FRIDAY THE 13TH
This series ran from 1987 - 1990 in first-run syndication. Although it borrowed its name from the popular "Jason" horror movie series, it bore no resemblance to those movies. It chronicled the efforts of two cousins, Ryan Dallion and Micki Foster, to recover cursed antiques sold by their uncle, Lewis Vendredi, as part of a pact with the Devil. They had the assistance of Jack Marshak, an antiques procurer, hedge wizard, stage magician, and mystic who was an associate of Vendredi's and unaware of his partner's nefarious activities. In the third season, Ryan was written out and Johnny Ventura (who had made appearances in second season's Wedding Bell Blues and The Prisoner) took up the cursed antique-recovery business full-time.
What really made the popularity though, was the movie…This splatter flick, helped spawn the great horror-movie movement of the '80s, not to mention eight sequels, many of which had nothing to do with the films that preceded them. It also gave birth to Jason Voorhees, one of the biggest horror-movie psychos of the modern era.
Forever duplicated, the original Friday the 13th popularized a number of themes and techniques that today are now clichés: the increasingly gory murders, the remote forest location, the anonymous and nubile cast, the murderer as cult hero, and, of course, the moral that if you have sex, you will die, very painfully.
Celebrate one of the greatest horror movies ever made by wearing a Friday the 13th t-shirt…and maybe a movie-fest is in order, too!
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