Books of 2024: Week 5 - On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th and Stardust

Cody hears about the making of Friday the 13th from a questionable source, then reads a fairy tale.

ON LOCATION IN BLAIRSTOWN: THE MAKING OF FRIDAY THE 13TH by David Grove

Friday the 13th is my favorite franchise, so I will always be interested in hearing stories about the making of the films that make up that franchise. I have read David Grove’s 2005 book Making Friday the 13th: The Legend of Camp Blood, which covers the entire franchise (up to the point of publication) a couple times, even though I’ve never really been a fan of the book because Grove talks so much trash about the sequels as the book goes along. That book is greatly overshadowed by Peter Bracke’s Crystal Lake Memories, which was published around the same time and is packed with information without being negative about the films. It was always clear that Grove really only liked the first movie, so when he published another book that was entirely about the original film, it totally made sense. But as much as I love Friday the 13th, I was hesitant to read On Location in Blairstown: The Making of Friday the 13th – not only because I wasn’t a big fan of Grove’s previous book, but also because there were allegations that Grove had fabricated at least parts of both of his Friday the 13th books. To be specific, original Friday the 13th star Adrienne King has come out and said that Grove never interviewed her, nor had he even attempted to get in contact with her. Even though the books have quotes from King in them...

It took a decade, but my curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided to give On Location in Blairstown a chance, because I love the idea of director Sean S. Cunningham and his cast and crew heading out to a New Jersey campground back in 1979 and creating horror greatness. I just went into the book knowing that I could never be sure if a passage had any truth to it, or if it had been made up. Basically, I had to read it as if it were a work of fiction about the making of one of my favorite movies instead of “the last word on the making of Friday the 13th” that Grove says he intended it to be. As I went through it, there were stories I recognized, that I’ve heard from other sources, and if there was any information that I hadn’t heard before, I didn’t take it as fact. Especially when there’s some insinuation that King and Cunningham might have had something of an affair during the production, despite the fact that Cunningham’s family was there with him at the location. I remember that being a controversial aspect of On Location when it first came out, and as far as I’m concerned, that “information” is something that should be completely disregarded.

Overall, as a Friday the 13th fan, I did find On Location in Blairstown to be an interesting enough read, it’s just a shame it was put together in a questionable way.

STARDUST by Neil Gaiman

Fairy tales aren't something I generally feel an urge to read, and I didn’t expect to be reading Neil Gaiman’s “fairy tale for grown-ups” Stardust any time soon. But I was assigned to write about the film adaptation of Stardust for the JoBlo Network, so I figured I should read the source material as part of my research. And I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t usually choose to read something that involves fairies and unicorns, but I had a good time reading this story.

The story begins in 1839, in the English town of Wall, which has that name because of the wall that runs along the edge of town and separates it from a magical land called Faerie.  Every nine years, on May Day, the beings that inhabit Faerie hold a market event in the meadow outside Wall. The rest of the time, the gap in the wall between the two lands is under twenty-four hour guard. When a Wall resident named Dunstan Thorn crosses over into Faerie, he ends up being enchanted by a young woman named Una, who is kept as a slave by a witch-woman called Ditchwater Sal. The witch makes Una spend most of her time as a bird, but she’s in her proper form when she meets Dunstan. They have sex and Dunstan returns to Wall... where, nine months later, a baby is delivered to his door. Turns out he and Una have had a son. Dunstan raises this son, named Tristran. Eighteen years later, Tristran has become infatuated with fellow Wall resident Victoria Forester. He gets her to go out with him one night, but she won’t give him a kiss. When they see a falling star, Victoria tells Tristran she’ll give him anything he desires if he retrieves the fallen star for her. So Tristran sets out to find the star, crossing over into the land of Faerie. And going on a much bigger adventure than he anticipated.

Turns out, the star that has fallen to the ground is a person. Or at least she has a humanoid appearance. Her name is Yvaine, and she was knocked out of the sky when she was hit by a topaz pendant that was tossed into the sky by the dying Lord of a land called Stormhold. The Lord once had seven sons, but they’ve been killing each other off to get closer to the throne. The dead ones are still hanging around as ghosts. Three sons are left alive, and whoever finds the topaz pendant – now in the possession of Yvaine – will replace their father on the throne. Meanwhile, a trio of decrepit witches have also seen the star fall from the sky. One of them goes to find where it has landed... because if they cut out Yvaine’s heart and consume it, their youth and beauty will be restored. The witch uses magic to cover up her true appearance, but every time she uses other spells on her journey, her real looks start to come through.

Tristran is the first to reach Yvaine. Even though he’s surprised to see that the star is a woman rather than a rock, he still goes through with taking her back to Wall. And thus has to deal with witches and the sons of Stormhold coming after her. Along the way, there are encounters with a unicorn, goats that have been transformed into people, and the crew of a ship that flies above the clouds, on a lightning-hunting expedition. Early the story, Tristran also becomes acquainted with a character who is usually referred to as the “little hairy man”, and happened to be my favorite character in the book because he would have been right at home in one of my childhood favorites, Labyrinth. Sadly, “little hairy man” didn’t make it into the Stardust film adaptation at all.

The “fairy tale for grown-ups” description of Stardust is interesting, because most of the time the book is quite family friendly. You’ll just occasionally bump into something that parents might not want their children to read about. Like the sex scene between Dunstan and Una in the first chapter, another sex scene involving a prostitute later on, an F-bomb, a throat slitting, and a unicorn’s head being hacked off with a meat cleaver. Things get rough, then they go right back to being family friendly.

Throughout, Gaiman keeps the story flowing at a good pace, and I really enjoyed his writing style, which made a story that didn’t seem appealing to me on the outside quite engrossing and entertaining to read.