"FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES" By Marc Shapiro Taken from Fango #70. Used without permission. Transcribed by Alyse Micki Wax "A funny thing happened on the way to television. Someone sent Mr. Voorhees home and told him to take his machete with him." During a very early meeting of the "Friday the 13th: The Series" brain trust, the idea of decorating one of the regular sets with a hockey mask was tossed about -- and just as quickly tossed out. "We has the idea of the mask being a kind of an in- joke," recalls the show's story editor, Bill Taub. "But we decided that making even a joking aside to the `Friday the 13th' movies would be a mistake." Taub's distancing this late night TV horror series from the Jason saga is news. It's not so much that what he's saying is earthshaking, just the idea that anyone even remotely connected with the show has volunteered to say *anything*. Logistics have been a major culprit. What with the series being filmed in Toronto and the studio honchos holed up in Los Angeles, setting up interviews has ranged from difficult to impossible. The impossible part centres on the show's executive producer, Frank Mancuso, Jr., who to date has refused to surface long enough to hype his syndicated television offspring. So a reporter takes what he can get. In Taub's case, conversation consists of the often-heard refrain, "This is not a TV version of the `Friday the 13th' movies." "This series has nothing to do with Jason," insists Taub, who also scripted "Friday [the 13th's]" pilot episode. "You really couldn't do the movies on television and get away with it, anyway. What the creators of the show [Mancuso and Larry B. Williams] have done is taken the title `Friday the 13th' and created a whole new idea around it." "Friday the 13th: The Series" focuses on a pair of distant cousins, Ryan Dallion and Micki Foster, who inherit a broken-down antiques store and its contents from their recently deceased uncle. After selling off the antiques for a tidy profit, the pair discover that their uncle had made a pact with the devil. Thus, the store and everything in it are cursed. With the aid of antiques expert Jack Marshak, the pair begin their weekly one-hour task of retrieving the antiques before the things can turn their deadly powers on those who purchased them. The show which stars "Twilight Zone" guest star John D. LeMay, model Robey, and Christopher ("Murder by Decree") Wiggins, is being billed as a frightening rather than gory product. Taub however, relentlessly describes "Friday the 13th: The Series" as a definite exercise in horror. "People are killed in this series in any number of ways," Taub asserts. "One person is killed when a nest of bees is thrown in his car. Life support systems get turned off and people fall down stairs. But there is a supernatural edge to the series as well. A scalpel that once belonged to Jack the Ripper has a mind of its own. There is also a cursed pen that, if you write with it, causes what you write to happen to you." Taub offers that the "scary, not sickening" approach taken by "Friday the 13th" has resulted in the production's keeping an eye on itself. "We cut away at as much as possible from any scene that would be perceived as overly violent. We had one script in development in which a `bad seed' kind of little kid died at the end. We felt we could not kill a kid and stay within the boundaries created by the show, so we changed the ending." This seemingly sanitized attitude under a banner whose very name bespeaks blood and guts would seem to be begging an early grave from hardcore horror audiences. The possibility of brickbats dose not concern Taub. "People who will feel cheated because this is not a slasher series are not the people I'm concerned with. The show has a potentially much larger audience than those movies have. The series will undoubtedly appeal to an audience that was not into the `Friday the 13th' movies. The people who want the blood, guts and gore are not our core audience." Megan Hope-Ross wants to make one thing perfectly clear, too. "This is not a major special effects show," says "Friday the 13th"'s visual FX coordinator. "All we are doing is helping the reality of the show along. You won't see anything that will make you go `Wow! Look at that.' Anything we do will slip past your consciousness real fast." While the TV "Friday" FX may be slipping by rapidly, much in the way of creative thinking has gone into the trip. It is public knowledge that the show's FX budget in not major, and the result has been that scripts showcasing anywhere from 10 to 60 FX shots and a 10-day preproduction time have forced "Friday"'s crew to think quickly and inventively. Michael ("The Dead Zone") Lennick, who headed up the FX department but has since left the show, offers some examples of the series' FX improvisations. "For one scene in which we had to simulate the devil's blazing footprints, we used 500 rocket launchers. To make a statue's eyes reflect, we used ordinary metal casters. We even resorted to using 1,500 condoms as a breathing apparatus for a cursed Cupid statue. "Necessity is the mother of invention," he continues, "and those deadlines have pushed us to find newer and faster solutions to the problems." Other haunting FX that viewers can look forward to seeing include a haunted vault with objects flying out of it, a teacup whose vine design leaps off the cup and strangles people, and a magic scalpel that slices through the barrel of a gun. "We're not really pushing the limits on anything," states Hope-Ross. "All we're doing is taking existing technology and applying it to the series as best we can." But don't get the idea that "Friday the 13th: The Series" has been one big happy walk around the block. Taub makes no bones about the fact that adhering to regulations of 50 percent Canadian talent on the show has been rough. "It definitely has not made things easier," complains Taub. "At this point, we're actively looking for Los Angeles people who hold Canadian citizenship. How much having to stick to the 50 percent Canadian quota will hurt us, I don't know yet." Less subtle was a telephone call received from a former "Friday" TV crew member who claims the show is going to hell in a handbasket. "The show is getting screwed up left and right," claims the disgruntled former employee, who refused to give his name. "There is a conflict about whether the show should be effects heavy or not. We had story editors overriding us on the special effects and claiming they were in charge. There is complete lack of communication on the show, and it is being totally mismanaged." The unnamed caller claims that the FX budget per episode is a paltry $7,000. "And a lot of that budget is being spent unnecessarily. The result has been that the special effects crew has had so little to work with that the effects on the show have been uniformly bad." The caller, who contends that Michael Lennick actually left the show disgusted in protest of the slipshod nature of the production, asserts that the producers know how poorly things are going and are already planning on dumping the show after 13 episodes. "I don't like bad-mouthing anybody," says the source. "I'm a real fan of the horror genre. But I'm upset at the notion of a good idea being trashed." By now Fangorians have had time to decide for themselves whether of not "Friday the 13th: The Series" is a good idea gone wrong. A handful of episodes have already played on late night television, including William ("Blue Monkey") Fruet's premier episode, "The Inheritance." And while Taub confesses that there are some rough spots that need to be smoothed out, he remains confident that there is a future for the series. "And so are most people," Taub maintains. "We're basically going with people who have a television track record for the firs season. But we have also been contacted by writers and directors with horror credentials who are interested in working on the show. We definitely feel the show will be around long enough for that to happen." Taub stresses his reason why. "A weekly horror series with continuing characters is definitely something new for television. There have been some recent anthology shows, but with the exception of "Tales From the Darkside," none of them have really captured the audience's imaginations in a big way. We feel `Friday the 13th' will get that audience. "But," cautions Taub, "with any new show, you know it's going to be tough. Right now it's like starting from zero. With `Friday the 13th: The Series,' we are just trying to find out way." End.