FIRSTJASON.: Talk

Salome' (2008)

Salome
Written by: Oscar Wilde
Directed by: Alexia Anastasio and Kevin Sean Michaels
featuring: Alexia Anastasio, Jolie Voltaire, Veronica Heffron, Monique Stines
2008, 13 minutes www.salomefilm.com
"...This all-female version of a play by Oscar Wilde about a biblical character with no dialogue and music by Ari Lehman (Jason in the first Friday the 13th film) is… really good!...The music, however, is the best part. Alternating between trancelike beats and depressed piano solos, Ari Lehman has really made a beautiful score for this sadistic and brutal little short..." (Excerpt)

Interview with Ari Lehman of FirstJason
by Fanghoul

Can you imagine a horror/punk/metal musical project with more immediate and impressive street credibility than one fronted by the guy who played the very first incarnation of one of the most famous slasher movie serial killers of all time, Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame? Likely not. But, native New Yorker Ari Lehman hardly needs to bank on his status as a horror/pop culture icon alone when it comes to his band FirstJason. According to the band’s website (Must see it! www.firstjason.com), Lehman trained in classical and jazz piano as well as big band orchestration, and even earned a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee School of Music. Not to mention his work in another successful musical project, the reggae/world music outfit Ari Ben Moses Band.

Lehman is a very busy man, currently working on a bunch of independent films and soundtracks in addition to touring with FirstJason. He was appropriately making an appearance at Minneapolis’ Crypticon horror convention when I contacted him, but was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with me.

Fangirl from Evansville here!
Evansville! Alright! My friend Lori Rosas (Who was Kate Winslett’s full-time stand-in on the movie Titanic!) lives out there. She was in the movie Hag, which I just saw. As a matter fact last night was its debut here. She did a brilliant performance. I’m in the movie too. I play her husband who she catches in bed with another woman so she kills us both, cuts off my head and keeps it alive in an aquarium for 200 years…. And there’s this band from over there called Deliver Us From Evil, a really great band, very kind of young band. As a matter of fact we had them play two dates with us in August… and they are a damn good band.

I’ve read your Wiki and IMDB entries and you’re more than just a movie star, or a rock star, you’re an all around renaissance dude!
Well, thank you! It’s largely because of the new opportunities afforded by this kind of DIY indie culture which is out there that gives us the opportunity to get out there and reach the fans. It seems to be working!

What do you think is the most exciting thing going on in music right now?
I think just the horror/rock movement in and of itself is very exciting right now. The live performances and the special effects and the wonderful kinds of themes that we can play with now. I think that for so long in rock, it lost a lot of the real electricity. When we have these themes like Frankenstein, Dracula, life, death, hell that are in the horror movies, we are able to enrich our shows on a thematic level and definitely on a visual level. Like, I sing Danzig’s “Mother” to the severed head of Pamela Voorhees. Now I think people are coming to see live shows for a different reason. You’ve got these kind of bands like Marilyn Manson, and GWAR….

Doing almost more theater….
Yeah. And I’d like to think that FirstJason’s focus is the music inasmuch as we are different. You could almost call us the clown princes of this scene. The music isn’t exactly catagorizable as death-metal or thrash or punk or hardcore. I’m bringing keyboards, this analog synthesis, so it’s adding a whole new element. We’re a unique voice in this dark rock scene. A little different.

And you have the iron-clad credibility of having worked with special effects legend Tom Savini when you were only 13, do you keep in touch?
Oh, he’s so much fun! I see Tom all the time. Now he’s getting into acting more. (according to Wikipedia he has officially retired from special effects) He just did a Lost Boys remake and we might even be working together on this movie Black Friday. When I was 13 or 14 years old I was brought into his studio and basically put in his hands and it was such an awesome experience, very inspirational. It was the 70s. We were partying and listening to The Doors and those guys were always motorcycle riding and stage fighting. He’s for real. A highly intelligent, eccentric individual.

Didn’t he name his son after Lon Chaney?
He was very inspired by Lon Chaney. Dick Smith was Tom’s teacher and Dick Smith was actually taught by Lon Chaney. (Fangirl later finds out Savini named his son Lon and his daughter Chaney!)

My favorite picture on your website is the one of the final scene in Friday the 13th, where you are coming out of the water, the wide shot where you can see that Savini was standing just a few feet away from you in the water.
Yeah, he tipped the boat. He was giving me directions and we wanted to play it pretty scary when I jumped out. He forbid me to talk to Adrian King for the whole time so that it would heighten her fear of me. So that when they were eating their lunch, I would stand away from them. So they bring her out to the boat and she had barely seen me, and I jump out and she jumps out of the boat, like out of the frame. So they actually had to bring her back in and blow-dry her hair to get her ready for the next take. That’s why when you see the shot she has perfectly blow-dried hair.

Do you think you’ll be back in Evansville soon?
Well, the sooner the better! Deliver Us From Evil invited us back, and I really do like that band. They were so nice to us. And Woody’s asked us to come back. I would imagine in November when they have that Horror Hound weekend in Indianapolis that we will hopefully be able to do Evansville and Bloomington, which is another favorite town of mine in Indiana where they just had the Dark Carnival horror film festival.

Have you heard Harley Poe from Kokomo? They’re a local favorite here, like a horror/folk band.
No. I’d like that! There’s so much room for more ideas upon this same dark theme. There’s so many things we can make out of this dark cloth. I would hate to see it limited to one sort of cookie cutter monster band. *Laughs*

I have to know what you thought of Rob Zombie’s remake of the classic, Halloween.
Oh well, gosh, I haven’t seen it yet. I can tell you what I have heard from trusted sources. First of all I think Rob Zombie can do no wrong. I love his other movies and White Zombie. What I have heard through the grapevine is that people really love the film and that some people feel that he dwells a little too much on his background. Being a total horror geek, I like stuff like that. And then the big deal is that it did so well at the box office. Which shows that it wasn’t just us in the horror scene who were gonna give that movie a chance. It’s good for everybody. It brings the slashers back.

FIRSTJASON PREVIEW

Ari Lehman, the actor who played the very first Jason Voorhees in Friday The 13th, now fronts a hard rock band named FirstJason? Folks, this is the stuff Stagebuzzes are made of.

Lehman, now a Chicago [native], didn’t exactly suppress the memories of playing a young Jason (remember, psychotic knife-wielding Jason didn’t show up until Part 2) but he wasn’t out advertising it, either. Musically, his work in reggae act the Ari Ben Moses Band occupied most of his time. But horror fans are a rabid bunch, and when they finally tracked down Lehman in Chicago, their enthusiasm convinced him to embrace that mutated boy who drowned in Crystal Lake all those years ago, and FirstJason was born.

If you couldn’t tell by the name, FirstJason is an unapologetic tribute to not only the character he played but also to the genre, and culture, of horror movies. That’s why you’ll hear songs with titles like “Red Red Red,” “You Better Run,” and “I Never Die.” And while FirstJason obviously smacks of novelty appeal (bet yer ass we’ll be there with movie poster and Sharpie in hands) it should be noted Lehman is a highly accomplished musician who trained in classical and jazz piano as a child, was awarded a scholarship to the Berklee School Of Music, and studied big band orchestration and jazz piano at New York University. Who says horror movies are for dummies?

Death By Design, One Day Criminal, and The Fuzzy Bunnies Of Death open.

– Trevor Fisher

Jason actor Ari Lehman celebrates
THANXGIVING

Fango caught up with Ari Lehman, who played Jason in
the very first FRIDAY THE 13TH and gave us the scoop
about another calendar-oriented fright flick that he
recently took part in. “It’s called THANXGIVING,” he
tells Fango, “and it’s about these independent horror
filmmakers who go off into the woods with some of
their hippie friends and chicks to make a movie. And
they run into these backwoods cannibals who like to
have a bit of human meat on their Thanksgiving table.
One of the cool aspects of the movie is that sometimes
you can’t tell whether what you’re watching is part of
the movie they’re making, or if it’s part of the
actual movie you’re watching—so it has a little
film-within-a-film thing going on.

“I play Delbert Eaton,” Lehman continues, “this
backwoods guy who’s all like ‘Get off of my land!’ And
I got to shoot a shotgun in the movie. I came onto the
set and they were like, ‘Here’s a new scene we just
wrote,’ and I was like, ‘Great.’ So I put on my
wardrobe, read the scene and got it memorized, and
then I came back out and said to the writer, Richard
Novosak, ‘This script says I have to shoot a shotgun.’
He went, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and called over the director of
photography and said, ‘Tell Ari how to do this,’
because that guy knows how to handle weapons. So of
course I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I can shoot a shotgun.
That’s no problem.’ So he showed me how to do it one
time, and it was so *loud*, man; I was definitely
somewhat intimidated. But in the back of my head, I
could hear Kane [Hodder] being like, ‘Come on, man,
don’t be a f**king pussy.’ I could hear those guys
saying, ‘Come on, man, it’s fun.’ So I just grabbed
the gun, summoned up my gumption and got into the
scene.”

THANXGIVING was lensed “way up in the woods in
Missoula, Missouri, not far from St. Louis—a
beautiful, beautiful place” by first-time director
Bobby Ray Akers Jr. “This is something that should
inspire us all,” Lehman says, “because Bobby Ray was a
fan—he met me, I believe, at a FANGORIA convention.
And he had been an actor; he was getting a little bit
frustrated with auditions and trying to get into
movies. So he said, ‘You know what, I’m going to make
something cool of my own.’ I had mentioned to him
about how Sean [Cunningham] came up with FRIDAY THE
13TH, which kinda set off the idea in his mind for
THANXGIVING, and I encouraged him. He also had the
help of Richard, who’s a great writer and just took
the ball and ran with it. He came up with the concept
of the film within the film and so many other ideas.

“We also had a bunch of good actors,” Lehman
continues. “We did have some people who dropped out—I
think a lot of independent horror movies experience
that, where you get no-shows. And people have to
remember, it’s not just about being professional, it’s
a courtesy. You’ve got 25 people waiting for months
and then you decide not to show up…at least give us a
call, let us know! But what was amazing was, when
there was a no-show, they got someone else there
within an hour. Other actors came, and they did a
great job. There was just this synergy where people
got together and said, ‘Let’s make this work.’ ”
Lehman speculates that THANXGIVING should be ready for
release by this Thanksgiving; you can find out more
about the movie at its official website.

CHICAGO MUSIC AS VIEWED FROM A NEW YORK MUSIC MAGAZINE

WEIRD BAND ALERT.

FIRSTJASON: We always knew Ari Lehman as the answer to an obscure movie trivia question ("Who played Jason Voorhees in the first Friday the 13th movie?"). But now he's also the answer to the question "Who fronts a Chicago-based horror metal band that plays songs based around the serial killer from the Friday the 14th movies" (p. 32)

12 CHICAGO READER |
MARCH 3,2006 |SECTION ONE
Epiphanies

Jason Voorhees
HasaRock Band
By Miles Raymer

If you think about it in terms of a
screen-time-to-audience-impact
ratio, Ari Lehman is one of the
greatest film actors of all time.If you don ’t count his first role, in “a movie about orphans playing soccer,” you’re left with all of two seconds of acting —but millions have seen those
two seconds, and none of them can forget it. Lehman is the last thing you see in the original Friday the 13th, as the algae and rot mottled Jason flinging himself out of Crystal Lake at the last surviving camper. It ’s still one of the most genuinely scary moments in horror history.
“People tell me,‘I remember the
moment when you first jumped outof the water.’ It’s like the Apollo landing,” says Lehman. Effects man TomSavini “used to pay sometimes to go into the theaters during the last five
minutes and watch backwards to see the reaction of people.” If you’ve ever watched Friday the 13th in a theater, you know what Savini usually saw: a few dozen people simultaneously jumping out of their seats high enough for them to start folding up. Lehman basically lucked into the part.He says he sneaked into the audition for the soccer movie — Manny ’s Orphans, also directed by Sean Cunningham —and that he got
cast as Jason in Friday the 13th partly because Cunningham ’s wife objected to seeing their son in the unseemly role.He quit the biz just as easily.
After Friday the 13th, he dedicated himself to studying and playing music,and in 2002 he moved to Chicago from New York City to further his career. “Nine-eleven punched a hole in the music scene,” he says,
“especially if you ’re playing Middle Eastern music,” which he was, along with backing up touring African musicians and reggae bands as a keyboardist for hire. He thought of his Horror movie past as just a bit of personal trivia until 2003, when he got an e-mail from Erik Lee Nash, who runs a Horror merch business and the Friday the 13th fan site Camp Crystal Lake Online.“He said, ‘Is this your
autograph?’ I said, ‘No.Who ’d want my autograph?’” It was a fake for sale on eBay,where it was going for $65.
Within months Nash had persuad-
ed Lehman that he should hit the convention circuit, signing glossies next to aliens and cyborgs and other Horror pinups —even other Jasons. Except for the occasional appearance fee, he gets paid one autograph at a time —photos
run $20 a pop,and he might sign a
couple hundred at a weekend long con.And of course there are other perks,like the free hotel room and the occasional surreal after-party. At one gig, Lehman says,“after eating dinner with Jaws from the James Bond
series, we were playing the piano and having some drinks with two orcs, two Jedi knights, the kid from Lassie, the soup Nazi from Seinfeld, Darth Maul, and the guy who played the uruk-hai.” When the party got too “exuberant ”
for the hotel bar they took it out into the parking lot,where the Lord of the Rings vets shared stage-fighting tips. “The guy who played Sauron got me in kind of a headlock.The soup Nazi was laughing the whole time.”
Lehman,now 40,doesn ’t look like
the mass-murderer type.He ’s smallish and he has long,curly hair and a handlebar mustache,which give his promotional photos a Vlad/Drac vibe but in real life come off as a little goofy.Plus he says “Dude,no way ” a lot.He ’s been fronting a Jewish-themed reggae group called the Ari
Ben Moses Band since he ’s been in Chicago,and when he started doing conventions he ’d take his CDs to sell, which made him seem even more harmless.“They were digging my record,but I sensed this apprehension,” he says.“I thought, "Why don ’t we just do a Jason-related band?” Now fans in line for Lehman ’s autograph can also buy the debut CD by
Lehman ’s horror-metal project,
FirstJason. With Ari Ben Moses Band drummer Fernando Medina, Mike Dangeroux on guitar, and bassist Jason Sneed,who joined after approaching Lehman at the Chicago Horror Film Festival, he ’s making what he sees as the musical equivalent of a hockey-masked stalker. On the
horror-metal scale, it ’s far below the ugly brutality of Slipknot but more frightening than Rob Zombie ’s solo records. On songs with titles like “You Better Run!” Lehman does some burly growling and dancehall toasting over metal riffs, synth stabs, and scary delay effects.“I definitely sat down and listened to some Pantera before figuring out what to do with it,”
Lehman says, though the believe in yourself jam “Nobody Is a Nobody ” betrays his hippie tendencies.

Lehman says FirstJason will be
getting some national exposure in an upcoming issue of Blender (in “Weird Band Alert ”),but chances for mainstream success seem slim: the group has a very specific target audience.

Booking their own shows, they ’ve
opened for Elvira and played dusk
till dawn movie marathons, and
Lehman was even hired to tickle the ivories at a conventioneer ’s wedding.“Doug Bradley, Pinhead, was theminister, and Bill Moseley, aka Chop Top [from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ],was the best man.”

And of course FirstJason plays conventions.This Sunday they ’ll be at Rosemont ’s Wyndham O ’Hare hotel to close out Fangoria ’s Weekend of Horrors. Lehman says he’s planning an opera inspired multimedia theater piece for the stageshow, though it hasn ’t quite come together yet.“You take a look at opera, which is full of all sorts of violence,” he says, “and that ’s considered one of the highest forms of art.”

Mondo Culto vs. the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors!

...The next few hours were spent roaming around between the main ballroom, which offered some sneak previews for upcoming Anchor Bay DVD releases, and the vendor area, where I met two of horror's legendary villains. First, Jason and I spoke to Ari Lehman, ther very first actor to play Jason Voorhees! Yep, the little boy under the boat in Friday the 13th is all grown up and now rocks out in a heavy metal band called First Jason! He was a very cool, humble guy, so I thought, "What the hey," and I went over to speak to the most famous Jason Voorhees, Kane Hodder! Kane is one big dude, but I suppose you'd have to be to play the monstrous zombie that Jason became after Friday the 13th: Part 3D...

Top Stories
Feb 5, 2006 6:58 pm US/Central
'Texas Frightmare' Weekend In Grapevine


Bud Gillett
Reporting

(CBS 11 News) GRAPEVINE Murder, mayhem, bludgeonings, and all manner of deaths. Not a very appealing recipe. Unless you're a fan of horror movies, in which case you're drawn, zombie-like, to the Grapevine Convention Center for the inaugural "Texas Frightmare Weekend."
It's billed as the largest horror convention in Texas, where movies with titles like "I Spit On Your Grave," both versions of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and all incarnations of "Friday the 13th" are viewed with reverential awe.
Celebrities abound. Long-time actress Betsy Palmer signs autographs alongside Ari Lehman - the original Jason and his mother from the "Friday the 13th" movie.
Ms. Palmer expresses being mystified that the line, "Killer, Mommie, killer" sticks in viewers' minds. "You know, I never remember lines from anything, but so many people tell me the lines from this movie," she says, then admits something shocking for an actress associated with the horror genre, "I don't know how to scream!"
Lehman believes the movies tie people together in a kind of communal experience.
"These fans love to see it again and again, and to go through it together again and again," he offers, then adds that all the "Friday the 13th" remakes establish an even deeper bond among viewers. "They like comparing the different 'Jasons,' comparing different episodes, that creates a whole sub-genre."
Horror fans talk as though they're the most loyal of the movie going public. Paul Benavides of Fort Worth offers, "Most of the mainstream movies Hollywood makes now suck, basically." Denton's Billy Crisp, sporting a multi-colored Mohawk hair style, offers this insight, "It's just the atmosphere. It's the only place you can come and you see people out here wearing the same thing you are."
Celebrities have varying opinions. Author and journalist John Bloom, who created alter-ego Joe Bob Briggs, says horror fans are what he calls "completists" and they want to learn about all films of the horror genre.
"Horror fans are the best. They tend to become fans at a very young age and they stay fans their entire lives. And they don't just watch the latest horror film; they go back and mine the past. "
Mixing in with established names are those hoping to make a living in the movies. Parrish Remington plays the villain in the upcoming "The Quick and the Undead." He believes there is an unwritten formula for how characters like his must meet their end.
"You basically know the audience wants to see you basically scream and writhe in agony and you just basically give them what they want. And go for it and keep screaming?don?t' die quick!"
Where do these celebs go after Sunday's curtain call? Ari Lehman is a musician fronting for two bands, including "First Jason," which he calls a horror rock band.
John Bloom continues authoring books while Joe Bob Briggs is signing on to help the cable/satellite movie channel "Red Rum" get up and running; he may also host a show on the startup venture, which caters to the horror movie genre.
Betsy Palmer remains a draw for conventions that remember her entire acting career, though she has this thought for fans who remember her primarily as Pamela Voorhees. "She's the perfect mother; not only will she kill for her son, she'll die for him!"
In horror films it seems characters can die again and again. Lehman says a remake of "Friday the 13th" is in the works. Not another sequel, a remake of the original film due out in October of this year. As it happens, Friday the 13th.


(CBS 11 News)
Check out the video!:
www.cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_036200143.html

Next up on the stage was Ari Lehman and his Horror Rock band “FIRST JASON”. Having seen the band perform at our July 2005 Flashback Weekend event, we knew they were great, but seeing them perform outside was an entirely different experience. They really had the entire drive-in rockin!

Oh, and watch out for Ari Lehman, making the kind of splashy entrance that most other movie stars would kill for...

This splatter flick, along with John Carpenter's Halloween, helped spawn the great horror-movie movement of the '80s, not to mention eight sequels, many of which had nothing to do with the films that preceded them. It also gave birth to Jason Voorhees, one of the three biggest horror-movie psychos of the modern era...Forever duplicated, the original Friday the 13th popularized a number of themes and techniques that today are now clichés: the increasingly gory murders, the remote forest location, the anonymous and nubile cast, the murderer as cult hero, and, of course, the moral that if you have sex, you will die, very painfully. Still, if you have to see a Friday the 13th movie, this is the one to check out...

INTERVIEW: COMIC-CON 2004: All of the Jasons gather to discuss the new Friday the 13th DVD boxset

Friday the 13th: All of the Jasons gathered for a rousing discussion concerning the Friday the 13th DVD Boxset, coming your way soon from Paramount Home Video. It will contain Parts 1 through Part 8. The next three films in the series, as you probably already know, are owned by New Line Pictures and will not be included.

On hand were Jasons Kane Hodder (Parts 7-10), C.J. Graham (Part 6), Richard Brooker (Part 3-D), Warrington Gillette (Part 2), and Ari Lehman (Part 1). Also there to discuss their work were directors Tom McLoughlin (Part 6) and John Carl Buechler (Part 7)...

Moderator: First of all, I want to thank you all for coming. I think I can speak for everyone on the panel when I say how much it amazes me to have so many fans come out twenty-five years later. Give yourselves all around of applause. (He then introduces the panel from right to left...) Ari, you were the first person to ever play Jason. At that time, we didn't really know who Jason was, but we knew he was important to the story. When you went to audition for the role, what did they tell you about him?

Ari Lehman: Well, originally, when I went to Shawn's office, I was in Connecticut. I had made a very silly movie with him about a bunch of orphan kids that play soccer. Which you can only see nowadays if you stay up way too late and you're watching the wrong cable channel. He actually handed me the lines for Kevin Bacon's role. And it said, "Character goes out in the woods to make out with another counselor." I was thirteen, so I said, "Man, this is a great role!" Then Shawn walks in and goes, "No, no, no...That's not the one for you. You're too young for that. You're going to play the monster. Do you know how to swim?"

Moderator: What was the make-up process like being transformed into Young Jason?

Lehman: Well, they put me into the hands of Tom Savini. You have to hand it to Tom, because he came up with this Jason idea. Even the final scene was largely the idea of Tom Savini. And all the make-up work was his. He's a special effects master. He studied with Dick Smith and all the great old guys. Anyway, he immediately took me down to prosthetics. They took a mold of my head and my mouth. The hardest thing was to keep from laughing all the time, because Tom was always telling jokes. There were a couple that were too smiley. Because I was laughing. For me, being in that workshop was like being in Merlin's laboratory. It was a lot of fun. They did the prosthetics, they did the fake teeth, they did a false eye. And it all had to be waterproof.

Moderator: What was it like to shoot those final scenes?

Lehman: Oh, it was great. Initially, the first time, I was a little cold. They didn't use any of those takes. But the second time we went to shoot it, everyone was in the right mindset. For me, they were like, "Go grab the girl in the boat." And I was like, "Okay. I think I can handle that." What did so much to the scene was not what I did, or what was filmed, but the anticipation of the audience. They were hanging there, thinking it was all over, and then..."Boom!" So the timing had a lot to do with it.

Moderator: Did you ever patch things up with Adrienne King?

Lehman: We're still working on it...No, the first time we did the scene, she was a bit scared. To tell you the truth. Tom instructed me not to talk to her the whole time. To try and build up the fear factor. So, the first time I jumped out of the water, I think she was kind of scared. I think she kind of fell out of the boat. The second time, and I really have to hand it to her acting ability; she doesn't look like she knows I'm there. You don't see that anticipation. She looks like she's just dazed. And then, "Boom!" She was really frightened.

Moderator: The first film was a huge hit, and within a couple of weeks, they started production on the sequel. Warrington, how did the part come to you?

Warrington Gillette: I remember watching the first movie, and I nearly had a heart attack. I loved it. It's just incredibly ironic that I ended up in the next movie. I was acting a lot, and I was ready for a break. But my agent comes up and says, "They have this part for you in a horror movie as a camp councilor." And I said, "Let's go, I'm ready." So we go, and they end up calling us back a couple of times. They say, "We think we're going to go with John Furey as the councilor. But we really like you. How would you like to be Jason?" And I say, "I'll be anything you want." So they say, "Well, you're going to have to have a shaved head...You better start shaving." So, I did that, and they give me the script. It says Jason on the front. I read it, and it kind of went on from there. They didn't really audition for Jason; they just kind of hired me for it.

Moderator: Were you prepared for how hard this was going to be?

Warrington Gillette: I had no idea what special effects make-up was all about. I was young. I'd never had any experience. There was a young guy there, a protégé of Dick Smith, and he was highly talented. He said, "Most of the movie takes place at night." I said, "Great." He said, "That means you have to be in the make-up chair around noon time. And we will be done with you at 8." So I said, "You mean I'm going to be sitting in this chair from noon till eight?" "Yeah. Right."

Moderator: Part 2 also had a lot of stunts that you had to do on your own...

Warrington Gillette: Yes. That was the first time I ever jumped off a roof. They had a platform on the exterior of this house, and I timed it so I would go through the glass and the boards. I had one eye built over the left side of my face. So, if you have one eye closed for twelve hours, your whole depth perception gets out of whack. You're very upset, because it is really uncomfortable. So, the first time I hit the damn window and the boards, I hit it and didn't go through it. It was nuts. So, I had to go back and do it again. I kept getting more tired every time I did it. Pretty soon, there's shattered glass everywhere. There's blood everywhere. And All I could think was, "What the Hell am I doing now?"

Moderator: So, Richard, when you took over the role, the character was somewhat established already. Did you look at these other guys that had played it before you to take some of that characterization, or did you start from scratch?

Richard Brooker: In all honesty, I didn't know that much about Friday the 13th. I'd just arrived, and I wasn't a big fan. They came to me one day and asked me to do this. There was no audition. They said, "You just go out there, and you hack them into little pieces." It's in the script to just kill them. So, I just killed them.

Moderator: Did the 3-D process at all hinder your performance?

Richard Brooker: Yes. The 3-D process was very, very hard. It was like shooting two movies at the same time. They had invented this special lens where you could actually shoot both camera angles at the same time. The way that it was done, without getting to technical, was that each object had a focal point. It was very, very hard to get those focal points in focus to create the 3-D effect. For you fans that have obviously seen the movie, the scene where the girl gets stuck in the eye with the red-hot poker, that took 36 takes. So, I'm standing in front of all these lights with all of this make-up on, and all these clothes on, dripping with sweat. And I kept hearing, "Do it again!" It was very difficult to shoot.

Moderator: C.J., quickly, what was your audition process?

C.J. Graham: I got the role through a phone call. I had the physical structure that they needed, and I was cast as a full-time stunt coordinator. Approximately six hours into the shoot, the guy they had originally hired to play the role wasn't working out. I got the call, and they asked if I could be down there in five or six hours. I was out the door.

Moderator: Did you bring anything new to the role?

Graham: Well, the director, Tom, told me exactly what he expected out of me. He didn't give me much guidance. We knew what the character had to do, because he'd just been resurrected. It was fairly simplistic for me. But it was draining. I listened to every word Tom had to say, and I followed that very much to the letter.

Moderator: What do you think the biggest challenge was?

Graham: We didn't have the luxury of retakes. We had a couple of shots going through a wall, or a window. Or a door. We were very fortunate. We had one shot. One take, and that was it. I remember being told that, when I went through the wall, I had to step down about a foot. And try not to fall. Tom told me this was a twenty thousand dollar shot, and that it had taken all day to set up. And that I could not do it again. I was like, "Oh, this can not be happening." But we were blessed. It was perfect. The shot came out clean. And we moved on to the next one.

Moderator: So, Kane, was this a role you had to compete for, or did they just come to you?

Kane Hodder: I didn't really campaign for it, but my manager did for me. I loved the idea of playing the character. And John, the director, convinced Paramount to give me a shot. I actually did have to do a screen test just to prove that I would look good in the make-up, and everything. After a pretty long process, I got it. C.J. did a great job, so the fact that I got it made me feel very fortunate.

Moderator: Did you have any new ideas to bring to this role?

Hodder: John did have some ideas for me. We did shoot the screen test on film so we could really look at it, and see how it came out. I hunted a stuntman friend of mine down, and we sort of adlibbed a lot of violent stuff where I grabbed him by his hair and dragged him across the room. We threw some shit around. It ended up being pretty convincing, I guess. And it gave me the chance to play the role.

Moderator: As the only actor to play the role more than once, what do you think about the character makes him so enduring to play?

Hodder: Well, just for me, I've been a stuntman for many years, and to play a character like that is pretty physical, and all stunt related. Especially in Part 7. It's like a dream come true for a stunt person. Because you are used to watching actors on TV take all the credit for stuff you had done in their movies. No matter what you ever hear, there is no actor who does all his own stunts. Period. None. Don't listen to them, or take it with a grain of salt if they say they do. But, you know, that kind of part, with that type of notoriety connected to it from the previous films, I just felt that it was kind of appropriate.

Moderator: Tom, when you came on to direct Part 6, you'd already directed One Dark Night. But this was your first major studio film. How did it allow you to grow as a director?

Tom McLoughlin: It gave me an opportunity to write and director a major motion picture for Paramount that was in the horror genre, which I'd always loved. And, I also got an opportunity to have a sense of humor, which, up until that point, I don't believe movies of that type had really embraced that idea. We were doing, slightly, a satire of that world. We were barely breaking that fourth wall, where we had characters talking to the audience. Or I was setting up scenes so that the audience would verbally react to it in the theater. Which, especially in the Eighties, the audiences were so verbal, I felt there was a necessity to give them that opportunity to be smarter than they thought the movie was. That was a great time to watch people watch your work. People literally did what you wanted them to do, in the way they reacted. Out of all the movies I've done over the years, it still was the most fun. Because we were all young and excited to do it. We were out in Georgia. There was nobody standing over our shoulders telling us what we could or couldn't do. It was six weeks of six-day nights, staying up all night, and then staying up all night Sunday, just to keep ourselves going, and it was like one big party. We had a blast.

Moderator: I think I speak for all the fans when I say I was so excited when I heard about your movie. That Jason was coming back. That he was being resurrected. Where did you come up with that idea?

McLaughlin: Well, frankly, Frank Mancuso Jr., his only concern was for me to find a way to bring Jason back. We sort of stepped over Part 5, which wasn't really Jason, it was someone pretending to be Jason, and took the Tommy character and said, this is what happens to him when he finally gets out of the mental institution. He wants to make sure that Jason is definitely in his grave, and he screws up. By sticking him with that spear, and having the lighting bolt hit it, I kind of went back to the old Frankenstein idea of bringing someone back to life. Also, with the opening titles, which contained some of the James Bond satire, I wanted to let everybody know that we were going to have some fun with this one. It was still going to be scary, but it was also going to have a sense of humor. Frank said that as long as I didn't make fun of Jason, and that he was only going to be a killing machine, all of the actors could have a sense of humor. Which I think made it even more horrifying when you saw them get killed. Hopefully, you liked what we were doing.

Moderator: Okay, John...For Part Seven, after six other films, it's obviously a challenge to come up with something new for another film. What were your hopes for this installment?

John Carl Buechler: That was the big challenge, actually. When my agent called and said, "Paramount called and they want you to direct Friday the 13th Part 7." I first answered that with, "Why? They're going to make a 7th one? I can't believe it." I saw all the films. They were very good. But I didn't know what you could do that was new. I actually had an interview with Frank Mancuso Jr. afterwards, and I think I almost lost the job. Because I said, "I'm not interested in making just another Friday the 13th movie. I want to do something over the top and ridiculous. I want to make something big. I think everything you guys have done has been groundbreaking." Every Friday the 13th movie has broken new ground. They all did something different. After six of them, where do you go? Previously, Paramount and New Line Cinema had gotten together, and they wanted to do Freddy vs. Jason back then. Ultimately, because of that project, they were looking for a special effects orientated director. And ultimately, New Line Cinema and Paramount could not figure out how to go to bed together. But they still wanted a match. That idea went through, and it became really interesting. And Tom had already brought an element of the supernatural to it. With the last Friday the 13th movie. So, we just took it a little bit further. We came up with a telekinetic girl. It became Carrie vs. a Mutant Terminator.

Moderator: How did you come up with the new look for Jason?

John Carl Buechler: I think Kane may have already said this, but I really longed for him to play the role. I'd worked with him previously on Renny Harland's first movie in the Untied States called Prison, which he played John Forsythe. He had a full body costume and big prosthetics. The thing is, I've worked with a tremendous amount of actors who are good in make-up. And I've worked with actors who are good at working with a tremendous amount of stuff going on. He was all of that. He was a good actor. He was a good stuntman. And he could wear the make-up. It was a natural progression in thought for me. If I'm going to do a real good terminator, I'm going to have to go really nasty with the make-up. And really show all the wounds as graphically as I can. I needed somebody that could really wrap their head in latex. I have to disagree with Kane on one thing. He says that no actor does their own stunts. He does. And he does them well.

Moderator: We will now turn it over to questions from the audience...

Q: Why is there no uncut footage on these new DVDs?

Tom McLaughlin: Well, I think a workcut print of the uncut footage will be on the DVD. It is primarily a cost factor to go back in the vaults and find all those trims, if they still exist. We were fortunate enough to find one of my work prints that does have all of that stuff in it. You will see, in grainy quality, a lot of things. You will see someone's head squashed to the size of a walnut. And geysers of blood coming out of it. You will see all the things that were castrated from my movie by the MPAA.

Moderator: There is a feature. I didn't get to see it. It's 18 minutes and it is called "Tales from the Cutting Room Floor." It is on the DVD. It has that footage. It also has footage from Parts 6, 1, and 4...And you also do commentary on that, right?

Tom McLaughlin: Yes, I do. It's very cool. It is side-by-side comparisons with commentary. Again, it is an issue about going back. I believe, in my heart, that it is possible to reconstitute the footage. And, maybe, if the DVD does well, and they see the response from the fans, Paramount might be persuaded to go back. They do have the work print, which has all the edge numbers on it. All they have to do is find those elements that need to be reconstituted. So, maybe, we will someday see the film properly.

Q: This question is for Kane Hodder. Are they going to put your excised footage back into a director's cut of Dare Devil?

Hodder: Actually, there wasn't a whole lot of footage cut out of the scene I did for Dare Devil. It's just that you can't really tell that I'm the one beating his wife in the alley. They didn't really show too much of it. I don't anticipate that being too much different.

Q: What did you guys, having already played Jason, think about the outcome of Jason vs. Freddy? Did it live up to what you guys envisioned it being?

Hodder: Everyone knows how I feel about that. I want to make sure I get the mask back on again. I don't think it was a real good choice to replace me. But I'm not the guy who makes the decisions. I was really prepared to play Jason in that movie, but it didn't happen, so...Hopefully, they'll realize it's a better idea if I just stay on.

Q: Was It really worth putting all that make-up on?

Ari Lehman: I can't believe I got away with it. Yeah. It was great.

Q: Is Jason ever going to reemerge from Crystal Lake?

Tom McLaughlin: What I know is that they are currently in pre-production on Jason vs. Freddy Part 2, and that is taking precedent over doing another straight movie. Well have to wait and see how Alien vs. Predator does...

Q: Where is Camp Crystal Lake supposed to be located?

Ari Lehman: Okay, Friday the 13th Part 1 was filmed in Blairstown, New Jersey at Camp Novibosko, in the Delaware Water Gap. And you can still go camp there, if you dare.

Q: For the directors on the panel, with the advent of DVD, how do you think that is affecting the way directors are approaching Horror Films now?

Tom McLaughlin: This was a real fluke on mine, because I got the call about doing a DVD for my first film, One Dark Night. And, they asked if I would do commentary. Just looking for that movie on an old VHS tape was hard, because it disappeared for so many years. And in the process of looking for that tape, that's when I came across this tape we'd made of an early version of Friday the 13th Part 6, which we shot off the camera while we were editing it. We were making a reel transfer. That was great, because all this time I was complaining to the fans about not knowing where any of that footage went. The actual negatives are sitting in a vault, god knows where. But it was really exciting to find that tape. I think they did a really good job on this DVD. I'm really excited that we're going to be able to show you guys a side-by-side comparison. There were a lot of scenes where little tiny things were taken out, but those things really helped the suspense and the horror of it. A perfect example of it...Actually, C.J., there was a scene I was concerned about. There's a scene in the movie where C.J. spears A Volkswagen with a girl in it. C.J. was so into the character that he came really close to nailing the woman. But in the additional scenes, you get to see what happens after he spears her. He watches the bubbles slowly drip down her mouth, and form a puddle. There are a lot of little things. The way the sheriff was bent back. How many shots it took to crack his back. There were a lot of little things that were far too intense for the MPAA. As well as the gore factor. There are a lot of cool things that you do get another chance to show people.

John Carl Buechler: Back in 1987, obviously, there was no concept of a DVD, or additional footage. But, as to the question if it makes a director think differently today, it sure does. Because now, a director can imagine the actual look of the movie, and anticipate all of this. I'm working on a new movie now and I'm doing all the special effects for it. It is a movie called Hatchet. And it involves a serial killer with a lot of over-the-top special make-up and creature effects. It will come out theatrical. Kane is going to play the Killer. And we're not really worried about things being cut out of the theatrical run, because we know it's going to live on the DVD. We can put everything back. It's a big deal.

Q: What is everyone's favorite kill from all of the movies?

Richard Brooker: Sleeping Bag.

Moderator: Ari, what was your favorite kill?

Ari Lehman: My favorite kill? Come on, now. I didn't do any kills, but I was naked in the film.

Richard Brooker: That's scarier than any of the kills.

Moderator: Richard, do you have a favorite kill?

Richard Brooker: Popping the eye.

Hodder: I like the sleeping bag, the weed whacker, the frozen head. The boxer on top of the building, knocking his head off. There are a few I like.

Q: Do you think Freddy vs. Jason will work into the ongoing storyline, or does it even matter?

Tom McLaughlin: I guess that's up to you. What do you people think?

(The audience yells out, "No!!!")

Tom McLaughlin: I was approached to do that, as John was, right after I did my Friday. That was back in 1986. They were already talking about putting these two together, and I just felt that they lived in two different universes. I didn't like the new movie, even in script form. I felt Jason got the short end of the stick on that thing. Freddy was manipulating him, and it took away, for me, the fear factor that was Jason. It ruined everything these guys did, making him such a frightening character. I didn't feel he was scary in Freddy vs. Jason. It sounds like, in the next one, from what I'm hearing through the grapevine, is that they're going to continue in that more comic vein, and fight someone from yet another movie. They're going to throw that into the mix. It all depends on how all these other things; this mixing of monsters does at the box office. I don't think it's a good idea. I want to keep the horror pure.

Hodder: I'd like to add something here. When I was finding out that I probably wouldn't be playing the character in Freddy vs. Jason, I was told that they wanted Jason to be more sympathetic with more sympathetic eyes. That's the honest truth. Excuse my language, but what the fuck is that? I don't see Jason being too sympathetic. But that's what I was told.

Q: Do you think it's possible to go back and make Jason scary after Freddy vs. Jason?

Tom McLaughlin: I think so. I mean, why not.

Ari Lehman: I think what makes it so scary is the vengeance factor. That's why, when you go over to the Freddy vs. Jason thing, it's taking on a whole new angle. I thought they did a good job. They even represented young Jason once again. But ultimately, the whole thing that makes it so appealing is that we've all had that feeling of being disenfranchised. And wanting to get back. And when you want to get back at someone, do you have mercy on them? I don't think so.

Q: My question is for Tom. Your movie is known for being the only one that actually shows kids being at the camp. Was that ever an issue with the studio? Having kids in peril like that?

Tom McLaughlin: Actually not. The only thing that was difficult was how late we were shooting having so many young kids down there at five in the morning. That was the only issue. They knew from the script that the kids were there and would be in jeopardy. But nothing ever happened to the kids. Having the kids in there made it that much scarier. It also made you wonder, "Is this going to be the one that crosses the line?"

Moderator: We have time for one more question...

Q: Do you think you will ever be able to go back and straighten out the inconsistencies in Jason's origins?

Tom McLaughlin: I think it's possible to reinvent the idea of Jason. I don't think it's impossible to do a Freddy vs. Jason that makes sense. But they have to come up with a better concept. These are two huge horror icons. And to turn them into a WWF tag-team wrestling sort of thing provokes too much nonsense, and not enough horror.

Q: I'm not talking about Freddy vs. Jason, I'm talking about re-launching Jason by himself...

Tom McLaughlin: The character of Jason is compelling because he is an unstoppable force of nature. He will not be stopped by anything. He is a boogeyman that is coming after you. It is very possible to start over his origins. But my feeling is that there is something in the enigma of not knowing everything. If you knew that Kryptonite could kill him, then everybody would get Kryptonite. You don't have Kryptonite with Jason. You don't have a book of rules. So there's a wonderful sense of discovery about how you're going to go after him now. You're going to need a thermonuclear launcher, or something. You have to create an immoveable, impenetrable force that is unstoppable. That is why the Alien concept works so well, because these things are indestructible.

Ari Lehman: Interestingly enough, there was an animation created with that timeline gap. It is called Jason: The Rebirth. It won an award, as a matter of fact. It kind of answers that question. But, why is Jason so enduring? I want to speak to that before we end this...It is because of you, the fans. The fans bring Jason back to life by attending the movie. Every time you come and support the movie, that is what brings Jason back to life. It's the fans that make it happen in the first place.

Tom McLaughlin: How do you guys feel about a remake of the first film?

(There are many "boos" from the audience.)

Ari Lehman: It worked for Texas Chainsaw.

Richard Brooker: It's probably inevitable, but a bad idea.

Moderator: Thank you very much. And that ends our discussion.

There you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Jasons! That about does it for me, too. Stay tuned for one last Comic-Con discussion held by the always-humorous Lloyd Kaufman and cartoonist Bill Plimpton...