I did find that its important to over-cut the eyes to get the correct dimensions because the vac'd masks are pulled directly over a mold of the movie mask, which shrinks the eye cuts in the blank roughly by the thickness of the plastic, which is about 3 mm. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when you cut them larger than the shape in the plastic they really look more accurate.
It's also the mask you see on the cover of the Jason Goes to Hell fanzine that was released with the movie. Super cool piece of history.
This is just a teaser, but they've packed in a lot of interesting things. Perhaps most noteworthy: Elias Voorhees is back, and we are treated to a mysterious moment where he has the Necronomicon in hand while gazing at his ex-wife's severed head. Is he planning on awakening her? We also see a flashback involving hooded Jason, so it appears we're going to get treated to more Jason backstory.
Fun fact: the head they used is one of the ones I produced a few years ago that was 3D printed off the screen-used head from part 2. It's not lit very well but still nice to see another one of these end up in a fan film.
We have another Friday the 13th fan film on the way: Friday the 13th: Roseblood. According to a synopsis on IMDB: "Takes place 13 months after Friday The 13th Part VII. We follow Tina Shepard as she is held and studied at the infamous Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility. Tina realizes that she is not alone. There in fact is another New Blood. Rose"
This seems to be a merging of settings and events from Part VII and Jason X that deepens the relationship between the two films. Super cool idea! I like where Vengeance went with continuing the plot originally written by Tom McLaughlin for part 6, and Jason Rising seems to take place after the events of Part 4. It provides a little non-canon storyline for us to fill in the time gaps between the big studio films.
It is also really awesome to see Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln) and Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser) reunited again. The timeline makes absolutely zero sense--these actors are more than 30 years older but their characters have only aged a year. I know that was one hell of a year but DAMN. Also, nice to see Dr. Crews recovered from his tree-trimmer injury. The extreme censorship of the original kill by the MPAA back in 1988 actually made it less bloody than a paper cut so this sort of believable.
My only real quibbles with what I'm seeing so far are in execution. Now to preface, I always try to be kind to fan film makers. It is extremely difficult and unbelievably expensive to make a Hollywood-quality horror film, and I take my hat off to anyone willing to put their life on hold to attempt such a thing purely for the love of the Franchise. This film is no exception.
The Jason suit isn't great. The back and rib appliances are a little cartoony looking--definitely sculpted by someone without the anatomical knowledge typical of Hollywood-level sculptors. That's ok if that's all you can afford. But it would be smart to cover it up a bit or at least paint it so it doesn't stand out so much on film. The part 7 look is one of the toughest to pull off because it requires so many layers of cloth, flesh and bone that all have to look believably weathered and corpse-like to the eye. In my estimation, they could be doing better in this respect, but I'll try to not let it color my opinion of the film overall since of course I haven't seen it yet.
Secondly, the lighting doesn't look great to me. Often Hollywood will hide mediocre special effects work, weak set design, even bad acting behind dramatic lighting, and most films are usually better off for it--especially in the horror genre. Judging by the trailer, this film looks to be lit like an office building. But I guess we'll see!
I will say the acting seems to be pretty solid and it looks like we're even getting an appearance from Creighton Duke. If that's the case, that's unifying subplots from no less than three films, which is no small feat. Overall, I'm looking forward to this one and I can't wait to see how they're going to bring these three main characters together.
Great video featuring old home movie footage of Tom Savini on set of Friday the 13th Part 4 creating effects and injuries for Jason. Some footage of appliance application on Ted White as well. Presumably there is much more footage in Tom's possession somewhere, would be cool to see it.
This took me forever to paint lol. Airbrush basecoated with dark gray and green and shadowed with purple (that's what they did with the movie piece, believe it or not, no idea why). Then hand-painted layers in light gray and brown.
Selling the original MMI hands from part 7. Only complete pair of movie mold hands known to exist from the film. Click here to go to auction.
At this point pretty much all the backers of the fan film Voorhees have seen the film, released this past Halloween night, so I think with nearly 400,000 views tallied up its a good time to reveal a little "easter egg" of sorts that connects this film to its big-budget predecessors.
Some fans seem to have noticed the head used in Voorhees bore a strong resemblance to the head used in Friday the 13th Part 2. That's because its the same head.
Well, almost. The head used in Voorhees was actually a 3D print of the original head used in Friday the 13th Part 2 back in 1981.
As regular readers of this blog already know, I bought the original head straight off of Lloyd Albin, who owned the camp that they filmed Part 2 at back in 1980. The head had been left in a net suspended from a tree branch after the cast and crew's wrap party, and Lloyd found it and kept it for 35 years. I bought the head off him in 2015 and had it restored by Tom Spina, owning it for about two years before selling it to another collector in November 2017. You can read the full story here.
Before I sold it, I had it 3D scanned and had an SLS print made. A silicone mold was made from that and resin copies produced. The copy we used in Voorhees was my urethane prototype, and the only copy I painted using the screen-used original head as a direct reference.
I'm very proud of the final result. Check out the photo below. On the left is the head used in Voorhees. On the right is the original screen-used head from Friday the 13th Part 2. The copy is propped up with a barbell because I didn't have a finished stand yet. You can see the old strips of wig tape on the back of the original head used to hold the wig in place.
I had the head on set in Centerville, Virginia for two nights in November 2018 and a third night of re-shoots in July 2019. We filmed Blaine discovering the shrine, getting stabbed by Elena, crawling to his gun and his original death in November, and his re-shot death the following July. Cody basically let me have free reign to set up the shrine so it was almost entirely put together with old junk that we found in the stable (an easier place to shoot than the crumbling house the scene actually takes place in). Producer Chris Plaushin bought the candles, sweater and the sheets used to hide the shrine from the camera during the approach and I destroyed everything and ran it through the mud to make it as disgusting as possible.
Initially I had suggested getting a dim overhead light on the head to get it lit like the original film, but the raw candle light was so compelling we ended up going with that. I took a few photos on set you can see below. The first set here was taken with my Sony mirrorless on the second night; below that the more reddish photos were cell phone shots taken the first night. When it was all set up the first night I had a whopping 17 candles lit but the glare was so intense on-camera we had to remove a few.
For the eight months between shoots, most of the set was left in the stable--the candles, the sweater, the shrine (an old wooden door laid across an oil drum), everything but the head itself, so when we returned in July we just re-lit the same candles and started rolling. Between the three nights I think we were out there almost twenty hours (about 6 PM to 2 AM each night if I remember right). The abandoned farm where we were shooting was unbelievably spooky and we heard a pack of coyotes howling in the distance on the first night.
Usually, back in the '80s when Hollywood made a prop it was used for a day or two and thrown out. Having anything survive from that far back is a small miracle in itself. But I think its great that this old prop got a second life nearly forty years later in a new film. Especially since its the most iconic version of what is probably the most famous severed head in movie history.
The Voorhees head is still a part of my private collection. I am very proud to have been able to use the head to integrate this fan film into Friday the 13th history and working on the film for a few days and setting up this shot was an awesome experience I will always cherish.
