As Friday the 13th comes back around again, many people will likely be spending the evening watching at least one film from the iconic horror franchise. While the movies are all purely fictional, there is actually a tragic truth about the fourth flick — Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter — which is that it features a horrific scene that is based on a real life murder.
Screen Rant previously shared the history of the scene, which features E. Erich Anderson’s character Rob Dier being murdered by Jason in a basement. Surprisingly, the scene lacks the level of gore for which the franchise has come to be known, but it was still deeply cruel and haunting, nonetheless. It turns out, according to director Joseph Zito in the Crystal Lake Memories book, Rob’s death was based on a crime he read about in a newspaper.
Zito shared that he’d read about the tragic story, in which a man was being stabbed to death while yelling, “Please stop hurting me, please stop killing me.” This had a significant impact on Zito, as the idea of the victim speaking to their attacker was profoundly unsettling for him. This led him to create a scene where one of Jason’s victims would speak during their death, resulting in Rob dying while yelling, “He’s killing me!”
The first Friday the 13th film was released in 1980. It went on to spawn nine sequels, as well as a mash-up film with Jason’s fellow horror film icon Freddy Kruger — 2003s Freddy vs. Jason — and the remake in 2009. Since then, the franchise has had trouble getting back off the ground. A number of planned follow-up reboots failed to make it past the scripting stage, and a subsequent copyright lawsuit brought the series to a screeching halt.
Back in 2018, it was reported that NBA champ Lebron James was going to be joining the Friday the 13th franchise as a producer of a planned reboot for the series. According to a Bloody Disgusting report at the time, James and his production company SpringHill Entertainment were said to be working with Vertigo Entertainment on a new launch for the iconic horror movie. There have been no updates on this since, but a previously announced prequel series based on the franchise is in development, accord to the AV Club.