Happy Anniversary, Jason!!

Seeing as this year marks the 25th anniversary of Friday the 13th, and since AMC is playing it in pretty regular rotation this month, I thought I'd recount a story of just how far a person was willing to go to prove he was right.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine and a co-worker began a debate on whether or not Friday the 13th actually took place on Friday the 13th. My friend argued the position that it did. In the beginning of the movie, there is a subtitle that reads, "June 13, Present Day." In 1980, the year the movie was released, June 13th did actually fall on a Friday. (It says as much on the poster as well, but maybe he didn't have a copy of that handy.) So, he was right, right?

The co-worker, however, argued the opposite side. In one of the later films, The Final Chapter, I believe, there is a scene in which the tombstone of Mrs. Voorhees, who died at the end of the first movie, is shown, and it clearly shows that she died in 1979. June 13th was not a Friday in 1979, so the co-worker is also right.

But, my friend believed that was a film flub, and went to an extreme length to prove it: He contacted Victor Miller, the screenwriter of Friday the 13th. Mr. Miller backed my friend's position and claimed that Friday was indeed intended to take place on Friday the 13th. (I'm sure he would also have liked to point out that if my friend had actually watched the movie, he would have noticed the scene between Steve and the sheriff, where the sheriff actually says it's Friday the 13th. But that's neither here nor there.) Needless to say, that put the argument to bed fairly quickly.

So, the person who was willing to go waaaaaay out of his way won. Sure, this is one of those have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too arguments, where both positions are actually correct, but who cares about that? It's all about doing the most extreme thing possible to prove you're right, and then throwing it in the other guy's face. Well played, sir; well played.