June 4, 2005

Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, Burbank, California, June 4th, 2005 at the Burbank Marriot

This was Part One of the Friday The 13th panel; featuring writer’s throughout the series. From left to right: Todd (Jason X) Farmer, author Peter Bracke (Crystal Lake Memories), Dean (Jason Goes To Hell) Lorey, Mark (Freddy Vs. Jason) Swift, and Barney (Part IV) Cohen. The panel consisted of interesting stories on how each writer approached tackling their entry into the series. Barney Cohon admitted to not being familiar with the film’s prior to writing Part 4, until he went to see a triple feature of Parts 1 thru 3 in one sitting. Dean Lorey, who penned Jason Goes To Hell and also played the mortician decided to have fun with his story and did something that had never been done before; blow up Jason in the opening. He also added that, the Freddy’s glove finale was always an intended ending thanks to Friday’s recent move to New Line. Overall, it was an entertaining panel and lead beautifully into the next Friday related panel…

Sean Cunningham (writer/director) and Adrienne King (of Friday The 13th) hosted the next panel. Sean addressed questions pertaining to the future of the Friday The 13th franchise. He ruled out the idea of another VS. movie. And says another straight forward Friday The 13th film will be more probable. In the meantime, he’s working on a brand new Friday The 13th television series, which will hopefully go into production at some point this year. He also mentioned that he has an excellent idea for a Last House On The Left remake, but nothing’s official as of yet.

6/5/2005: Next up was Part Two of the Friday The 13th panel, this time with various director’s of the series. From left to right, we had Adam (Jason Goes To Hell) Marcus, John (Part VII) Buechler, Tom (Part VI) McLoughlin, Joseph (Part IV) Zito & author Peter Bracke moderating for a second day in a row. The surprise visitor was none other then Stu Charno from Friday The 13th Part 2, who jumped up on stage, took a photograph of the audience and pointed to his “I’m Still Alive” T-Shirt. It was very interesting to hear the different approaches from each director towards their entry in the series and it seems a lot of these guys are big fans of each other’s work. For example, Joe Zito admitted to loving Tom’s film (Part 6), and Adam Marcus was thrilled to share the same stage with the director’s that influenced him when it came time for his Jason pic. Joe talks a bit about the talented group that was on board for his film, including Corey Feldman and of course… Crispin Glover; whose “dance” scene was an improvision on his part. “That was all Crispin. That was a dance he would do in clubs.” John Buechler mentioned how disappointed he was with the absence of Kane Hodder from Freddy Vs. Jason. “For me, it’s personal. Yeah, I saw it, and it was good. But Kane should’ve been in that movie. And he would’ve brought so much more to the character.” Let’s not forget, John’s the one who first had Kane hop on board as Jason with Part 7. They are all looking forward to what future director’s might bring to the series, and openly admit to being really excited by the rumor’s of Quentin Tarantino’s involvement, even though those rumors turned out to be false. A fantastic panel from a group of fantastic director’s.

*All photos by Robert V. Galluzzo and property of Icons Of Fright.com