Friday the 13th: Terrifier director Damien Leone knows how to bring the franchise back

It’s been nearly fifteen years since the last Friday the 13th movie, which, believe it or not, is the longest period between sequels in the entire franchise. The rights to Friday the 13th have been embroiled in a prolonged legal battle between original screenwriter Victor Miller and director/producer Sean S. Cunnigham, but audiences are hungry for Jason Voorhees to make his return. When Friday the 13th does finally return, Terrifier writer/director Damien Leone knows exactly what to do.

“I’ve been on record for quite some time now saying if I could ever remake one slasher film, it would be ‘Friday the 13th,'” Damien Leone told /Film. “Jason was always my favorite slasher since I was a little kid, and I think that there’s a way to … I mean, my approach would be to keep it in the ’80s, honestly. I would have it take place in the early ’80s. I would try and make him as scary as possible because I feel like that’s something they kind of lost as the movies went along. You just start getting too comfortable with these villains and you need to be scared of them again.“

Sounds good to me. Although Damien Leone has said that he’s actually spoken with executives in charge of the Friday the 13th franchise, he thinks that he’s “a little too obscure” to direct the next sequel, at least for now.

After the success of Terrifier 2, Damien Leone is ready to go bigger and better with Terrifier 3. The sequel is expected to have a much larger budget than its predecessor and will be given a wide theatrical release. Leone has also said that he wants to return to the spooky atmosphere of the original short film. “One of my main goals for Terrifier 3 is to recapture the creep factor present in the original Terrifier short film,” Leone said. “That had a genuinely spooky atmosphere that I’m still proud of. If all goes as planned, part 3 will be the scariest Terrifer thus far.“

As for the future of Friday the 13th, there was talk of a new reboot earlier this year, but we haven’t heard much since. There’s also Crystal Lake, a prequel series being developed by A24 and written by Bryan Fuller.