Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Murders that Spawned a Legend



I've always been fascinated by the opening sequence of 'Friday the 13th'. It offers the only glimpse we ever really see into Camp Crystal Lake in its prime in the summer of 1958, before its reputation as "Camp Blood" and its decades-long history of teen murders... yellow-shirted counselors sit peacefully around a camp fire singing traditional American songs while the young campers... Jason's contemporaries, some of whom would have known him before his drowning the previous summer... sleep peacefully, oblivious to the horror that was about to commence.

It is never made explicit that the first two murder victims of Camp Crystal Lake, Barry and Claudette, were the ones responsible for Jason's drowning the prior year, but it seems like a logical conclusion. Their brutal deaths, his from a machete to the abdomen, hers (offscreen) by a machete across the throat by the demented camp cook, twenty-eight-year-old Pamela Voorhees, set it all up-- you have sex, you die.

As little as we are shown of the 1958 murders, we seem to know even less about the actors who played them. According to CampBlood.net, the actors, Willie Adams and Debra S. Hayes were dating in real life when they filmed their short but historic roles as the first victims. Willie's IMDb shows Friday the 13th and nothing else... same with her. No further film career, no horror convention appearances I am aware of, no definite facebook or LinkedIn presence, no interviews, nothing on google. Would be interesting to know what happened to these two.

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