On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th

by David Grove, Tom Savini

On location in The Making of Friday the 13th covers the creation, planning and filming of the iconic 1980 film, Friday the 13th in a way that no other film has been documented before. Through the memories of the cast and crew, many speaking for the first (and last) time, as well as previously-undiscovered production information and materials, On location in Blairstown takes the reader "on location" and back in time to 1979 for the filming of Friday the 13th and behind the scenes for all of the adventures, conflicts and dramas that went into the making of one of the most enduring and popular horror films in history.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Horror, Media Tie In

228 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2013

About the author

David Grove is an author, film journalist, and produced screenwriter from Vancouver. A film historian, he’s the author of the books Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen, Making Friday the 13th, and On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th. His book Jan-Michael Vincent: Edge of Greatness, a biography on the career and life of actor Jan-Michael Vincent, will be published in 2017. The Yearbook, his first novel, will be published by Black Opal Books in the fall of 2016.

Reviews

[Ryan Beltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Friday the 13th fan, I really wanted to love this. It’s a solid book overall, but it takes way too long to get into the real meat and potatoes of the actual filming. Once it finally gets there, though, the behind-the-scenes production notes are great—especially the part where you realize that about halfway through shooting, people started to sense this could actually be something special.

The section on the critics’ reactions was wild. The over-the-top moral outrage—looking at you, Siskel—feels almost laughable in hindsight. The movie’s impact is undeniable, especially considering how imitators like The Burning and Sleepaway Camp never managed to catch the same spark. It’s fascinating how many of the actors turned down points on the movie and ended up losing out on millions. And that title—Friday the 13th—what a stroke of branding genius.

Still, I think Crystal Lake Memories does a better job capturing the full phenomenon of the film and the franchise that followed.

A fun side note: this is Bubba Zahler’s favorite movie, and apparently, he used to scare kids in Jackson Township by dressing up as Jason Voorhees. That just shows how deeply Friday the 13th seeped into the cultural zeitgeist. The 1980s were truly a wild time.

[Shane Grier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to know

There's a lot of information out there concerning the making of this film. That being typed, there's good tidbits sprinkled inside this book by David Grove. A must-read for fans and cinema fans alike.

[Debi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am so disappointed in this book because I am a huge 'Friday the 13th' fan (I have the entire series). The word that comes to mind when deciding how I feel about this book is TEDIOUS. It's not the making of 'Friday the 13th' it's the story of Sean Cunningham and Wes Craven and on and on and on. There is so much repetition because the author tends to get the feelings of various cast and crew on the exact same thing...such as make up artist Tom Savini or shooting sequences, etc and it makes the book so damn dull and tedious that at times I would read only a handful of words on a page to just keep working my way to the end. I would also suggest that this book gets a good dose of editing because it's a mess. I think that whoever typed this book wasn't a confident typist because there are so many words that are like BEJPGUL (the last 5 letters are typos all through the book) and you are expected to figure out what the word is supposed to be.

[A Cesspool · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only wish this amount care and detail went into Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (the rest of the franchise memoirs)

[Caspar Vega · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must have been half-asleep when I first got this because I thought it was a behind-the-scenes book about A Nightmare on Elm Street but it turned out to be pretty great anyway even if the Friday franchise is my least favorite of the big three.

[Victoria Timpanaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive deep dive into the production and all those involved in the making of the original Friday the 13th. Great for fans that love learning the minutiae of making a horror classic. The writer essentially researched and interviewed all that were part of the story of making the film. He is realistic in capturing people's memories of something so long ago and says up front that not everyone remembers the same details, but it does at time become a bit muddled with contradictions. Other than that, a must read for uber fans.

[Rob Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick fun informative read.

I enjoyed this in-depth look at the making of Friday the 13th. It is a quick, easy read that is both entertaining and informative.