Horror fans will recognize Adam Marcus as the director of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and the co-writer of Texas Chainsaw, two divisive but oft-discussed entries in their respective franchises. He recently returned to the genre to helm Secret Santa, a holiday horror-comedy streaming exclusively on SCREAMBOX.
The first installment in our three-part interview with the raconteur focuses on Jason Goes to Hell, currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, along with the upcoming retrospective documentary Hearts of Darkness: The Making of the Final Friday and a potential Creighton Duke-inspired spin-off.
“People who don’t like Jason Goes to Hell are rabid. They’re not your average haters; they’re knives-out from the second you meet them,” Marcus says with a chuckle. “When people go, ‘That’s not canon,’ I’m like, ‘No, bitches, it’s canon! I made Jason a Deadite. I did that!'” he beams.
“If you were the right age when the movie came out, if you weren’t a Friday fan from the first movie but you came in the middle or right before my movie, those folks tend to love Jason Goes to Hell. If you’re my age, and you were a crazy fan from the first one on, we have a lot of talking that goes on between us. I ruined their childhood, they wish me ass cancer. All of these things happen on a regular basis.”
The immediate reception was far more encouraging. “I look back on the movie as trial by fire. When it first came out, there was no internet like there is now. I got a ton of love off that movie. I had a contract at New Line. Francis Ford Coppola was my first meeting after Jason Goes to Hell came out, that Monday, and a week later I met with Robert De Niro — because of Jason Goes to Hell!”
He cites the rise of social media, in particular a popular YouTube video about how New Line Cinema destroyed the Friday the 13th franchise, for “the crashing wave of hatred.” But he doesn’t mind the backlash, as it keeps the movie in the zeitgeist. “Everybody talks about Jason Goes to Hell. Everybody’s got an opinion. Every hater has a copy of it in their collection — and on multiple formats!”
While Marcus didn’t set out to disrupt Friday the 13th‘s established lore, his film reflects his feelings on horror franchises. “You get to a point in these franchises, usually around the third episode, where suddenly the villain is now the hero, and people are cheering on the murdering sociopath. The characters become less and less interesting, so all you’re doing is watching makeup effects.
“No one cheers for the shark in Jaws. No one! For me, Jason Goes to Hell was a reaction to that. It was also a reaction to the fact that the Friday the 13th timeline makes no fucking sense from beginning to end.”
Friday the 13th director/producer Sean S. Cunningham returned to the franchise to produce Jason Goes to Hell. “I wrote Jason Goes to Hell when I was 21 to 22. I directed it at 23 years old. Sean Cunningham was there the whole time. No one ever goes after Sean for that movie, but he approved every word, every shot. I had to get approvals on everything, yet somehow the guy who created the franchise is in no way responsible.
“What I love about Sean is that he tries to shirk responsibility. He says, ‘Oh no, that was 100% Adam’s movie.’ And then he lies — and this is a flat-out lie that we explore in the documentary — and says that he re-shot 60% of my movie. We’ve got him on a convention stage saying that exact thing.”
In reality, Cunningham wanted to helm the three days of additional photography, but cinematographer Bill Dill told him he wouldn’t have a crew if it wasn’t Marcus in the director’s chair. “Sean didn’t shoot one frame of my movie, but I had to answer to him for everything.”
Marcus had long since moved on to other projects when he was invited to join a Jason Goes to Hell fan page on Facebook, and the lovingly dubbed Hellions quickly came out of the woodwork. The founders of the page persuaded Marcus to make a documentary about the film. Hearts of Darkness: The Making of the Final Friday exceeded its $50,000 goal during its initial Indiegogo campaign in 2019 and has since raised a total of $71,500.
Michael Felsher (Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow) directs the doc with Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th author Peter M. Bracke serving as interviewer. While the pandemic delayed the project, the forced hiatus allowed more interviewees to get involved, including several actors who had never spoken publicly about their experiences. Editing is complete and the film is nearing release.
Marcus has also been developing a project with Steven Williams, who played Creighton Duke, on a project he describes as “Friday the 13th adjacent,” since he doesn’t own the rights to the character despite creating it. “I can’t say it’s a Creighton Duke movie, but we’ve wanted to explore Creighton further, and we’ve come up with a way to do that. Think Creighton Duke vs. The Evil Dead in something that looks like Fulci’s Zombie.”
Marcus teases that Williams’ character, who was presumed dead after getting his back broken at the hands of Jason Voorhees, will sport “a full mechanized back brace that might have all kinds of tricks up its sleeve” in addition to donning a familiar duster. “We’re exploring something that would be comfortable if it came out in the mid-’70s. It’s kind of like, ‘What would Quentin [Tarantino] do with Creighton Duke?’ It’s a lot of badassery.”
30 years removed, Jason Goes to Hell conjures mixed feelings for Marcus. “The fans are amazing. The haters are kind of amazing too, even though it’s hard to wake up in the morning and see someone tweet about you being a fat nepo baby. That stuff does get under my skin, I’m not gonna lie. It’s crazy for people to think that their casual bullying doesn’t affect artists. We carry it with us the rest of our days.”
Nevertheless, Marcus is proud of his accomplishments. “I did something that very few people could do, let alone 23 year olds. Directing is not an easy game. It’s a hard thing to do, and at 23 I stared down a 100-person crew every day and shot a movie that came in under time and under budget, that was #2 at the box office, that made more money than the movie that preceded it and was made for half the money.
“Honestly, much credit to Sean Cunningham on that. While I have very little to say that’s positive about Sean, he’s a brilliant line producer. If I needed something, it was there. Even if Sean was making fun of me for it and calling me ‘fucking film school,’ he still got me the tools I needed to make the movie. Emotional support would have been nice too, and that’s why I work with different producers now, but he knows how to put 10 pounds of shit in a two-pound bag.”
One of Marcus’ greatest takeaways from his experience on Jason Goes to Hell came from Cunningham: “He flat-out said to me, ‘Everybody who buys a ticket to see your movie is paying the exact same dollar amount as they’re gonna pay to see Terminator 2. What are you giving them that Terminator 2 isn’t?'”
In Marcus’ eyes, he delivered. “We made a movie that looks beautiful. The KNB guys outdid themselves. We had a guy melt in that tiny little movie! We did stuff that nobody thought could be done for the dollar amount we did it for. We made a movie that, yeah, I gave people something they couldn’t see in Terminator 2. That was my job.
“I’m very, very proud of Jason Goes to Hell.”
The post Exclusive Interview: Director Adam Marcus Reflects on ‘Jason Goes to Hell’ and Teases Creighton Duke Spinoff Movie appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.