Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 2

Victor Miller, Creator of Jason Voorhees, Dies at 86 After Launching 12-Film Franchise

Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 2

Victor Miller, Creator of Jason Voorhees, Dies at 86 After Launching 12-Film Franchise

Q: Why did the creator of 'Friday the 13th' abandon his lucrative franchise, and what was his true vision for the story?

Victor Miller stepped away from the “Friday the 13th” franchise because he rejected the direction it took after the original film. He said the sequels “completely destroy” the motivation of Pamela Voorhees by turning Jason into the ongoing killer, even though the first movie’s central idea was that a mother was avenging the drowning death of her son. Miller later said he never watched the later entries for that reason. His departure was also practical, not just artistic. Miller said he would have written the second film, but was told he was “too expensive” because the sequel had to be made more cheaply than the original. So while he did not voluntarily walk away from a chance to continue, he also had no interest in the franchise’s eventual Jason-centered identity. His true vision for “Friday the 13th” was not simply a masked-slasher series. He described the original as a “twisted take on motherhood” and a whodunit built around “the world’s most protective mother,” Pamela Voorhees. The camp setting was chosen to isolate young people from adult help, in the mold of “Halloween,” and the idea of Jason’s earlier death was meant to create a haunting prior evil, not to set him up as the franchise’s main villain. In short, Miller’s concept was a revenge story about maternal grief and obsession. The franchise became famous for Jason, but Miller’s original story was really about Pamela.

3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 2

Victor Miller, the screenwriter behind 1980 slasher hit “Friday the 13th,” died Monday at 86, his son Ian Miller said in an Instagram post.
Miller created Pamela Voorhees and her son Jason Voorhees for the original film, which became one of 1980’s highest-grossing movies and spawned 12 films and two TV shows.
Jason became the franchise’s hockey-mask villain in sequels made without Miller, who later said he never watched them because he opposed turning Jason into the killer.
After leaving slashers, Miller moved into soap operas and won three Daytime Emmy Awards for his writing on “All My Children.”