Victor Miller, the screenwriter behind the horror classic Friday the 13th, died on Monday in Alameda, Calif. He was 86.
Miller’s death was confirmed to Variety by his son, Ian.
Released in 1980, Friday the 13th arrived in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween, capitalizing on the burgeoning slasher craze while establishing a mythology that would soon take on a life of its own.
Miller’s original screenplay centered not on Jason Voorhees, as the film is often misremembered, but on his mother, Pamela Voorhees, who is revealed as the killer seeking revenge for her son’s supposed drowning at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason himself appears only in the film’s famous final scare, emerging from the lake in what is presented as a dreamlike sequence.
It wasn’t until Friday the 13th Part 2 that an inexplicably grown Jason became the franchise’s killer, initially hiding his face beneath a burlap sack before acquiring his now-iconic hockey mask in the third film.
From there, the series became one of horror’s most enduring franchises, spawning more than ten films, the crossover Freddy vs. Jason, a 2009 reboot, and the forthcoming Crystal Lake television series, which returns to the characters and mythology rooted in Miller’s original screenplay.
In a recent interview with a Friday the 13th fan site, Miller said the inspiration behind the iconic film came from, at first, an attempt to follow in the footsteps of John Carpenter’s Halloween, which debuted two years prior.
“First came the concept that we emulate Halloween. The title didn’t come until the screenplay had already gone through at least one draft,” Miller recalled. “The idea for the summer camp came from my instinct that we needed a location where young adults would be cut off from all adult help, the basic idea in Halloween. The idea that Jason had died before the film began also came from the concept in Halloween — that there is a prior evil — Michael Myers’s murdering the babysitter, if I recall correctly. The rest of the story came as a result of the location and the idea that, one by one, the campers would be eliminated by the world’s most protective mother.”
Friday the 13th went on to spawn one of the most recognizable and lasting franchises in horror, although Miller was not involved with the many sequels. Outside of Friday, Miller also wrote for TV shows like All My Children, One Life to Live, Another World, Guiding Light and General Hospital. His work on All My Children helped the soap win three Daytime Emmy Awards for outstanding drama series writing team, adds Variety.
Miller was born in New Orleans, La., in 1940. He is survived by his wife, Tina Thurston Miller, and his two sons, Ian and Josh.
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