The Friday The 13th Scene Jason's Actor Refused To Film
When a stuntman-actor over six feet tall gives you notes on what his deadly character would or wouldn't do, you listen. That's just what director Rob Hedden did on the set of "Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan," the 1989 sequel that sees Jason go for a light boat ride on the aptly-named S.S. Lazarus with a graduating class of high school seniors. There were plenty of location-based scenes in New York that didn't make it onscreen due to budgeting limits, including a boxing match in Madison Square Garden, but there was one notable scene that never made it off the page due to actor protest.
During the '80s slasher cycle, Jason Voorhees was played by Kane Hodder, an actor with the distinction of having portrayed or done stunt work for Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, and Victor Crowley as well as the hockey mask-wearing camp counselor killer. Hodder is one of the most celebrated actors to play Jason, and is credited with breathing new life and menace into the character with intentional movement and a strong, ominous presence, perfect for a character without remorse or empathy.
Once ashore in Manhattan, Jason was to kick a dog upon climbing out of the water, the universal indicator of a Bad News Bear beyond redemption. Hodder famously refused, asserting that even Jason, with over 200 kills to his name, would never be so cruel as to harm an animal.
The Man-Child of Crystal Lake
At first, it seems odd that Kane Hodder is down for his character to cut a swath of carnage through the woods every year, but gives a hard pass to hurting an animal that's just as new to him as any Camp Crystal Lake visitor. This is a hulking beast of a slasher who has cleaved a grown man in twain (in "Friday the 13th Part 3"), snapped a cop in half ("Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives"), and literally knocked someone's block off a Manhattan rooftop — but to be fair, Julius threw the first punch. But when one visualizes Jason as the perpetual man-child of Mrs. Voorhees, it becomes easier to see the seasonal wraith as a big Baby Huey who hurts horny teens and feckless cops, but never lays a finger on man's best friend. This is the guy who, in Part II, briefly fell for a ruse in which its final girl Ginny put on mommy dearest's sweater and coos, "It's all over. You've done your job well and Mommy is pleased." Besides, how many horror fans can watch bodily mutilation and decapitations without batting an eyelash, but draw the line at Fido-flaying in movies? Let he who is without sin cast the first machete.
BuT wHaT aBoUt pArT 2?
Now, anyone who has seen the "Friday the 13th" films might argue that Jason has been cruel to animals before, even dogs; in "Friday the 13th, Part 2," Camp Crystal Lake counselors Sandra and Jeff discover the off-screen remains of a dog in the woods by the lake, though Jeff remarks that "it's too mangled to tell" and blames the death on a wild animal. While this kill could be attributed to Voorhees, it should be noted that the role of Jason was played by Warrington Gillette in Part 2, so Kane Hodder's interpretation of the character stands, as he played Jason from "Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood" to "Jason X." See, even bloodthirsty murderers are capable of growth!
Dogs: Worry About Michael, Don't Worry About Jason
As expected, most of the other slasher villains have no issues with being pet killers. Michael Myers holds the title for Most Pets Killed with a whopping four dogs dispatched across the franchise — five, if you count a deleted scene in David Gordon Green's 2018 "Halloween" revival sequel. The Haddonfield menace not only kills dogs, but has a penchant for showmanship and barbarity, either displaying a corpses for scream queens to find or eating the remains in the days before certain phone apps granted the beautiful gift of contact-free food delivery. The Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs is a runner-up; in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake in 2010, Freddy Krueger killed a Very Good Boy named Rufus, taunting his owner Kris with one of his trademark one-liners: "I was just petting him." In comparison, Hodder-era Jason is a regular altar boy. "Jason Takes Manhattan" has Voorhees slicing and dicing his way through 20 human victims, but no pups were harmed in the making of this movie.