behind the universe. Maybe cameo roles for Robert De Niro (as Louis Cyphre) and Willem Dafoe (as Jesus of Nazareth). Even a little Morgan Freeman /slash/ Alanis Morissette. The powers that be decide that Jason Voorhees needs to be stopped. This is an informal guess, and I’m sure a concrete answer is out there on the internet, but it strikes me that Jason Voorhees, above all the other movie psycho-killers, is the most prolific murderer. Or maybe someone has a personal vendetta. Why we do what we do is less important than what we’re gonna do about it.

In a selection process part THE DIRTY DOZEN and part BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, we’re going to go around the timeline, recruiting the most practiced people at dealing with a problem like Jason: Final girls! We’re going to get a whole army of final girls and see if they can do the impossible. Let’s let Laurie Strode relax. Ripley and Sarah Connor deserve a little R&R. Set Sidney Prescott aside for now. Since it’s me choosing, I’m gonna go with an all-Black roster of final girls. Is that gonna be a problem? Anyone gonna accuse me of DEI? See if I give a shit! These ladies are all awesome, in the listed projects and elsewhere.

Pam Grier (SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM)

Jada Pinkett Smith (DEMON KNIGHT)

Naomie Harris (28 DAYS LATER)

Tangi Miller (LEPRECHAUN: BACK 2 THA HOOD)

Kiersey Clemons (SWEETHEART)

Teyonah Parris (CANDYMAN 2021)

Keke Palmer (NOPE)

Ella Balinska (RUN SWEETHEART RUN)

Wunmi Mosaku (she didn’t survive SINNERS, but she made it out of HIS HOUSE!)

Lupita Nyong’o (we didn’t see a body in A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE — she coulda made it!)

 Now, I haven't got much further than this set-up, but the sky's the limit. And maybe you can take it from here! Where should the story go next?

KATELYN NELSON

I didn’t go into much detail regarding the casting or budget really, but the idea is a sort of found footage style F13 with the below plot premise:

“The children of the town surrounding Camp Crystal Lake have taken the campfire tale of Jason to heart, taking joy in tormenting tourists who come to the lake to spectate and record the sordid past of the camp. A true crime stream team decides to go to Crystal Lake as the anniversary of Jason’s death and vengeance approaches. They collect the stories on tape for their fans, with mixed reactions from the townsfolk, ranging from disgust to disinterest to intense enthusiasm for being on camera and revealing the town’s sordid past.

Their trip spikes in intensity as some rabid fans of the show don a copy of Jason’s mask and begin following them to the camp site of the original murders. In a bid to make their claims to fame, the fans pop out from the woods while the gang is on a break, brandishing fake weapons and heading toward the equipment perched at the edge of the lake.

The crew, startled and terrified, confronts the troublemakers and forces them to leave the premises, promising that should they return the cops will be called and they will be hauled away. As night falls, the real Jason emerges from the Lake wherein he was hiding during the previous encounter, much as a shark stalking its prey. The crew have stationed cameras around the perimeter of the camp, as well as within the bunks and in common areas. We watch as they go about their regular routine, reflecting on the stories they’ve heard and the bloody past of the town—and what getting certain footage could do for their future careers.

Having heard from the band of fans who followed them that there is a believed way to summon Jason and have him do your bidding—face toward the lake, or stand in certain sites where prior victims were known to have been killed, chant a few kikiki mamamas and this nursery rhyme style poem heard skip rope style in the streets the children played:

Jason came from Crystal Lake

And many a young soul did take

The counselors knew not what they do

And now he lies in wait for you

A few of the crew members with more hubris than the others try this method, and are quickly dispatched by Jason in grisly ways. The remaining crew members grow anxious waiting for their return, and go out to find the missing two. After an intense chase sequence shot through the pov of a live stream, the remaining two encounter traps in the woods that incapacitate them both in different areas. One is strung up with a hunting net and the other falls into a hidden pit. It begins to rain, and just as they come to from the shock of their captures, the aforementioned poem echoes through the woods as both Jason and the kids they had previously threatened to call the cops on emerge from the trees. The children edge closer, still donning the masks of their hero, as Jason slowly dispatches with both of them.

The last thing the camera sees is a shot of the circle of feet closing in, the agonized screams of the true crime crew mixing hauntingly with the last lines of the rhyme: “And now he lies in wait for you...”

AND WE’RE NOT FINISHED!

When faced with our question of Which Friday the 13th Would You Make, Katie Beachy came back at us with TWO full pitches. Too long for this newsletter. But click here to get the scoops on Friday the 13th #13 Disaster on Ice and Friday the 13th LOCKP14CID.

Now, it’s your turn…

Which Friday th 13th do you want to make? Email us at [email protected] and we will publish your takes in the next newsletter.

NO KINGS, JUST KING…

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