Presented by Paramount Scares, Friday the 13th Week sees Bloody Disgusting heading to Camp Crystal Lake for a series of features that celebrate the Voorhees family and their influence. On Monday, the Halloweenies listed their 13 favorite kills in the franchise, and today, Rachel Reeves looks at other camp-adjacent scares.
When Friday the 13th was released in May 1980, its remarkable financial success poured gasoline on the flickering slasher-genre flames. Already burning solid thanks to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween, these films became touch points for many filmmakers looking to break into the industry or simply stack a few coins. Everything from masks and machetes to final girls and fake-outs quickly became solidified as standard genre tropes. However, it was Friday the 13th that reframed summer camps as prime locations for slasher mayhem and popularized it with others looking to replicate the results.
For those lucky enough to have attended a summer camp in their youth, the yearly pilgrimage
offered a chance to disconnect from the outside world, forge new friendships, connect with nature and escape the day-to-day oversight from annoying parents. While the often secluded, remote locations foster this sense of escape, it also naturally prohibits one. Further exacerbated with limited automobile accessibility and adult supervision, everything that makes a summer camp the perfect setting for killer chaos is built into its DNA. With many actual summer camps in the 80s willing to rent out their facilities, its no wonder why so many filmmakers were quick to jump on the summer camp canoe.
Seeing as this Friday is a literal Friday, the 13th, let’s take a look at some of the early imitators who sought to capitalize on the newly reframed summer camp formula.
And if you’re dying for more Friday the 13th content, Paramount Scares and Bloody Disgusting are presenting an eight-film marathon on the Friday the 13th franchise. Not in the area? Can’t make it? Paramount Scares and Fangoria are also presenting nationwide screenings of FRIDAY THE 13th – The Final Chapter.
The Burning (1981)
Even though the wheels were firmly in motion for Tony Maylam’s The Burning before Friday the 13th was released, Camp Crystal Lake hugely influenced the final film Maylam released into the world. Although the film’s core story continued to center around the Cropsey urban legend and the vengeful Camp Blackfoot caretaker, a few key elements were tweaked to intentionally align the film with Friday the 13th and its fans. While a rewritten ending and extra emphasis on the nearby Camp Stonewater location indeed speak to this, two key crew hires practically scream this intention — Tom Savini and Rick Wakeman.
To meet the gore bar that Friday the 13th set, the producers of The Burning went right to the source and hired Tom Savini for the film’s makeup and effects. This choice instantly injects authenticity into the production and creates a powerful visual continuity between the two summer camp slashers. Similarly, by hiring keyboardist Rick Wakeman from the band Yes, The Burning’s score delivers a clever blend of Halloween and Friday the 13th, complete with vintage synths, killer-embodying motifs, and a jarring bluegrass breakdown. These two choices, working alongside a killer cast that includes a young Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter, result in one of the best Friday the 13th coattail riders out there.
The Chill Factor (1993)
Christopher Webster’s The Chill Factor is an odd little horror outing. It’s almost as if writer Julian Weaver threw a bunch of popular horror tropes into a hat, pulled them out and wrote a film around them. As one of the most popular horror properties of the 1980s, it should come as no surprise that more than a few elements of Friday the 13th made their way into the film, including the summer camp setting. However, these elements are presented just slightly off-center to avoid making the comparisons too obvious.
In the film, a snowmobiling trip goes wrong for a group of young, attractive couples when one of these adventurers has a snowmobile accident in the middle of nowhere and gets knocked unconscious. Left with few options and bad weather on the horizon, the group hunkers down at an abandoned summer camp nearby. Soon, things get truly weird as the summer camp’s dark religious past awakens to reak all sorts of supernatural havoc on the young adrenaline-enthusiasts. Because this summer camp is visited during the winter, it couldn’t possibly be inspired by Camp Crystal Lake, right?
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Like many aspiring young filmmakers, Robert Hiltzik thought the horror genre was his best bet for breaking into the movie biz. Inspired by the recent success of Friday the 13th and the personal memories it brought back of attending Camp Algonquin in New York as a kid, Hiltzik wrote the entire film around the summer camp setting. Despite the camp’s name being Camp Arawak in the movie, these camps remained one and the same as Sleepaway Camp was filmed entirely on location at Camp Algonquin.
On top of the summer camp setting, Sleepaway Camp further mirrors Friday the 13th with a mysterious killer stalking the grounds of Camp Arawak, brutally murdering campers one by one. However, Hiltzik was wise to make a few strategic changes to set his camp apart from Camp Crystal Lake. For one, Hiltzik was adamant about hiring age-appropriate actors to play the young campers and counselors at the heart of the film. He also leaned into the interpersonal dynamics between the campers and the seasonal relationships that naturally develop. And while he undoubtedly took inspiration from Pamela Voorhees for Sleepaway Camp’s central antagonist, Hiltzik delivers a twist-ending that will forever remain one of the most iconic endings in horror history.
Cheerleader Camp (1988)
John Quinn’s sleazy slasher Cheerleader Camp is everything you think it is and more. Starring Betsy Russell of Saw-franchise fame as Alison, the movie follows her summer from hell at Cheer Camp. Plagued by horrific nightmares about the upcoming cheer competition, Alison soon begins to question her sanity and what she is capable of when her fellow cheerleaders begin to die awful deaths, one by one. Just like Needy Lesnicky says in Jennifer’s Body, hell is a teenage girl, and Cheerleader Camp embodies that idea in every way imaginable.
Madman (1981)
Inspired by the success of films like Friday the 13th and Halloween, filmmakers Gary Sales and Joe Giannone wrote their own horror film about the East Coast urban legend Cropsey. Unfortunately for them, they soon heard about another Cropsey-related movie in production called The Burning. Rather than compete and risk both projects getting canned, Sales and Giannone swapped their antagonist’s hook for an axe and renamed him “Madman Marz.”
In Madman, a camp for gifted kids called North Sea Cottages has the unfortunate distinction of being located right next to the dilapidated house of renowned family annihilator Madman Marz. After an informative campfire tale warns of the dangers of uttering Marz’s name in the woods, one arrogant young man naturally challenges Marz to make his presence known. While Marz’s ensuing rampage makes satisfyingly quick work of the camp’s counselors, it is the film’s amusingly overwrought dialogue, synth-tastic score, natural woodsy surroundings, and incredible theme song that make Madman a respectable Friday the 13th imitation.
Twisted Nightmare (1987)
For most people, if a random invitation were to appear for a summer camp where a sibling had died under mysterious circumstances only a few years prior, most would file the invitation in the trash without thinking twice. Lucky for us, the characters in Paul Hunt’s Twisted Nightmare, aka Ancient Evil, are not quite so quick to turn down a free vacation. As one might expect, bodies quickly begin to pile up at the ironically titled Camp Paradise as a mysterious killer ushers the visiting campers off the premises and this mortal coil one by one. Deeply reminiscent of Friday the 13th in myriad ways (including sharing some sets with Friday the 13th: Part III), Twisted Nightmare is a summer camp horror film worth visiting for only the most dedicated campers.
Moonstalker (1989)
Similar to The Chill Factor, Michael S. O’Rourke’s Moonstalker subverts the traditional summer season camp setting and takes place during the chilly winter months. In the film, a vacationing family and a group of young wilderness camp counselors training for…something, soon find themselves at the mercy of a brutal madman. With little more plot to offer than that, it would be easy to write off Moonstalker as little more than generic Friday the 13th fare. But, what Moonstalker lacks in narrative complexity and cinematic prowess, it more than makes up for in atmosphere, decent kills, and silly slasher fun.