Friday the 13th: The Series

Never heard of it, but horror series usually fall short. I think horror is best in short, movie-length bursts, not in episodic format.

r1 this one has some pretty good episodes. They aren't all gems, but it's such a cool concept and followthrough.

Oh god I loved this show! I was about 14 when I discovered it. Anywhere we can watch them?

I watched it in the original run. It was rarely great, but as R2 said, the concept was terrific and generally you cold make it through an hour.

WEHT to the 3 young actors from the show? The woman went by one name, "Robey", there was her cousin and then a guy named Johnny. The older man/mentor was Jack and of course, Uncle Louis.

I used to watch that in the late 80s. I enjoyed it. It probably didn't age well. It was tame horror , but still fun.

I remember in one episode, they didn't get to take back the artefact and said "We can't win every time !" At the time, I thought it was different.

Wasn't the girl a bit in love with her cousin ?

Canadian made for Fox tv.

Used a lot of Canadian actors like Colin Fox and Bruce Gray.

Loved that show as a kid. Only got to see it when my parents where out and my babysitter and I would have ice cream and watch it on the couch. Had a very big impact in weird ways.

My 11 year old self LOVED it!

Wanted to be Robey when I grew up.

Used to come on at 11pm on Saturday nights and then Tales From The Dark Side and Monsters aired right afterwards. Great times!

The Freddy Krueger show truly sucked.

I was a little obsessed with Robey as a kid, too...

She also had a middling hit with a terrible cover of the terrible song "One Night in Bangkok" in 1985.

A real renaissance woman.

LOVED that show as a kid! I have all seasons on DVD.

R3: I believe it is on Netflix. Def. on DVD.

R5 yeah there were a few episodes where they weren't after a Louis-cursed artifact, but something else. And some artifacts escaped to kill again! I think one of them they finally recovered in a later episode.

I thought it was cool how they'd scan news articles for weird deaths and such to try to figure out if artifacts had been used.

The "And Now the News" episode featuring a cursed antique radio was pretty good.

There was an episode where people were being decapitated by a scarecrow that came to life when it was given a scythe (I think that was the cursed item). I remember it as being very suspenseful.

The episodes that culminated in Ryan coming back as a small boy were very good as well. I think they were supposed to be in France for that?

If the series was cancelled abruptly, as written on the Wikipedia page, couldn't the show be re-booted? More relatives of Uncle Louis coming together to re-claim items?

i believe the redhead married a viscount at some point.

Yes, we watched and we already did multiple threads about this topic.

BE ORIGINAL OR BREAKING NEWS, OP.

SEARCH FOR OTHER THREADS FIRST. And stop name-dropping ancient pop cultural references to ensnare humans into interacting with you. HAVE SOMETHING USEFUL TO SHOW.

Some of the episodes stayed with me for years. When I rediscovered the series only a few years ago, I was shocked how many I remember from my youth. That said, not all the episodes are great.

Get fucked r15, if I wanted to read some old threads on it I would have. Please douse yourself in gasoline and light a match, I'm sure no one would miss you.

r13 that was the last 2 episodes of the second or third season - I didn't really understand why they had to make Mickey's Cousin Ryan young to get rid of him, maybe they wanted to bring him back at some point. Those two episodes were pretty creepy, I agree.

The episodes had a slightly alien feel to them to me in the midwest - I thought it was the east coast aspect of them but if they were filmed in Canada I'm sure there is that as well.

I liked Jack Marshak too, he was a cool character.

One of the episodes I hated was the snowglobe episode where Mickey is trapped in a globe with Satan or something. I'm not sure why, I just didn't care for the plot. Maybe because it was a Mickey-centric episode.

The wood chipper episode really is a minor TV classic...

I liked that one too! Especially at the end when the guy isn't even worth $0.02.

Okay apparently the episodes set in France were the season 3 2-episode opener, "the Prophecies".

R17 = Lewis Vendredi

Well, he is behind the mirror, watching...

Okay I forgot the BEST episode - it's the one with the snake compact mirror that is used to make people into your slaves (until they die). There was something so creepy about that compact with its jagged, broken mirror. I especially like the terrible acting from the hobo in the beginning and her untimely demise.

Oh, I also love Mickey's sleuthing hats in this one. She's wearing a fez in one and then a beret (or something).

And the bully that gets killed first (the redhead) is the bully from A Christmas Story, Zack Ward.

The show's been bouncing around my brain since this thread started. Think of how cool a prequel shows could be! It could follow a young, hot, hairy and bearded Jack as he learns about the occult and magic and such (we could meet many of the younger version of friends we know from the first show). Jack's childhood chum is now struggling antique dealer Louis who decides to sell his soul to the devil.

That'd be a cool idea. And his friend Hasid with the red fez could be there too. Jack collected most of the antiques for the shop so we could see them getting collected and Lewis starting his coven of witches, Jack working with the white witches, etc.

He also couldn't have cursed all the objects at once, so maybe we see him designing the curses and then giving them out one by one based on the items' properties.

I didn't realize Jack had helped Louis with the Curious Goods inventory. I'm liking this idea a lot... don't know what the title would be.

The show was so long ago, did Jack have more than Hasid as a friend?

Unfortunately, I don't work in 'the biz', where would I go with the concept.

He had more friends like the head witch of the white coven but I don't remember all of them either. I only remember the guy with the red fez because he was in the early episodes and is such a memorable character. Most of them were one-episode and done friends, the fez guy came back a few times.

Yeah Jack was the procurer of items for Lewis and he traveled a lot and sent items back to Lewis (along with invoices). I don't think he was there when Lewis went through with the pact with the devil and started cursing the items.

Let's just talk about the same shit we already know and already said OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER ...

r33 no one's forcing you to. You could instead, for example, fly to South America and find one of those trees that are filled with poison demon ants, and lean against it, letting them swarm over you and consume you in horrible agony.

I loved this series, OP. Great overall premise. I’m quite sure some production company will rediscover it and give it a reboot at some point.

Ive been thinking about this series, too, but for a differnt reason. Several years ago I looked up what happened to Robey and that guy she married. Well, she got screwed over good. He and his upper crust friends got tired of her and he divorced her, and took their son. She said she was broke and had no way to stay in the area to visit her son. It's been making me think about Sparkle. Is Harry going to tire of her and banish her without any kids she had? Stay tuned!

I was also kind of annoyed that they never did an episode with cursed salt and pepper shakers.

OMG, R8 - I was OBSESSED with being Robey when I grew up! I wanted her wild red hair so bad!

Ryan was cute but Johnny was a fucking stud.

Johnny was definitely better looking. Ryan looked slightly um, special. I didn't really like it as much after he replaced Ryan though.

I loved Robey's outfits.

Do you think the other actors were allowed to call her Louise on set or did thy have to address her as "Ro-BAY"?

She probably required a "no eye contact" clause in her contract.

About to pop in the DVD now...

Can't wait

Were you entertained, r42?

Loved this show. I can't find it streaming and I hate watching shit on youtube.

R33 I'd rather talk about this again then endless porn threads and the psychotic fangurl threads.

If we are talking about old shows, does anyone remember The Hitcher on early HBO?

One of my favorite episodes was Night Prey from Season 3. A husband is hunting the vampire who he thinks killed his wife. I think the antique involved was some kind of cross with a blade that can kill vampires. The husband finds the vampire, but the wife is now also a vampire and a slave to the vampire.

It had a good twist. With the help of Jack, Mickey, and Johnny, the vampire is slain. However, the wife turned the husband into a vampire so they could live together in eternity. But the husband is slain (he didn't last long as a vampire). Wherever they are is ablaze with flames. The vampire-wife is distraught and crestfallen after losing her husband-turned-vampire. It was either Johnny or Jack who have a clear shot to kill her, but with the look on her face and the clear anguish this immortal creature is feeling, he takes pity on her and walks away.

Robey became a Countess.

Very much, R43.

Just finished Vanity's Mirror.

Poor, picked on Helen.

So is this only available on DVD?

And YouTube, r50 (see above links), but higher quality on DVD.

r18 In the documentary Crystal Lake Memories producer Frank Mancuso said they made him young in case the actor ever wanted to return. He also said they were canceled because conservative groups threatened to boycott advertisers.

Robey's son is a cutie.

Is he in anything?

R53 that's interesting, didn't know that. I'm surprised they were cancelled due to that, although I remember that was a factor in the reason they never made another His Dark Materials movie (the movie got a lot of negative publicity due to Christian groups).

Frankly the series supported the Christian idea of heaven and hell and price to pay for evil, so you'd think the Christian groups would have embraced it!

There's a bit of bitter amusement in these actors that leave series early because of creative differences or whatever and then never do anything else notable again.

[quote]does anyone remember The Hitcher on early HBO?

I think you mean The Hitchhiker and yes I remember it. Never got into that show but I watched the opening credits religiously. Page Fletcher's ass in those jeans was mesmerizing.

R55 it certainly was! I always tuned in just for the opening credits too. Such a nice ass

Onto the 2nd season now. Not as fun as the first but more horror centric. "Helen" from the cursed compact is back but playing a street kid who witnesses a murder. The "Magic (1978)" inspired episode with the ventriliquist dummy was good and effectively creepy.

Someone was obviously obsessed with how "arty" filming scenes in black & white could be.

The compact made its return and a butt ugly model used it to recapture her youth.

A very young Keram Malicki-Sanchez followed by Vanity!

It was a big deal in my family when I was a kid. A lot of other kids I knew weren't allowed to watch it because it was considered too graphic and dealt with black magic -- this was during the height of the '80s Satanic Panic hysteria -- but my mom just loved that stuff. It actually did air on Friday nights in our region, and she'd make spaghetti. I'm still a huge fan and it took FOREVER to hit DVD. Robey was the first redhead I can remember encountering, so she remains iconic to me.

I remember it being grouped with a number of syndicated shows with a hour theme -- Monsters, Nightmare on Elm Street, and I think the Hitchhiker repeats (and yes the only thing I remember about that one is the ass in the opening credits).

I want to say they were on around midnight. I seem to remember watching them getting home from the library or the bar during college depending on the day of the week. They were all hit or miss, but Friday the 13th might have been the most consistent.

"Forever Knight" arrived shortly after F13 ended. It was also shot in Toronto and had a similar tone. It beat the vampire craze from a few years back to the punch by decades.

I really liked that show r62. To think the janitor from the breakfast club became a cop in torono!

R49, Helen was a pig. Remember when she offered Scott one of her FOUR sandwich halves lol.

The Paramount War of the Worlds syndicated series was essentially the sister series to Friday the 13th, sharing a lot of the same creative personnel and cast. And, of course, Keram Malicki-Sanchez in the second season of WOTW. It was kind of startling that WOTW actually got a definitive ending episode as they had enough lead time from cancellation, unlike Friday...

R62 and R63, I loved Forever Knight. It didn't come on until about 1:00 am where I lived then, but I usually caught it. I remember Catherine Disher as Nathalie. In the first season, you could see her already starting to gain weight. By the end of the series, I called her Fathalie. Years later she played the chunky frau mayor's wife on The Good Witch Hallmark movies.

John Kapelos, who played Det. Schanke and was the janitor in Breakfast Club and the mook fiance/husband of Molly Ringwald's character's sister in Sixteen Candles, also porked out big time as the series progressed. They killed off his character at the beginning of the last season.

I loved this show back in the day. It was must see tv.

R66 omg! I didn't realize that was her in the Good Witch. She's great as the fat Frau!

Third season got off to a rocky start but the KKK/car radio episode was pretty amazing.

Awww bummer.

I'm down to the final disc and last 4 episodes.

It was cancelled way too soon.

Should have lasted at least 5 seasons.

Agreed!

There is no number of creative death threats that can change the fact that the OP is a tired, old maniac polluting Datalounge with redundant threads on the same, tired pop culture he uses to name drop in lieu of a personality / fresh news / relevance.

R72 is clearly the same control freak boob who can't get over the fact that so many people ignored him and carried on enjoying the thread, despite his many attempts to shut it down.

I think the chemistry wasn't the same after Lemay left.

Monarque was good looking, better looking than Lemay, but was lacking something.

I have a feeling if Lemay stayed on board, they might have not axed the show. The last season ran 6 episodes shorter than the first two, which doesn't make it sound like the producers had a lot of faith for the show continuing.