The Man Who Brought Jason Voorhees To Life...Just To Kill Him Off: A Look At Tom Savini

Jason Voorhees has had many faces (literally) throughout his screen history. There have been different artists with different artistic views on how the mommy-loving slasher should look like. A sack over the head, a deformed eye, to a mutant zombie killing machine! Out of all these stories and versions, we personally love the look of Friday The 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter.

How though, did Jason get his iconic look for The Final Friday? We all know that Savini designed the look for the original, child version of Jason seen briefly at the end of Friday The 13th but how did Tom Savini return to the land of Crystal Lake?

The story begins with executives at Paramount looking for a new makeup artist for the next Friday installment. After a lengthy search for candidates, they offered the job to Greg Cannom. He accepts the role of head of Special Effects and Makeup and hired Kevin Yagher, Alec Gillis, John Vulich, James Kagel, Jill Rockow, Micheal Maddi, and Larry S. Carr. All veterans in the spfx field.

Everybody was happy with the arrangement except for the director, Joseph Zito. He didn't want to work with Greg Cannom. He preferred Tom Savini which he had worked with on his last movie, The Prowler. Savini did have a history with Paramount and the Friday the 13th franchise in general but was doing other things at this time. Joseph Zito approached producer Frank Mancuso Jr. and asked him if he could replace Cannom with Savini and Mancuso answered “yeah, that we can do that"

The 80s was truly a different era. I believe Zito wouldn’t have gotten a “yeah we can do that today”. So, Savini gets the call that he has gotten a job in Hollywood which is his first major studio job. So far, he had only worked on indie movies in New York, Pittsburgh, and Florida. (The first Friday was a super low budget affair and would not be considered a success for years)

When we horror nerds think of Tom Savini we think of this legend, that wasn't the case back in the 80s in Hollywood. He was seen as a B-movie artist that didn't do real makeup effects. Special effects in horror movies weren’t considered “Real Makeup” and was even panned by the Academy for many years. Also, Greg Cannom was a Rick Baker apprentice and any one associated with Baker were viewed as the golden boys in the makeup effects industry. So the crew reactions were less than pleased when they found Cannom had been replaced with Savini. Savini was very nervous about coming to Hollywood and had some general misgivings about the upcoming project. So the show was off to a rocky start.

Surprisingly, when the crew meets Savini things started to change. They started to see that he was a nice guy that was easy to work with. It got off to a rocky start but ended strong. The majority of the crew become friends with Savini afterward and are still to this day. They became Savini's first make-up contacts in Hollywood. So what began with nervousness and preconceptions ended with a legend's first foothold in Hollywood.

Would Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter be a completely different film if not for Tom Savini and the magic he gave us? You be the judge but we say, hell yes!