In a recent interview, Friday The 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham was asked several questions about the horror franchise he created, from the birth of the film to composer Harry Manfredini’s music through the expectations after the film was released. But perhaps most interestingly was the discussion and revelation on how the legendary mass murderer Jason Voorhees wound up with his iconic hockey mask.
Cunningham explains how Friday The 13th Part III director Steve Miner came up with the concept:
I think Steve had done a whole bunch of hockey documentaries, when he was learning the editing craft, and I think that just out of that, he just said, ‘Let’s just try this,’ and that was the choice for ‘Friday 3’, and it just stuck
And every movie since then, there’s always, like, a readjusting of the mask, how to make it just right. But it has stuck, and the character himself has just morphed so dramatically over time that he has sort of, I don’t know… the movies wind up being about Jason, and not the people Jason is threatening.
There’s been all sorts of variations to the story over the years, even one that alleges that the Jason makeup was destroyed and they needed to shoot, and all that was around was a hockey mask…
Another theory that could hold some water comes from Larry Zerner, who played Shelly in Part III, who claims that Marty Sadoff, the 3-D supervisor, was the one who brought up the hockey mask as the solution, per ESPN. In fact, at a panel at the 2007 Screamfest LA Film Festival, Sadoff stated, “The day of the makeup test, we didn’t really know what Jason should really look like. We had to come up with some kind of makeup test in 3-D. I had a hockey mask there and I said, ‘Why don’t we put it on and see what it looks like?’”
You can read more over at TheLipTV. You can also watch the full interview below.
