Kevin Bacon's Friday The 13th Death Was Almost Ruined By A Technical Difficulty
In Sean S. Cunningham's 1980 slasher flick "Friday the 13th," Kevin Bacon plays a camp counselor named Jack who meets a memorable end. Jack and his girlfriend Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) enjoy a zesty round of marijuana and coitus while, unbeknownst to them, the corpse of their friend Ned (Mark Nelson) is stored in the ceiling above them. Marcie leaves to take a shower, and Jack lays back on the bed to relax and have a toke. A drop of blood lands on his brow. Jack is momentarily confused. His confusion doesn't last long, however, as the hand of a mysterious killer — possibly the presumed-dead Jason Voorhees — pops up from under the bed and grabs him by the forehead. An arrow pushes up from underneath the bed, puncturing Jack's neck from behind. The arrowhead emerges from his throat, and blood spurts up onto his face. Jack dies wearing a startled expression.
In order to achieve the effect, a latex body/throat was constructed and placed on a special bed with a hole cut in it. Bacon inserted his head through the hole and tilted his head backward. The fake body was then affixed to Bacon's chin to make it look like he was lying down on the bed. The arrow was pushed through the latex body by effects wizard Tom Savini, already a celebrity in the horror world for his work on "Deathdream," "Martin," and "Dawn of the Dead." The blood was pumped through the hole by another stagehand.
In 2020, Bacon talked to Yahoo! Entertainment on the event of the film's 40th anniversary. "Friday the 13th" was only Bacon's fourth professional film job, but he remembered the day sharply.
There was only one latex throat
It was an uncomfortable shoot, Bacon recalled, what with the craned neck and the fake blood. Bacon also noted that the filmmakers only had the budget to construct one latex throat, so no one could screw up:
"I was on my knees with my head through a hole in the bed, with my neck back. It was very uncomfortable, I had to stay there for a really, really long time. And there was only one neck and chest, so everything had to work perfectly."
As it so happens, the blood pump — likely just a plastic tube with a rubber squeeze ball on the end — broke just as the arrow started to emerge from Jack's throat. Bacon did what he could to act like he was dying, and was able to take direction in that moment, but also heard from below him that there was a sudden tech issue. Luckily, while Tom Savini was handling the arrow, his assistant had a split-second spark of resourcefulness:
"Someone was under the bed to push this arrow through, somebody else was going to pump the blood. I had to have the right [look] — I don't even know how you rehearse getting that look. And they rolled camera and the arrow came through. But the pump broke on the blood plumper, so the special effects person grabbed it and started blowing through it as someone's saying, 'Make your eyes roll back.' And then it was done. And they got it in one take, which was good, because there was no second neck."
According to Metal Floss, the hand in the scene — presumed to be Jason's, but actually that of his mother Pamela — was played by still photographer Richard Feury.
Blowing blood
Yahoo! Entertainment noted that it was Savini himself who blew blood through the tube, although Mental Floss correctly credited special effect assistant Taso Stavrakis for using his lungs to push Jack's blood through the aperture in his neck. "Friday the 13th" was filmed at a real camp — actually the Boy Scout Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, still open to this day — which was, of course, equipped with a real kitchen. Savini and Stavrakis used the camp's pizza ovens to bake up a lot of their latex body parts for their movie.
Talking about Jack's death, Stavrakis also recalled the blood pump malfunction, saying:
"I had to think quick, so I just grabbed the hose and blew like crazy which, thankfully, caused a serendipitous arterial blood spray. [...] The blood didn't taste that bad either."
Those who have worked with stage blood might know that it is typically made with Karo syrup, which is very sweet. Some other ready-made stage bloods also have a minty flavor.
Stavrakis, fans might want to take note, also played the killer in one scene. Filming was already taking place before director Cunningham cast Betsy Plamer to play Pamela Voorhees, so various stagehands played her hands during some of the more gruesome murder sequences. When Annie (Robbi Morgan) had her throat slit, that was actually Stavrakis doing the dirty work.
Bacon, meanwhile, hasn't appeared in any of the 11 subsequent "Friday the 13th" sequels, although horror has always been a part of his career. In the Yahoo interview, Bacon noted:
"[Horror is] very, very actable stuff. [...] It's high stakes, life or death, emotional turmoil. It's challenging to try to modulate where a character's emotional life is gonna be over the course of a screenplay."
Bacon's next film will be "The Toxic Avenger."