Pit Of Horror.com - Interviews

Rob Hedden -- Pt 2
Interviewed by Royce Freeman

IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND FIX THE TIMELINE AND ESTABLISH A YEAR, WOULD YOU DO IT?

That's a tough one to say. Cause we knew what was going on with the previous movies. Believe me, we didn't ignore them. It wasn't a frivolous overlooking of the other movies at all. We really did our homework. We looked at them all.

I mean you could justify why part VII did what it did. You've gone through and justified what John Buechler's choices were in part VII and as far as the 10 year timeline and all that. If you were to look at it logically, and someone were to say that John Buechler's film took place in 1999, you could try and justify it. I mean you could justify anything, but it really doesn't make sense.

But I think people like you Royce are underestimated when these scripts are written. It cannot be blamed on the writer, or the director or the producers or anyone specifically. There's a lot of people that go into making a movie. I mean I had 80 to 100 people working on this movie. We were all in the thick of it. It's not like you go off in cone of silence and makes these movies. Everybody's reading them. And if somebody comes to you and says, "This doesn't make sense as far as logic." What would be wonderful is to have someone like you involved in research and read the draft when it comes in and say, "Wait this doesn't make sense, this does. This is okay. Change that." Someone who is the authority.

CAN ANY OF THE SONGS USED IN THE MOVIE BE FOUND ANYWHERE?

For the opening song of the movie, I originally used a Led Zeppelin song, actually it was a Robert Plant song. It was a song off an album he did called "Now & Zen" and there's a great piece of music on there that I used in all my temp mixes. Ultimately it was too expensive, so Fred Mollin came up with a song that was very similar in tone to the Robert Plant tune.

I actually wrote one of the pieces for it. It was called "Tamara's Bio Project". I wrote it and played all the instruments on it.

ANY ANECDOTES YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE?

When we were about to shoot the scene where Tamara gets basically slashed in the shower, I wanted to do it with her naked cause that's what was in the script. That's what we were gonna do. She was gonna be nude in the shower, you were gonna see her through the shower. And you weren't gonna see her totally. You were basically gonna see it with a little bit of translucence but you were gonna see it. And the actress that played her Sharlene Martin was the most lovely girl. She was really beautiful, really pleasant, and I respected her a lot. And she was really nervous and she said, "I just don't feel comfortable. Do we have to do this with me naked? I just really don't feel comfortable. Please, is there another way?" And we all thought that have to deliver on this to some degree or else the fans are not gonna be happy. I mean nudity is something that you need, never mind the MPAA which trimmed it anyway. So I said, "Well you're not really gonna be exposed. It's not like we're gonna have a camera tight on your breast. It's gonna be done in a real sultry sexy way. And we're gonna see you through the shower door. There's gonna be steam on it, and it will tastefully done." And she said, "I still don't know."

So I said, "Let me show you. I will show you how it is gonna look." And so I took off all my clothes on the set, stepped into the shower and I basically pretended to take a shower. And they're all going, "Ah, the water's great." Everyone's laughing, they think it is very funny. She's laughing, she's all relaxed and she says, "Well, hell, if you can do it, I'll do it." And I climb out of the shower and put my clothes on. But what I didn't know was that the camera department rolled film on it. So when the film went back to the executives at Paramount, they're watching dailies, and pretty soon the director is standing there naked climbing into a shower, and he's taking a shower. It was mildly humiliating to me to say the least. But the bottom line was, Sharlene went into the shower naked and we shot the scene.

WAS TAMARA'S DEATH TRIMMED? WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEFORE?

Yes, it was trimmed. It was a little more in the Psycho tradition. There was a lot more blood, a lot of Jason's arm slicing down upon her, shards of glass. It was pretty gruesome. And that was the end of it. The scene was over the top as far as the MPAA was concerned. I went into it with more of a Hitchcockian style. And whenever any of us, do a shower scene, you gotta pay homage to Hitchcock. But this was in color with real blood running down the drain. We went further with the scene as far as intensity, but the MPAA pulled us back. In filming her death, we didn't use any prosthetics. Originally, you see his arm slashing down, blood splatters the shower wall, blood on her. It's all very Hitchcockian. It's much like the Psycho shower scene. It was pretty much the same as what was released, except there was much more of it, and there was some gore cut.

Just like in the beginning scene with Jim and Suzy. And y'know, they have sex and Jason comes in, everything was trimmed. I mean, the kid getting shot with the spear. I had a lot more coverage of that. In that Jason takes the spear gun and not only jabs the spear into him, but the entire spear gun. When Jason guts him, and pulls the gun out, his intestines were all over the gun. It was just, trimmed, trimmed, trimmed. There were a lot of frames cut out. And in the final version, it's just quick cuts. If you look at it, the scene looks like it was edited.

The other thing was when Jason finds the girl in the hatch, and he reaches in and goes to stab her. That was very abbreviated in the final version. Before, it is really hard to watch, not for the fans but for most people out there. It's kind of a torturous thing. He really tortures her. He doesn't just shove the spear in. He shoved it in, he twisted it around. There were close-ups of her face, her gurgling. Back to Jason, more twisting, close-ups of the spear twisting. It was pretty intense and the MPAA said no. In a way, it was better almost. It just depends. It's hard to please everybody. To please the hard core fans, you wanna give them all that. But with this film, the producers were trying to reach a broader audience so they didn't wanna go too far. It was a moot point, because the MPAA cut all that anyway. The MPAA was really, at that point in time, extremely strict. They may have even loosened up since then. But at that moment in time in the late eighties, they were so intense about trimming. They were so down on horror movies, and it was really the end of the horror cycle if you really look at it. And it really faded away after that. Until Wes Craven came back. And Scream has brought it back in such a huge way. Now it's hip again to do a horror movie.

HOW FRIENDLY WAS FRANK MANCUSO JR. WITH THE CAST AND CREW?

I can only say wonderful things about Frank Mancuso Jr. for a lot of reasons. I didn't just work with him on the movie, but I also worked with him on the TV series. And Frank is very talented and very creative, very helpful. I can't help but be indebted to him. He gave me the opportunity to do the series and the movie. And he was very supportive all the way through it. He was always polite to everyone on the series. He came by and would meet people and talk with them and all that. At one point on the series, he brought his father with him, Frank Mancuso Sr., who was the head of Paramount at the time. He brought him and introduced him to everybody. He was a very nice guy. My personal experience with Frank was a good one. I can't speak for how he was with the rest of the cast and crew.

Frank was busy doing several other films at the same we were doing Friday the 13th Part VIII. So his physical presence wasn't there maybe as much as on the other Friday films. I don't know how much he was involved in the other films. But we were certainly in contact constantly.

WHOSE PRODUCTION COMPANY IS 'HORROR INC.'?

That was the production company that was formed to make this specific movie. I think because Randy Cheveldave was writing the checks, it was his corporation. This is a typical technique that all the studios do when they're making a movie, everyone does it. They form these companies for the film, or they get a line producer that has their own company and they basically have them do it. It protects the studio from litigation and a whole lot of things. I honestly don't know if Horror Inc. was formed with the specific intent of making part VIII or whether it was an existence with Randy prior to the making of the movie. That I don't know. I'm not sure, cause Randy had done a horror movie with Frank prior to Friday the 13th Part VIII. So maybe that was the same company that was used for that one. But it could have been that they formed it for the specific reason of making part VIII. It's a corporation situation, it's not literally a company. Horror Inc. is not a company that makes horror movies. It's a shelter.

HAVE YOUR KEPT IN TOUCH WITH ANY OF THE CAST FROM THE FILM?

Yes, I've kept in touch with Kane Hodder. For years we've exchanged Christmas cards. Though I don't remember what happened last year. But Kane Hodder is somebody that has always sent me his funny Friday the 13th Christmas cards. And Steve Mirkovich I talked with for many years after that. Bryan England, I've kept in touch with him for quite a while. Jensen Daggett, who played Rennie, about a year ago. Some friends of mine did a pilot for a show called "Medicine Ball" got picked up and was on FOX for a little bit. And they called me and said, "Y'know there was this girl that came in to read for us named Jensen Daggett. We saw on her resume that she worked with you." And I said, "Oh yeah. I know her." I told them all about her. I really like Jensen actually. I thought she did a good job. She's very sexy.

I'm sure there are a lot of fans out there who would have loved to see Jensen without any clothes on. However, going in from day one, it was made clear that it wasn't going to happen with her. It was her agent's feelings, it was her feelings. And you'll find that in quite a few Friday the 13th movies, the lead heroine is somebody who doesn't get completely naked and have sex and all that. Jensen is absolutely lovely, and I saw her on a TV movie recently. She's a lovely girl. In a sense, it's probably more titillating that the fans didn't get to see her nude.

HOW LONG DID PRODUCTION LAST?

Six weeks of filming. One week in New York, five weeks in Vancouver, and a couple of days in Los Angeles.

WERE THERE ANY OTHER CHOICES FOR ACTORS TO PLAY JASON, OR WAS KANE THE FIRST CHOICE?

Kane was the first choice. They had worked with Kane in part VII. They loved Kane. They said, "You should meet Kane." I met Kane, I loved him. Kane not only played Jason in the movie, he was also the stunt coordinator.

WERE THERE ANY PEOPLE WHO HAD AUDITIONED FOR ROLES BUT DIDN'T GET THEM AND HAVE NOW GONE ON TO PLAY IN BIG FILMS?

Yes, Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls fame interviewed for the part of Rennie. She really stuck out in my mind, even though she wasn't that well known at the time, but I remember her cause she was quite good. The reason why she didn't get the role was because we felt Jensen had some kind of an innocence or a freshness. Michelle Pfeiffer's little sister Dedee Pfeiffer also came in to audition for the role of Rennie. Those were the two that stood out in my mind. They have both gone on to do things. It seems like Dedee Pfeiffer has gone on to do a few things lately. You see her in stuff she's done.

WHY DIDN'T THE LOCATION OF CRYSTAL LAKE APPEAR IN THE FILM? WE NEVER KNOW WHAT STATE IT IS LOCATED IN?

Well the idea going in was that Crystal Lake could be anywhere. We never wanted to get specific and tell where it was. We thought it was better to leave it to the imagination. To us it was, Crystal Lake, USA. It could be anywhere. Camp Crystal Lake could be some summer camp that a child goes to in Ohio. Basically, there's a Crystal Lake in every one of the 50 states, with the exception of Hawaii. So, bottom line, we didn't want to tell a specific location to make it more suspenseful. And also, if we said it was Crystal Lake, New Jersey, we didn't want to run the risk of having something wrong in one of the shots or something where a person from New Jersey could say, "Hey, wait. That's not New Jersey." So we just left it alone, and just said it was Crystal Lake.

WOULD YOU EVER DIRECT ANOTHER FRIDAY THE 13TH IF ASKED?

Tough call. It's a tough one to answer because it all depends on the material. But at this moment in time, my inclination is that I wouldn't. It would be my first inclination because it's a chapter of my life, I did one of them. And what I would really like to do is take a step in a different direction. After I did part VIII, I was approached by New Line Cinema to write and direct the next Nightmare on Elm Street movie, which was supposed to be Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, the one right after Renny Harlin's Nightmare film. And I was so exhausted from doing part VIII and so burned out, so gored out, that I said, "Y'know I really can't do another horror movie. I need a break from the horror genre. So, I can come back to it with enthusiasm." So, I turned it down, and y'know, It could have been a huge mistake.

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