Tis’ the season: A brief synopsis of Garden State horror flicks

Friday the 13th isn’t just significant for horror buffs and the superstitious -- it’s also a big date in the history of ‘Jersey filmmaking.

Friday the 13th, released on Friday May 9, 1980, was one of the first independent horror films to secure national distribution. And for a relatively paltry sum – just over $500k in 1980 dollars – the movie earned nearly $60 million at the box office, kicking off a decades-long franchise that spawned action figures, a TV series, a spoof (1981’s Saturday the 14th) – even a crossover with another heavyweight horror franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2003’s Freddy vs. Jason).

So what’s the ‘Jersey connection?

Camp Crystal Lake, the fictional summer getaway depicted in Friday the 13th, is actually a Boy Scout camp in Hardwick called “Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco.” It exists to this very day – though there’s no mention of its slasher past on its official website.

In fact, the entirety of the film was shot around Hardwick, Blairstown and Hope, just east of the Delaware Water Gap in Warren County.

Friday the 13th is just one of horror’s Garden State heavyweights. In 1979, The Amityville Horror, already a hit novel by author Jay Anson, made its way to the silver screen. Loosely based on the grisly, 1974 murders of a real-life Amityville family, authorities in that town denied permission for the film to be shot onsite.

It was then that producers converted a private residence in Toms River to look like the original Amityville home. Exterior shots took place in that town and neighboring Point Pleasant Beach.

According to this article from NJ101.5, Friday The 13th and The Amityville Horror are just two of ‘Jersey’s biggest cinematic slashers. 2005’s Satan’s Playground, set in the Pine Barrens, incorporates the legend of the Jersey Devil. Cult-favorite The Toxic Avenger was filmed primarily in Boonton, Harrison, Jersey City and Rutherford --  and if that’s not ‘Jersey enough for you, consider this: The 2009 Broadway adaption of the film was scored by no one other than Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer David Bryan of Bon Jovi.

There’s more:  

Cult classic The Prowler (1981) was shot in Cape May. Christmas Evil (1981), shot in Union City, New Brunswick and Montclair, depicts a man so obsessed with Christmas (and murder, naturally) that he dresses as Santa Claus and goes on a killing spree. “Something To Tide You Over,” arguably the best vignette in the classic Creepshow, has Shore roots: Written by Steven King, directed by George Romero and starring Leslie Neilsen, Richard Gere and Ted Danson, “Something To Tide You Over” was filmed at Island Beach State Park in Berkeley Township.  

A young Steven Spielberg based one of his earliest hits, Poltergeist (1981), with influence from a scary tree that tapped the window outside his childhood home in Haddonfield.

And speaking of New Jersey royalty, “Meadow Soprano” - ne’ Jamie-Lynn Sigler - starred in a film called Dark Ride, based on a fictional amusement park ride in Asbury Park. Cinema’s first-ever adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (produced by Thomas Edison, nonetheless) was shot in West Orange.