CRYSTAL LAKE – Jason-mania is hacking its way across the country. The Marcus Nispel re-imagining of Friday 13th hits screens nationwide on Friday 13th. The original film recently came out on Blu-ray. They even put out a DVD of Friday 13th Part 3 with the 3-D effect. Everywhere you turn there’s a hockey mask and a machete coming at you.
Even though you’re warned in a scary movie to never answer the phone, I picked up the receiver and heard the voice of Adrienne King. She was Alice in the 1980 tale of camp counselor carnage. At this point, if you haven’t seen the films, don’t start whining about how I spoiled Friday 13th for you. Get the original film on Blu-ray, watch it in a dark room lit by a 65 inch 1080p HDTV. Then you can comeback and join this interview with King.
King’s character Alice survived an intense battle with Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) only to receive a major surprise while seeking safety in a canoe. Even three decades later, she has strong memories of making the scream-fest.
The story is always told how special effects artist Tom Savini and others slept in the camp cabins to help save on the budget. King didn’t stick around the set after a night of being chased through the wilderness. However her location accommodations weren’t a Trump hotel for her slumber.
“It was not a hotel. It was a motel,” King said. “A motel means it has no bathtub. It was a little shower and the lumpiest mattress in the world. I was so cold that I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. I would plug up the drain in the shower so I could sit in three inches of hot water. It was so disgusting.”
While the movie takes place before the summer camp season, the filming wasn’t close to that season.
“We started at the end of Labor Day weekend,” King said. “We shot until the middle of October. We did the scene three times where Jason pulls Alice into the lake. They didn’t quite get what they needed. They saved up enough money to get a slo-mo camera (for the third try). The last day it was 28 degrees outside. We had no wetsuits cause we couldn’t afford them. You can see my goosebumps on the Blu-ray. That’s how incredible that Blu-ray is.”
King has gotten a lot out of rewatching the film in the Blu-ray format. “I saw my turquoise jewelry for the first time. One of them is still on my finger,” she said. She promises that fans of the horror film series will be impressed if they upgrade to the HighDef transfer.
The ending of Friday 13th was the big “gotcha” moment that jolted crowds. There was Alice having survived the night by floating in a canoe. The cops finally arrive. But before she reaches safety, an undead boy leaps out of the water and into her canoe. The kids in junior high had to tell everyone that jaw dropper to prove their fake ID got them into an R-rated film. After the traumatic ending of the film, I asked if she had issues with canoes. Ned Beatty was not a fan of paddling down the river after Deliverance.
“No,” King replied. “I don’t have a canoe phobia. I live on a river.” Although she has to be careful while on the water. “There’s always somebody in the family that wants to play with me.”
Was Jason attacking Alice in the canoe was inspired by Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit?
“I’ve never heard that question before,” King said. “I have no clue. First question I didn’t have the answer to.”
The biggest name to come out of the movie was Kevin Bacon. Did she understand the monumental nature of being in the same film as Bacon’s first memorable butt role?
“I was not in the scene obviously, but I was around when it happening,” King said. Unfortunately nobody understood the impact Bacon’s rump would have in cinema history. “We knew that he was the only star among us. He had been in something that actually made it to the screen. But he was just one of us.”
He wasn’t quite like King. Bacon was part of the body count after flashing his ass. Willie Adams ended up as production assistant after his Barry was added to the terrible tally. One of his jobs was driving King to the motel.
During post-production, King used a little family help to sell this movie to Paramount.
“I asked Sean (S. Cunningham, the director) if I could sneak my mom into a screening. They were showing it to potential buyers. It was a good rough cut. During the strip Monopoly scene she almost had a heart attack. She’s a Catholic girl. Then we’re at the end of that and she’s like ‘thank God it’s over.’ I’m sitting there smiling to myself and holding her hand. I knew what was coming. She literally jumped 25 feet in the air. I turned around and saw Sean in the back shaking somebody’s hand.” She suspects it was Frank Mancuso of Paramount. “I certainly think we helped seal the deal.”
Almost overnight King became a major scream queen. She was on par with Jamie Lee Curtis from her pursuit in Halloween. The low budget film sold an astronomical amount of tickets. The studio wanted to crank out a sequel fast. Rumors swirled that King was playing hard ball for a massive payday. However in the midst of this blockbuster success, she experienced the darker side of fame. She had a stalker who wanted to finish Jason’s job.
“The only reluctance that had to do with it was the fact that I couldn’t focus,” King said. “I don’t like to do anything unless it’s done right. I knew I was their only thread. I did not have a script. I had no clue what they were going to do. My agent, this was a new agent I didn’t know very well, said they were going to leave it open ended.”
Her return in Friday 13th Part 2 was a grizzly scene on both sides of the camera.
“I showed up on the last day of shooting. Everybody wanted to get home. We started at night and worked till dawn. It was a night from hell. There was no love on the set. I was walking into this hornets nest. Unbeknownst to me, Steve Miner (the director) thought I was holding out for more bucks. That was farthest from the truth.”
No matter how much the original movie made, King wasn’t getting chased in Gucci heels in the sequel.
“This was done before SAG participation kicked in,” King said. “For Part One and Part Two, we got just our weekly rate and that was it. We got very little from this movie. But it nothing to do with money. For me it had to do with the fact that I had to basically survive – mentally as well as physically. It’s not like there were big stalking (stories) in the news before that. It was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And then you have your agents telling you to ‘pull it together or they’ll think you’re a nut.’ And you’re going, ‘But you don’t understand.’ And they didn’t. But you take a deep breath, do what you have to do and hopefully it will all work out. It might take twenty five years, but eventually it worked itself out.”
King’s appearance in Friday 13th Part 2 is limited to the opening scene.. An unidentified character appears to kill her in a dilapidated house. While some believe that Jason has finally claimed his revenge for his mom, this killing makes no sense. In Part 2, Jason terrorizes a new batch of counselors at Crystal Lake. He hasn’t gone off the campground. King also has issues with her appearance in the film.
“In Part 2, we never see Jason and Alice together. You see an ice pick into the temple. You don’t see blood. You never see a body. There is some sort of thing that has clothing that looks like Alice’s clothing from the first movie. But Alice is in a robe when she supposedly met her demise.” King emphasized, “Meaning she might not be dead.”
King hopes that she will get her own resurrection of the character so she can finally have a true showdown with Jason. “Get Mrs. Voorhees back – head or no head,” she demanded.
At one point, King thought she’d be part of the new Friday 13th. The producers had contacted her agent about having her and Betsy Palmer pop up in the film.
“I was getting ready. I’m pumping iron to have Linda Hamilton arms. I’m going to look good if I’m coming back. Then they decided no. But it got me moving. I had not found a script I wanted to do until I found Walking Distance.” She went down to Texas to make this sci-fi horror film. It was her first role before the cameras in nearly 25 years. “It reminded me of being on the set of Friday 13th. They filmed at night and did their day jobs.”
Did she ever find out why they decided against cameos in the new film?
“I’ve never spoken to (Marcus Nispel). I wish I knew why. I think it would have been fun for the fans besides us. Granted it would be nice to do a Friday 13th with a residual payment,” King said.
While other horror actresses had gone on to more films, King stepped away from being in front of the camera after her day of work on Friday 13th Part 2. Nobody could quite understand the stalker and how he had spooked her.
“I was trying to survive a real live stalker. A real live Jason times 100. A wack job. I would have people going, ‘Are you serious. You can’t separate reality from fantasy.’ It was a very hard time for me psychological and physically. I ran off and studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. They were kind enough to take me in. I played Desdemona opposite Ted Lange. Ted’s a good guy.”
That’s right. She starred in a version of Othello with Isaac from The Love Boat.
Even when she quit acting in front of the camera, she become a scream queen as an ADR voice artist. Instead of putzing around on a bunch of straight to video horror flicks, King let her vocal cords dominate the biggest film of all time: Titanic. Many of the women screaming as the luxury liner snaps and sinks belong to King. She also had a softer role as Gloria Stuart’s last breath before her fateful plunge.
“If there’s screams in the movie, I’m probably one of them. Back when I did ADR, if they needed a screamer, they’d go, ‘Call Adrienne.'” She had a major voice roles in Johnny Depp’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Almost Famous.
King and her husband moved far away from Hollywood a few years back. She now contemplates raising goats and lamas like her neighbors. However with interest from the new Friday 13th, she’s getting back in the filmmaking game. “Now I have a sci-fi horror movie coming out called Walking Distance. It’s a role well worthy of Alice,” King said. She is also currently busy with the opportunity to be a director for an all female anthology of horror films. “I’m reading scripts right now.. I’m so jazzed. I never thought that would be in my future.”
She is very futuristic with her own website. Her www.adrienneking.com website features her paintings. She also has posted a collection of Polaroids and notes from the original Friday 13th. If she sells enough paintings, she’ll buy her own goat herd. Unlike some original actors, she’s looking forward to seeing the new Friday 13th.
“If you could have told this New York City girl that she’d be living in the boonies with goats and lamas, planting a garden, resurrected by the fans and playing in her favorite playground….. My life has been an amazing rollercoaster,” King said. “I wouldn’t trade it in for anything even though it had its really dark moments. It got me to where I am now and I’m happy here.”
STAYING ALIVE
Among the film credits on Adrienne King’s resume is the greatest film ever made.
“In Saturday Night Fever I was a dancer,” King said. “You can’t find me. I’ve got three different hairdos and three different dresses in the same scene.”
The shoot was fatiguing with all the choreography and a less than ideal breathing situation inside the disco.
“It was all before SAG said no smoke machines,” she said. “We were all dying of nicotine. Every day on the way back to Manhattan on the subway, the dancers would peel off the layers of grossness.”
They were like coal miners working the disco shaft.
I brought up my theory that Saturday Night Fever was an anti-disco movie since the end of the film has John Travolta turning his back on the 4/4 beat to become a real dancer. Was there a buzz on the set about the film’s message being disco music is evil?
“God no. I still didn’t know that until now,” King said. “I think we were all really into the dance.”
A SYMBOL OF WHAT?
Anyone else crack up when Jane Seymour promotes her “Open Hearts” necklace? How can you not laugh when she announces, “My wish is to make my open heart design a universal symbol of hope and love.” Take a quick look at the design:
Is that really what two open hearts would look like? Couldn’t Sunny Lane and Jenna Jameson use that shape to promote a “Boobs and Butt” necklace? Wouldn’t you imagine such naughty jewelry being stocked at Adam & Eve? Or as the reward for a woman posing as the centerfold in Racks and Backs Illustrated? This design rates up there with the naked woman on a truck’s mudflaps. Is Jane getting away with a dirty drawing? She does strike me as the naughty English lass. Is it wrong that when thinking of a universal symbol of T&A, I imagine Jane Seymour emerging from a hottub?
Remember this Valentine’s Day to give Jane’s “Rack and Back” necklace to your favorite Hooter’s waitress. She’ll think you’re a sweet customer instead of a pervert.
GIVEAWAY THE STILL
The fine folks at CBS DVD have supplied me with 5 copies of Beverly Hillbillies: The Official Third Season to give away. This is one of the greatest shows in sit-com history. Season three gives us cinema superstar Dash Riprock. In order to win one of the copies, you have to tell me what’s my favorite other Mammoth Picture star. Email me the answer along with your name and address to mokaha@aol.com. My family, my crack research staff, Jethro and Larry Pennell are not eligible to answer. Contest closes on Feb. 16.
[ad#contestbox]
DANCE AWAY THE HEARTBREAK
ABC has announced it’s new cast of Dancing With the Stars. What a completely mixed bag. Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Gos should be fun. How many judges will ask if she “got the beat?” David Alan Grier better bring the smooth chocolate to the dance floor. He’s my pick to win. In a strange “couple’s feud” there’s singer Jewel and bullriding legend Ty Murray. Can Ty hang onto his dance partner for 8 seconds? Shawn Johnson will need booster heels for her little gymnast body to reach her partner’s waist. Gilles Marini is French and pops up on tons of shows. He’ll make the top 3 based on the French angle. Steve-O might staple his balls to his partner’s thigh to stay in rhythm. Denise Richards will be propping up her amazing acting career with this turn. Expect to hear Charlie Sheen complain when Denise keeps working their kids in to the routines. Nancy O’Dell of Access Hollywood will do the report from the scene of her crimes angle. Chuck Wicks will be thankful for other dead weight below him. Plus he’s hooked up with Julianna Houghs so he’ll get to grind on her without looking like a cheating husband. Former Apple biggie Steve Wozniak has caught a case of Celebuwhoreitis from boffing Kathy Griffin. We should have like a major music festival to raise money to cure him like an Us Festival. He’ll be lasting longer than Mark Cuban. In the Dancing With the Stars: Lockdown Edition comes Lawrence Taylor and Lil’ Kim. Taylor is the first NFL Hall of Famer to get busted for buying macadamia nuts instead of crack. Lil ‘ Kim will wear the trashiest of dresses – which is hard to tell with ballroom fashion. Are they doing this show as community service?
What happened to Donny Osmond being a cast member?
BLU-RAY HEAVEN
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – Blu-ray won me over when the penguins beat up the annoying fishing boy in the Dreamworks’ moon. I hate that kid. The movie features the lion (Ben Stiller) returning to his African roots when his flight back to the Central Park Zoo has mechanical difficulties. You’d think penguins would be better pilots. He reunites with his family. The only problem is that dancing lions don’t get much respect in the jungle. Oddly enough, Ben Stiller’s dad is voiced by the late- Bernie Mac. Was Jerry Stiller booked up? The best part of the film is an old lady stranded in the jungle who turns into a John Locke super-survivor. She turns her tour group into a well behaved Lord of the Flies outfit. This was more entertaining than the original just for Alec Baldwin’s role as a rival lion who goes after Bernie Mac’s power. The Blu-ray captures all the CGI detail. There’s even two bonus cartoons featuring the Penguins. These have the penguins back at the zoo dealing with the chimps and the lemurs. It’s kind of Tennessee Tuxedo without the 3-D blackboard. These new shorts are HD on the disc. Exclusive to the Blu-ray is the storyboard and interviews with the animators. The series appears to be coming soon from Nickelodeon. “Jambo Jambo: Swahili Speak” is a quickie lesson in the language. There is a game that lets you play the penguins trying to land the airplane. Shame there’s not a game that lets you have a penguin pummel the Dreamworks boy.
DVD Shelf
Friday 13th The Series: The 2nd Season has nothing to do with Jason hacking apart people. This was the syndicated series out of Canada that dealt with an evil antique store. Two cousins (Robey & John D. LeMay) inherit their uncle’s shop. They have to run around finding all the evil items he sold over the years. This second season has them discover their uncle isn’t quite dead. “Doorway to Hell” kicks off the season with a soul possessing battle out of the inferno. “The Secret Agenda of Mesmer’s Bauble” has former Prince protege Vanity playing a rock star. You might also remember her from The Last Dragon. Sho’nuff! Robey is so hot with her ’80s hair. Will she show up and attempt to retrieve my demonic Timex-Sinclair computer?
Tales From the Darkside: The First Season was a 30 minute long horror anthology that featured stories from George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) and Stephen King (Cujo). “Trick or Treat” goes straight for the haunted house goodness. Bob Balaban (Seinfeld) directed it. “The New Man” has a stranger declare he’s the son of Vic Tayback (Alice). Vic is clueless, but his friends and family swear they’ve always known the son. Guess he ate too much of his chili at Mel’s and fried his brain. My favorite of this first season is “Djinn, No Chaser” when a couple buy a magic lamp and get a big surprise. Kareem Abdul-Jabber plays the genie. And he’s not happy to give out wishes. Years later, Shaq would retread Kareem’s performance in the Oscar dominating Kazaam. The legendary Harlan Ellison (Star Trek‘s “City on the Edge of Forever”) wrote the story and script. This is Kareem’s best work between Airplane and Slam Dunk Ernest.
Christopher Titus: Love is Evol is the best stand up routine of the last three years. He opens up a vein as he breaks down his recent divorce. He gives a blow by blow description of how he found out his wife was cheating on him with several other guys. The first half of this show really makes you laugh at the toxicity of Titus’ failing marriage. No matter how ugly it gets, he makes sure to find the grotesque humor. However this is not anti-relationships pity party. Turns out that for now, he’s happy with his extremely young girlfriend. He has a field day with tales of his future father-in-law. Fans of Titus will be gasping for breath at these tales of betrayal and love. Titus delivers a theatrical performance piece that goes to core of a divorced guy who upgrades.
The Beverly Hillbillies: The Official Third Season brings more country humor to the big city slickers. This was the time when Jed bought Mammoth Pictures and became a movie mogul. The family decides to move onto the Western backlot thinking its a working town. Elly hooks up with Dash Riprock. He’s such a cinematic stud, how will she go back to her monkey when exposed to such a man? “Double Naught Jethro” brings the James Bond mania to the Clampetts. Jethro decides being a spy is better than brain surgery. He loads up on the undercover gadgets. Who didn’t want their own lead lined hat? “Big Daddy, Jed” brings the beatniks into the picture.. They’re crazy and far out hipsters. Jack Kerouac cried when he saw this.. There’s 34 episodes in this boxset. They also have the original sponsor promos attached to the shows including ones for Winston Cigarettes.
Melrose Place Fifth Season, Volume 1 continues the tale of the craziest apartment complex in SoCal. Josie Bissett and Laura Leighton think they are murderers for taking out Patrick Muldoon and tossing him a shallow grave. You can’t keep a good creep down in a primetime soap opera. The big changes happen when Lisa Rinna and Rob Estes move into the complex. It’s strange to look at Lisa before she became a plastic surgery disaster area. “Jane’s Addiction” has the double guest star whammy of Greg Evigan (BJ and the Bear) and Michael Des Barres (guy who replaced Robert Palmer when Power Station toured). “Escape from LA” has Josie Bissett departing the series. It’s so sad to see her part because outside of Traci Lords, she was the sweetest nutcase on this show. She was married to Estes in real life so why did she split? Guess she didn’t see too much left for her character to do besides become a cannibal. The series lasted seven seasons. Hopefully they’ll get all the DVDs out before CW revives it. Rumor has the second half of the fifth season coming out in July.
Untamed and Uncut is my kind of nature special. The folks at Animal Planet put together these four episodes that show how dangerous animals will attack humans. They especially like the taste of stupid humans. A guy gets bit by a King Cobra. A bear trapped on a telephone pole gets a big jolt on his way down. A really dumb guy decides to stick his hand in the mouth of a landed shark. There’s a great white shark attack on surfers. A dog falls down a ski slope. A nature show hostess gets attacked by a cheetah. Extensive interviews surround the shocking footage and not merely washed up stars tossing out wisecracks like a VH1 special.
Closing the Ring is an epic romance that soars from World War II to IRA activity in Belfast in the mid-90s. This Richard Attenborough film is a throwback without relying on a relic plot. Three young flyboys find themselves involved with Mischa Barton (The O.C.). We time skip to 50 years later when Barton grows up to be Shirley MacLaine. She’s putting her husband in the grave. Christopher Plummer is the last of the flyboys and the keeper of the secret of the three. Outside Belfast, Pete Postlethwaite (The Usual Suspects) and a kid (Martin McCann) pick through the wreckage of an old bomber. The kids finds Mischa’s wedding ring which forces Neve Campbell (Shirley’s daughter) to learn the family truth. For the guys, there’s plane wrecks and bombs exploding.
Chocolate is the sweetest buttkicking film of the season. An autistic girl (Yanin Wismitanant) learns how to kickbox from watching TV. When her mom can’t afford a medical treatment, the daughter is called into service to collect old debts. She either return home with cash or broken bones. The last hour is pure teen destruction. She fights in a butcher shop and hanging off street signs. She’s a fearless killing machine. Things get plenty weird when she has to shown down with her real dad, a major mobster. The mayhem is first class. This Thai action film is directed by Prachya Pinkaew of Ong-Bak fame. A thrilling selection for anyone’s Kung Fu Theater night.
Sabrina The Teenage Witch: The Fifth Season unleashes more of Nick Bakay’s vocal wizardry from Salem the cat’s mouth. This was the season that Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) went off to college in Boston. She gets a trio of roommates including Soleil Moon Frye. That’s right, it’s Clarrisa Explains It All meets Punky Brewster in a girl’s dorm room. Will there be pillow fighting? Sabrina resorts to magic to overcome the normal freshmen difficulties. The only magic we had in college was Jolt Soda and “Truckers Twilight.” We get to meet her evil twin in “You Can’t Twin.” There’s only two more seasons left.
Girlfriends: Season 6 takes us back to a time when Tyler Perry wasn’t making every TV series with a black cast. Girlfriends was produced by Kelsey Grammer (Fraser). There’s a lot of consternation on the series. Maya and Darnell retie the knot in Las Vegas. However they quickly learn that there was a reason they divorced in the first place. Todd and Toni kick around getting divorced. One couple argue over getting a nanny. Although you know in a series like this, an extra female character is another “cheating” moment to begin a bicker war. There’s also a custody battle that goes into overdrive. This series must have been funded by the divorce lawyers of America.
Comments: 1 Comment
One Response to “Party Favors: Crystal Lake Memories”Leave a Reply |
February 10th, 2009 at 2:10 am
[…] Fonte Quick Stop Entertainment […]