Friday The 13th's Lame Original Ending: What Changed & Why It Didn't Work
Friday the 13th’s ending has become a classic not only in the horror genre but in cinema in general, but the original idea was very different and dull. The horror genre has gone through many ups and downs, but the 1980s is widely considered as its strongest decade, as it saw the release of many movies that are now considered classics and many of these becoming franchises. Among those is Friday the 13th, directed by Sean S. Cunningham and released in 1980.
Friday the 13th introduced viewers to the story of Jason Voorhees, and for that, it first took them back to 1957. At Camp Crystal Lake, a young boy drowned as a result of the irresponsibility of the counselors, and the following year, a series of murders took place at the camp, leading to it being closed for years. Jumping back to 1980, a new group of counselors arrived to get the place ready to reopen, but they were brutally killed one by one, and they believed the one behind the murders was Jason Voorhees, as they were all aware of the past murders and the story of the boy who drowned. However, Friday the 13th came with a major twist in its third act, as the real killer turned out to be Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) – but that wasn’t the only twist.
At the end of Friday the 13th, Alice (Adrienne King) became the only survivor of Pamela’s killing spree and put an end to them by decapitating Jason’s mother. Alice then got in a canoe and hand paddled out to the middle of the lake, and after all the exhaustion and stress she had just gone through, she fell asleep. The police arrived to rescue her and she woke up, but Friday the 13th saved a final jump scare and had a decomposed Jason jumping out of the lake to attack Alice. The scene then cuts to Alice waking up screaming at the hospital, but when she asked about Jason, the police officer told her there was no boy in the lake. Jason jumping out of the lake has become one of the most iconic twist endings in horror and cinema in general, but the original idea for the end of Friday the 13th was very different, and it didn’t involve Jason at all.
The original ending for Friday the 13th had Alice killing Pamela, looking out at the lake relieved that she survived, and then the credits rolled. In an episode of The Movies That Made Us season 3, Sean S. Cunningham shared that the Friday the 13th script ended in “a kind of traditional way, where the heroine has finally become victorious”, and she was “covered in blood and it’s sad and we see the lake”. The plan changed after the movie’s financial backer suggested a Carrie-like ending to give viewers one final scare, as Brian de Palma famously did in Carrie when Sue leaves flowers at the remains of Carrie’s home and Carrie’s arm suddenly reaches out and grabs Sue’s forearm. However, there are some contradicting stories on whose idea was to add the famous Jason jumpscare at the end of Friday the 13th: makeup designer Tom Savini has shared it was his idea after watching Carrie, but so have franchise creator Victor Miller and uncredited screenwriter Ron Kurz.
Had the crew behind Friday the 13th stuck to the original ending, there might have not been a franchise after all, as the surprise appearance by Jason showed that the legend was real, and now that his mother is dead, it was his turn to come out and seek revenge against those who did them wrong. Friday the 13th definitely wouldn’t have had the same impact had the ending been Alice just floating on the lake, and adding Jason benefitted the movie in more ways than they could have imagined, as it made the whole Friday the 13th franchise possible.