Friday the 13th

On June 13, 1980, a camp counselor fighting for her life at Camp Crystal Lake beheads Pamela Voorhees with a machete. Pamela's young son Jason watches from the woods. After the counselor runs off, the boy picks up his mother's head and her machete and walks into the dark.

Years later, five friends hike into the woods near Crystal Lake looking for a patch of marijuana. The group is Wade, Richie and his girlfriend Amanda, and Mike and his girlfriend Whitney Miller. Around the campfire Wade tells the legend of Jason. Wade finds the pot plants and is cut down by a grown Jason, who wears a burlap sack over his face. Richie steps in a bear trap. Jason drags Amanda out of the tent in her sleeping bag, hangs her over the fire and burns her alive. At the ruins of the old camp, Mike and Whitney find a locket with a photo of a young Pamela, and Mike notices Whitney looks like her. They also find Pamela's rotted head hidden in a wall. Jason stabs up through the cabin floor from a tunnel below and pulls Mike under. He splits Richie's head with his machete. He does not kill Whitney. He takes her alive because she resembles his mother.

Six weeks later, Whitney's brother Clay comes to the lake to search for her, even though his local sheriff urged him to look elsewhere. At a gas station he runs into a group of college kids headed to a lake house owned by Trent, a rich jerk. The group is Trent, his girlfriend Jenna, Bree, Chewie, Lawrence, Nolan and Chelsea. Trent is rude to Clay, but Jenna apologizes for him. Clay stops at the barn of a local named Donnie, who offers him weed but no help. When Clay shows up at the lake house, Jenna slips away from the party to help him search. Donnie hears noises in his attic and goes up with a golf club. Jason slits his throat, finds his own sack torn, and puts on a hockey mask he finds there.

Nolan takes Chelsea wakeboarding. Jason shoots Nolan through the head with an arrow from shore. The boat runs over Chelsea, and when she hides under a dock Jason drives his machete down through her head. Clay and Jenna reach the abandoned camp and see Jason hauling a body into his tunnels, where Whitney is chained. Whitney gets loose using Clay's dropped backpack and reaches the lake house, but Jason grabs her at a bedroom window and chains her up again. Clay and Jenna run back to warn the others. He stabs Chewie in the neck with a screwdriver in the shed, cuts the power, and throws an axe into Lawrence's back as he runs. He uses Lawrence's screams to try to draw the others out. Inside, he impales Bree on a set of deer antlers, and he kills the officer who answers the call with a fire poker through the eye. Trent, Clay and Jenna escape into the woods. Trent reaches the highway and flags down a truck, but Jason spears him with the machete and slams him onto the spikes on the back of the vehicle.

Clay and Jenna follow Whitney's screams into the mine tunnels under the camp and free her. As the three climb out, Jason runs Jenna through with his machete. Clay and Whitney hide in an old school bus, where Jason beats Clay badly, and then run to Donnie's barn. When Jason corners them, Whitney calls out to him in the voice of his mother, and the trick makes him hesitate. Clay buries a bear trap in Jason's shoulder and hangs him from a rafter with a chain. The chain breaks, and the other end drags Jason toward the wood chipper. Whitney drives his own machete into his chest.

At dawn, Clay and Whitney dump Jason's body into the lake and Whitney drops the locket in after him. Before they can leave, Jason bursts up through the dock and drags Whitney into the water. The film ends there. In February 2026, writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon said Whitney does die, and her body would have been shown in the frozen lake at the start of their unmade sequel.

Story notes

• In a rebooted continuity, Clay Miller searches the Crystal Lake area for his missing sister Whitney while a new group of visitors encounters Jason Voorhees and his network of tunnels around the abandoned camp.

Release facts

• Runtime: 97 minutes (theatrical cut). An extended Killer Cut is on home video.
• Rated: R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, nudity, language and drug material
• Budget: $19,000,000 (Box Office Mojo). The Numbers lists $17,000,000.
• Worldwide: $92,670,237 (The Numbers). Box Office Mojo lists $91,509,154.
• Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures (United States and Canada); Paramount Pictures (international)

A teaser trailer debuted at the 2008 Scream Awards in October. The full trailer and poster came out in December 2008. The film premiered at Mann's Chinese Theater on February 9, 2009, and opened on Friday, February 13, 2009, in 3,105 theaters. That was the widest release of any film in the series, nearly three times the theaters of the 1980 film and 91 more than Freddy vs. Jason. It also opened in 2,100 theaters in 28 markets overseas.

Opening day brought in $19,293,446, which by itself beat the full runs of The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X. The three-day weekend was $40,570,365, the biggest three-day opening for a horror film at the time, just ahead of The Grudge. The four-day Presidents' Day weekend was $43,585,449. Adjusted for inflation, the 1980 film averaged more per theater, $15,683 against $13,066.

The second weekend fell 80.4 percent to $7,942,472, one of the steepest second-weekend drops on record, and the film slid to sixth place. It left the top ten in its third weekend with $3,689,156. It finished with $65,002,019 in North America and $92,670,237 worldwide, second in the series behind Freddy vs. Jason. It was the highest grossing of the 2000s slasher remakes. Overseas it opened to more than $9.5 million, led by about $1.7 million each in the United Kingdom and Russia. Paramount said it was the biggest overseas opening for any film in the series.

Critics were mostly negative. Rotten Tomatoes lists 26 percent positive from 179 reviews with an average of 4.3 out of 10. Metacritic scored it 34 from 29 critics. CinemaScore audiences gave it a B minus. Exit polls showed the crowd was 51 percent male and 59 percent age 25 or older.

Some reviewers liked it. Nathan Lee of The New York Times said it rebooted the idea with style. Adam Graham of The Detroit News called it the scariest film in the series and praised Jason running after his victims. Roger Ebert joked about Jason still being sore about his mom. Claudia Puig of USA Today, Rob Nelson of Variety and Chris Carle of IGN singled out Danielle Panabaker and Aaron Yoo, and Carle praised Mears's physical performance. Dan Zak of The Washington Post, Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times and Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe were among the detractors.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: IMP Awards — Friday the 13th (2009) poster archive.

Cast

Crew

Production

New Line Cinema's Toby Emmerich asked Platinum Dunes producers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form to restart Friday the 13th the way they had restarted The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They spent more than a year getting rights from Paramount Pictures, New Line Cinema and Sean S. Cunningham's Crystal Lake Entertainment. Paramount let the producers use anything from the old films, including the title, and took international distribution. New Line kept the U.S. release.

Fuller and Form did not want to make Part 11 or Part 12. They wanted to rework the story, pulling plot points and kills from the first four films. They talked early on about bringing back Tommy Jarvis but dropped the idea. Unlike their Texas Chainsaw and Amityville remakes, this one would not be a period piece. They decided against a full origin story so Jason would stay a mystery, but they wanted to show how he comes to wear the hockey mask, moving from the sack of Part 2 to the mask on screen.

Mark Wheaton wrote the first screenplay and kept a story credit. In October 2007, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the writers of Freddy vs. Jason, had been hired. Jonathan Liebesman was in talks to direct but had scheduling conflicts. Marcus Nispel, who directed the 2003 Texas Chainsaw remake, did not want another franchise job at first. Fuller talked him into it.

Shannon and Swift set rules for themselves. The kids should sound normal, should not know Jason's name, and should not play detective. They wanted a gritty, 1980s feel and a fast, loose Jason who survives in the woods and kills to guard his land. Budget cut some of their ideas. A shot of a deer carcass in Jason's tunnels was dropped because it would have cost $100,000. Chelsea was first written to be stranded on the lake for hours and drown. Jenna was scripted to escape the tunnels and have a longer fight before she died.

Derek Mears got the part of Jason on the recommendation of makeup effects supervisor Scott Stoddard. Mears had already started training for it on his own. The studio worried he was too nice to play the role. When asked why the part needed an actor rather than a stuntman, Mears said the camera reads the thoughts of the performer behind the mask. According to the Friday the 13th: The Website retrospective, the final choice came down to Mears and Chris Nelson. Mears described his Jason as a mix of Rambo, Tarzan and the Abominable Snowman from Looney Tunes.

Casting was harder than on Texas Chainsaw because there were thirteen young actors instead of five, and roles kept getting recast right up to filming. Richard Burgi signed his contract twelve hours before his scenes. Aaron Yoo had his appendix out just before the shoot, so his schedule was moved. When he came back, Nispel hung him upside down from the rafters for Chewie's death shot with his surgery staples showing.

Principal photography ran from April 21 to June 13, 2008, in and around Austin, Texas. The production notes say the first days were at a Boy Scout camp at Lake Bastrop. Extra scenes were shot at Camp Fern near Marshall, Texas. Brad Fuller said it was the fourth Platinum Dunes film made in Austin. Production designer Jeremy Conway built about 150 feet of tunnel sets for Jason's underground lair.

Filming locations

• Austin, Texas, and surrounding towns: Main filming base, April 21 to June 13, 2008
• Boy Scout camp at Lake Bastrop, Texas: Start of filming, per the Warner Bros. production notes
• Camp Fern, near Marshall, Texas: Additional scenes
• Three or four different Texas lakes: Combined on screen to create Crystal Lake. One had the right trees, another the right water.
• Sound stage tunnel set: About 150 feet of mine tunnels for Jason's lair
• Principal photography ran from April 21 to June 13, 2008 in and around Austin, Texas, with additional scenes shot at Camp Fern near Marshall.
• Texas locations were combined to create the film’s Crystal Lake geography rather than relying on a single lake/camp site.

Effects and makeup

Scott Stoddard designed Jason's face as a mix of Carl Fullerton's look for Part 2 and Tom Savini's for The Final Chapter, with hair loss, skin rashes and the familiar deformities. He wanted the look to let more of Jason's human side show through. Mears wore makeup from the chest up. It included a fake-skin chest plate that moved with his muscles, a hump on his back to suggest scoliosis, and a prosthetic eye glued to his face. The first application took about three and a half hours. Stoddard later got masked scenes down to just over an hour. Unmasked scenes took about four hours.

Stoddard said Jason is a tragic figure like John Merrick in The Elephant Man. With that in mind, he asked Tim Jarvis to make the burlap sack with a slightly square, crudely stitched eye hole.

Asylum Visual Effects handled about 25 digital shots with a crew of ten led by Mitchell Drain. Nispel preferred practical effects, so the digital work was mostly used for safety or to show a kill and its result in one shot. Amanda's sleeping bag death was too risky to do for real, so compositor John Stewart combined a real campfire with footage of the hanging bag. Chelsea being hit by the boat combined Willa Ford's reaction with separate shots of the boat.

For Richie's death, Mears pulled away a handle with only part of a blade, and Asylum added the rest of the machete and digitally drooped half of Ben Feldman's face. The arrow that hits Nolan, the hatchet that hits Lawrence and the spike that comes through Trent's chest were all added digitally.

Scott Stoddard’s Jason design required Derek Mears to wear chest-up/full-body character makeup, a fake-skin chest plate, back hump and prosthetic eye. The full unmasked application could take about four hours, while masked scenes used a reduced application.

The Jason hockey-mask package comprised six versions with different wear states, preserving the familiar forehead/cheek markings while aging and breaking them up for the reboot design.

Props and costumes

Jason's jacket combined a hunting jacket and a military jacket. Mears liked the hunting jacket, but the team liked how the military jacket moved during kills, so the top of one was sewn over the other. Mears called it a giant Frankenstein jacket. The Friday the 13th: The Website retrospective says it was really three jackets sewn together. He also wore combat boots, an expensive t-shirt with holes to show the makeup, and a horse bridle at his waist to hold the machete.

Stoddard made six new hockey masks from an original mold, taking cues from Part III and The Final Chapter. He kept the markings on the forehead and cheeks but aged them down and broke them up. Stoddard hand-carried the mask from Los Angeles to Austin in a silver case. Two airport security guards took him to a side room, asked if it was the Jason mask, and asked to see it because they were big fans.

Propstore has auctioned pieces from the Mario Kirner Collection, including a Derek Mears hero machete and a Jason costume with a prosthetic head and torso sold with the bear trap and chain from the climax.

Jason's tunnels include a wheelchair and a sweater. They nod to Mark, the wheelchair user killed in Part 2, and to the sweater Mrs. Voorhees wore in the 1980 film. The locket holding young Pamela's photo ties Whitney to Jason's mother.

Jason’s 2009 jacket was built by combining elements of a hunting jacket with a military jacket so it retained a practical outdoorsman silhouette while moving more dramatically during attacks; Scott Stoddard also built six customized hockey-mask versions from an original-mold reference.

Production artifacts

Art and design

• The IMP Awards primary one-sheet credits Ignition and LA for design and Peter Tangen for photography.

Scripts and documents

The killers

Deaths

Steve Jablonsky composed the score. He had worked with Nispel on the Texas Chainsaw remake and with Bay on The Island.

The producers licensed Harry Manfredini's music from the earlier films and used pieces of it, with Jablonsky writing new music in the same spirit. Nispel told Jablonsky he wanted a theme he could whistle leaving the theater that stayed out of the way while watching.

Friday the 13th: Music From the Motion Picture was released on February 13, 2009, by New Line Records.

Friday the 13th: Expanded Score From the Motion Picture was released on June 11, 2009.

Home Media

• June 16, 2009: DVD, Blu-ray and Apple TV from Warner Home Video. The DVD and Blu-ray include the theatrical cut and the extended Killer Cut.
• Home video sales in the United States came to about $11.3 million, per The Numbers.
• September 13, 2013: included in Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection, a Blu-ray box with all twelve films.
• October 13, 2020: Scream Factory's Friday the 13th Deluxe Collection. The 2009 disc has the theatrical cut and the special extended version, Hacking Back/Slashing Forward, the Terror Trivia track, The Rebirth of Jason Voorhees, additional slashed scenes and The Best 7 Kills. The 2009 TV spots and electronic press kit are on a bonus disc.
• September 17, 2024: Arrow Video limited edition 4K Ultra HD with 4K remasters of the theatrical and extended cuts. Arrow lists the theatrical cut in Dolby Vision with the original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Extras listed by Arrow include commentary by Marcus Nispel, commentary by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, interviews with Nispel, the writers and cinematographer Daniel Pearl, the video essay A Killer New Beginning by Matt Donato, Terror Trivia excerpts, the archival featurettes, deleted scenes, teaser, trailer, TV spots, the EPK and an image gallery. The sleeve is reversible with new art by Gary Pullin.

• NECA Ultimate 2009 Jason 7-inch scale action figure, made for the film's 10th anniversary, with two heads (one with a removable mask), machete, axe, fire poker, hammer and screwdriver.
• A Friday the 13th pachinko machine based on the film came out in Japan in December 2019.
• Electronic press kit issued for television use, with trailers, clips, cast, producer and director sound bites and stills.
• NECA also made an earlier 7-inch Jason figure, a HeadKnocker bobblehead and a prop replica machete from the 2009 film.
• NECA Ultimate 2009 Jason 7-inch Scale Action Figure, cataloged for Friday the 13th.

The catalog

Trailers & clips

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Behind the Scenes

Press & Promo

Production Art

Alternate Art