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On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th
On location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th covers the creation, planning and filming of the iconic 1980 film, Friday the 13th in a way that no other film has been documented before. Through the memories of the cast and crew, many speak for the first (and last) time, as well as previously-undiscovered production information and materials, On location in Blairstown takes the reader "on location" and back in time to 1979 for the filming of Friday the 13th and behind the scenes for all of the adventures, conflicts and dramas that went into the making of one of the most enduring and popular horror films in history.
656 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 13, 2013
About the author
David Grove
6 books19 followersDavid Grove is an author, film journalist, and produced screenwriter from Vancouver. A film historian, he’s the author of the books Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen, Making Friday the 13th, and On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th. His book Jan-Michael Vincent: Edge of Greatness, a biography on the career and life of actor Jan-Michael Vincent, will be published in 2017. The Yearbook, his first novel, will be published by Black Opal Books in the fall of 2016.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 16, 2025
As a Friday the 13th fan, I really wanted to love this. It’s a solid book overall, but it takes way too long to get into the real meat and potatoes of the actual filming. Once it finally gets there, though, the behind-the-scenes production notes are great—especially the part where you realize that about halfway through shooting, people started to sense this could actually be something special.
The section on the critics’ reactions was wild. The over-the-top moral outrage—looking at you, Siskel—feels almost laughable in hindsight. The movie’s impact is undeniable, especially considering how imitators like The Burning and Sleepaway Camp never managed to catch the same spark. It’s fascinating how many of the actors turned down points on the movie and ended up losing out on millions. And that title—Friday the 13th—what a stroke of branding genius.
Still, I think Crystal Lake Memories does a better job capturing the full phenomenon of the film and the franchise that followed.
A fun side note: this is Bubba Zahler’s favorite movie, and apparently, he used to scare kids in Jackson Township by dressing up as Jason Voorhees. That just shows how deeply Friday the 13th seeped into the cultural zeitgeist. The 1980s were truly a wild time.
The section on the critics’ reactions was wild. The over-the-top moral outrage—looking at you, Siskel—feels almost laughable in hindsight. The movie’s impact is undeniable, especially considering how imitators like The Burning and Sleepaway Camp never managed to catch the same spark. It’s fascinating how many of the actors turned down points on the movie and ended up losing out on millions. And that title—Friday the 13th—what a stroke of branding genius.
Still, I think Crystal Lake Memories does a better job capturing the full phenomenon of the film and the franchise that followed.
A fun side note: this is Bubba Zahler’s favorite movie, and apparently, he used to scare kids in Jackson Township by dressing up as Jason Voorhees. That just shows how deeply Friday the 13th seeped into the cultural zeitgeist. The 1980s were truly a wild time.
May 29, 2015
Good to know
There's a lot of information out there concerning the making of this film. That being typed, there's good tidbits sprinkled inside this book by David Grove. A must-read for fans and cinema fans alike.
There's a lot of information out there concerning the making of this film. That being typed, there's good tidbits sprinkled inside this book by David Grove. A must-read for fans and cinema fans alike.
October 11, 2026
Started: 2.13.26
Finished: 2.18.26
~On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th by David Grove
~Narrated by: Mark Johannes
#JayBookSin2026Boal Book.25
Foreword: Jason is still running around in the movies and here in this book, even though he doesn’t exist. He died in the first movie. He can’t still be running around killing naked teenagers in the woods with household implements. I’ve had this conversation with Betsy Palmer, who did a lot of soul searching and character building before she played his mother. And she told me, in her mind, ‘Oh, they never found his body’.
Well then, I argued, you mean he came out of the lake disoriented, and here is this misshapen kid living off crayfish or something, and nobody saw him? And for thirty-five more years he is still out there, racking up a body count? The simple answer is, yes.
~Tom Savini (Make-up/SFX artist)
“I’m forty now, and I’ve aged with Friday the 13th. We bond with films that made an impression when we saw them as kids. Then we watch them over the subsequent years, we grow old with them. They’re a time capsule, a trip down memory lane. Friday the 13this definitely that kind of film.”
~David Grove
SynopSin: I’ve been a huge fan of this franchise for many years. But I wasn’t always. When I was in the 6th grade I broke my femur and ended up in a wheelchair for quite some time. I wasn’t into scary/horror movies. Long story short, my mom dropped me, my older brother & younger sister off at a dollar movie theater that was showing a double feature of F13 pt.2 & Teen Wolf (helluva a combo 🤣). I didn’t want to see F13 but had no choice as I couldn’t sit in the lobby by myself. When I saw a character in a wheelchair, I was relieved. I thought, no one would hurt someone in a wheelchair! Well, when that dude took a machete to the face, I lost my shit. Like badly. They had to wheel me out of the theater. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. Lol. We went back in to see Teen Wolf after F13 finished. Hey, had to get our $1s worth!
Couple years after that I got tired of being afraid of horror movies and started watching them during the day, then at night but with the lights on, and finally with the lights off. And when I was all good and horror seasoned, I went back to F13–starting with 1. I loved it.
This book was a time capsule back to my youth. It was a thorough, painstakingly researched and detailed book by an author, who is also a film journalist/historian, and big fan of the OG F13 movie. He talks of his first viewing of F13 in his youth and how it stuck with him for years. This is an eye-opening account of what went into getting F13 made and why and how it became an instant classic.
JBSR: 🔪🔪🔪🔪1/2
Audio: 📚📚📚📚📚
#booksinart73 #staybookedhappyreading #keepturningpages #booknerd #bookworm #bookdragon #booksquirrel #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookthreads #booktok #pageagainstthemachine #leermáslibros #leggipiùlibri #lireplusdelivres
Instagram: BookSin.Art19
Finished: 2.18.26
~On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th by David Grove
~Narrated by: Mark Johannes
#JayBookSin2026Boal Book.25
Foreword: Jason is still running around in the movies and here in this book, even though he doesn’t exist. He died in the first movie. He can’t still be running around killing naked teenagers in the woods with household implements. I’ve had this conversation with Betsy Palmer, who did a lot of soul searching and character building before she played his mother. And she told me, in her mind, ‘Oh, they never found his body’.
Well then, I argued, you mean he came out of the lake disoriented, and here is this misshapen kid living off crayfish or something, and nobody saw him? And for thirty-five more years he is still out there, racking up a body count? The simple answer is, yes.
~Tom Savini (Make-up/SFX artist)
“I’m forty now, and I’ve aged with Friday the 13th. We bond with films that made an impression when we saw them as kids. Then we watch them over the subsequent years, we grow old with them. They’re a time capsule, a trip down memory lane. Friday the 13this definitely that kind of film.”
~David Grove
SynopSin: I’ve been a huge fan of this franchise for many years. But I wasn’t always. When I was in the 6th grade I broke my femur and ended up in a wheelchair for quite some time. I wasn’t into scary/horror movies. Long story short, my mom dropped me, my older brother & younger sister off at a dollar movie theater that was showing a double feature of F13 pt.2 & Teen Wolf (helluva a combo 🤣). I didn’t want to see F13 but had no choice as I couldn’t sit in the lobby by myself. When I saw a character in a wheelchair, I was relieved. I thought, no one would hurt someone in a wheelchair! Well, when that dude took a machete to the face, I lost my shit. Like badly. They had to wheel me out of the theater. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. Lol. We went back in to see Teen Wolf after F13 finished. Hey, had to get our $1s worth!
Couple years after that I got tired of being afraid of horror movies and started watching them during the day, then at night but with the lights on, and finally with the lights off. And when I was all good and horror seasoned, I went back to F13–starting with 1. I loved it.
This book was a time capsule back to my youth. It was a thorough, painstakingly researched and detailed book by an author, who is also a film journalist/historian, and big fan of the OG F13 movie. He talks of his first viewing of F13 in his youth and how it stuck with him for years. This is an eye-opening account of what went into getting F13 made and why and how it became an instant classic.
JBSR: 🔪🔪🔪🔪1/2
Audio: 📚📚📚📚📚
#booksinart73 #staybookedhappyreading #keepturningpages #booknerd #bookworm #bookdragon #booksquirrel #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookthreads #booktok #pageagainstthemachine #leermáslibros #leggipiùlibri #lireplusdelivres
Instagram: BookSin.Art19
June 6, 2020
I am so disappointed in this book because I am a huge 'Friday the 13th' fan (I have the entire series). The word that comes to mind when deciding how I feel about this book is TEDIOUS. It's not the making of 'Friday the 13th' it's the story of Sean Cunningham and Wes Craven and on and on and on. There is so much repetition because the author tends to get the feelings of various cast and crew on the exact same thing...such as make up artist Tom Savini or shooting sequences, etc and it makes the book so damn dull and tedious that at times I would read only a handful of words on a page to just keep working my way to the end. I would also suggest that this book gets a good dose of editing because it's a mess. I think that whoever typed this book wasn't a confident typist because there are so many words that are like BEJPGUL (the last 5 letters are typos all through the book) and you are expected to figure out what the word is supposed to be.
December 25, 2021
I only wish this amount care and detail went into
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th
(the rest of the franchise memoirs)
December 11, 2022
I must have been half-asleep when I first got this because I thought it was a behind-the-scenes book about A Nightmare on Elm Street but it turned out to be pretty great anyway even if the Friday franchise is my least favorite of the big three.
May 25, 2026
I felt like this was looooong but I had a good time
May 22, 2022
Exhaustive deep dive into the production and all those involved in the making of the original Friday the 13th. Great for fans that love learning the minutiae of making a horror classic. The writer essentially researched and interviewed all that were part of the story of making the film. He is realistic in capturing people's memories of something so long ago and says up front that not everyone remembers the same details, but it does at time become a bit muddled with contradictions. Other than that, a must read for uber fans.
March 22, 2016
A quick fun informative read.
I enjoyed this in-depth look at the making of Friday the 13th. It is a quick, easy read that is both entertaining and informative.
I enjoyed this in-depth look at the making of Friday the 13th. It is a quick, easy read that is both entertaining and informative.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews