20 Things You Somehow Missed In Friday The 13th (1980)

5. Harming Animals

Friday The 13th
Warner Bros./Paramount Pictures

Nowadays, it is normal to see in the end credits of films that "No animals were harmed in the making of this film".

However, this was sadly not the case in Friday the 13th; for the sequence in which several of the camp counsellors crowd into Alice's cabin, cornering a snake so that Bill can kill it with a machete, the death of the snake was performed for real.

Tom Savini suggested the idea and the filmmakers justified it by explaining that they needed an early scene in the film to show that the camp counsellors were actually quite capable of defending themselves.

Although People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was established in 1980, Friday the 13th had been filmed in the summer of 1979, so there was no PETA representative on the set.

Contributor

I started writing for WhatCulture in July 2020. I have always enjoyed reading and writing. I have contributed to several short story competitions and I have occasionally been fortunate enough to have my work published. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I also started reviewing films on my Facebook page. Numerous friends and contacts suggested that I should start my own website for reviewing films, but I wanted something a bit more diverse - and so here I am! My interests focus on film and television mainly, but I also occasionally produce articles that venture into other areas as well. In particular, I am a fan of the under appreciated sequel (of which there are many), but I also like the classics and the mainstream too.