All The Real (And Not So Real) Stories Behind Friday The 13th

Long before (*spoiler*) Jason Voorhees’ mother picked up a machete and started hacking her way through the counsellors at Camp Crystal Lake to avenge her son’s death in Friday the 13th (1980), this famous date has been a source of terror.

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The Irrational Fear of Slasher Sequels

While for most people Friday the 13th carries little significance beyond providing an excuse to watch scary movies, for some it is an experience as emotionally crippling as any other phobia. According to the Stress Management and Phobia Institute of North Carolina, friggatriskaidekaphobia, the technical name for a fear of Friday the 13th, affects 17 to 21 million Americans alone! Not only that, but businesses such as airlines are said to lose an estimated $800 — $900 million in revenue from superstitious consumers whenever the day/date combination arises.

While all of this makes the exploitation of the date with increasingly gory Friday The 13th sequels and remakes somewhat cruel, there’s little denying that those who have made Friday the 13th “the most feared day in history” would be terrified regardless. Like a lot of phobias, the fear of this date probably sounds irrational to those who don’t suffer from it, but it’s very serious to those who do. Unlike people afraid of clowns (like me), the object of one’s fear is unavoidable. Happening up to three times a year, this month’s Friday the 13th even falls on the night of a full moon — an occurrence that won’t happen again until 2049. On a related note, I’m genuinely surprised Werewolf Jason Voorhees hasn’t been utilised by the Friday the 13th franchise: they sent him into out of space in Jason X (2001), so it’s not that far-fetched.

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Judas And Loki Walk Into A Bar…

This phenomenon is a spin-off of sorts from two separate superstitions, both of which date back to ancient times. Friday, of course, is considered unlucky by many, due to it being the day of Christ’s crucifixion, but the far more common fear of the two is that of the number 13, known as triskaidekaphobia. One of the most accepted superstitions of all, it has plagued society and hotel floor planners since, it is assumed, the time of early Christianity (Judas was the 13th apostle of The Last Supper to arrive) and probably even as far back as the age of the Vikings (Loki, the 13th god, intruded on the Banquet of Valhalla). Going back even further, Babylon’s Code of Hammurabi, an ancient code of 282 laws, omits the number 13, suggesting that suspicion of the number 13 might date back to at least 1780 BC. It is even estimated that 85% of all high rise buildings are ‘missing’ a 13th floor because real estate agents admit that it is harder to lease apartments and offices on that level.

The specific details as to why Friday the 13th in particular is so feared to this day will never be truly known. Like any myth, its origins lie many, many years ago, in stories handed down with historical inaccuracies that have become part of the lore themselves. Like the aforementioned number 13, though, the root of Friday the 13th’s origins can be found by looking deep into the past.

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Jason Wasn’t Even Born Yet

It is understood that the first documented mention of Friday the 13th being a specifically unlucky day involved 19th century Italian opera composer Gioacchino Rossini. In a biography released in 1869, one year after the musician’s death, author Henry Sutherland Edwards claimed that “like so many Italians, [Rossini] regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one Friday 13th of November he died.” Fear vindicated, I guess.

Of course, if one wants to go back even further, Dan Brown — yes, the author of The Da Vinci Code — claims that the day’s unlucky origins go right back to 1307, when King Philip IV of France had the Knights Templar, or the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ, arrested. Much more recently, in 1925, the New York Times wrote that people “would no more buy or sell a share of stock today than they would walk under a ladder or kick a black cat out of their path.” Later in 1989, the second largest share-market drop in history of the Dow was recorded on a Friday the 13th and was nicknamed the ‘Friday-the-13th-mini-crash’.

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Words And Pictures

Naturally, it’s the entertainment industry that is keeping the Friday the 13th drama alive and well. Thomas William Lawson’s 1907 novel Friday the Thirteenth told the story of a stockbroker who attempts to crash the stock market. The book was a success and was later adapted into a feature film in 1916 with Robert Warwick. Elsewhere, Friday the 13th (1933), follows various characters before they get on a doomed bus in stormy London. The New York Times noted that director Victor Saville had “scarcely done justice to an intriguing basic idea”.

Of course, the day got its biggest cultural boost/was ruined forever with Friday the 13th (1980). Initially made to capitalise on a notorious date like Halloween (1978) before it, and New Year’s Evil (1980) and April Fool’s Day (1986) after, it quickly spawned a successful franchise that has delivered 12 films, a television series, computer games, toys, novels and comic books. While many of the films are terrible — Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), and Friday the 13th (2009) taking the proverbial rotten cake — many remain enjoyably silly horror fun, especially Friday the 13^th Part 3D (1982) with its wonderful disco soundtrack. Naturally, there is another on the way. And then there was that time Jason appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show and was decidedly un-chatty.

Sadly, the ultimate irony is that if you’re too scared to leave the house on Friday the 13th, there’s a good bet these movies will be on Foxtel, just waiting to give you a fright: this year and every year after.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer, editor and film festival programmer from Melbourne, who is currently based in New York City. He tweets from @glenndunks.