For this month’s installment of “TV Terrors” we revisit one of the most iconic bits of horror movie marketing of all time: when Jason Voorhees took “The Arsenio Hall Show“!
The first time I ever saw the teaser for Jason Takes Manhattan was on the weekend of July 5, 1989. My dad had taken my little brother and I to see Weekend at Bernie’s, and while we were sitting through the trailers, Jason Voorhees suddenly popped up. It was that famed teaser that everyone remembers with Jason looking out onto the cityscape, promising a Friday the 13th sequel wherein Jason would quite literally slice and dice his way through New York City.
Although my parents strictly forbade us from watching Friday the 13th films at the time, I was utterly enamored with Jason Voorhees at just six years old. The teaser didn’t scare me, but it excited me, and ended up being the most entertaining moment of the night. I honestly don’t remember much about Weekend at Bernie’s. Go figure.
When Paramount began promoting the big move from Crystal Lake to the streets of New York City back in 1989, it was a massive event that amounted to a whole lot of hype. And along with the hype, some really entertaining promotional opportunities. Among them was probably one of the most famous and iconic crossovers of all time as Jason Voorhees appeared, in the rotten flesh, on Arsenio Hall’s late night talk show. “The Arsenio Hall Show” was a huge show in its heyday that dared to try to take the late night mantle from the likes of Carson and Letterman, The show was unique, edgy, often controversial, and sometimes bizarre. Among the guests on that night’s episode on July 28, there was Bo Derek and Ursula Andress–and a promised interview with Jason Voorhees. Needless to say, the show delivered on that wild promise.
Actor/stuntman Kane Hodder came out onto the stage in full Jason Voorhees costume, holding an axe in his hand. What made the appearance even better was that Hodder stuck to character from beginning to end, never once reducing Jason to a comedic prop or goofy novelty. Despite the fact that Jason had considerably lost a lot of his mystique by this point in time, Hodder, a classic showman, never once broke character. He silently deadpanned his way through the entire appearance, with Hall doing his best to try and get Hodder to crack. He never did.
According to Kane Hodder in his interview with YouTube channel Astronomicon, Arsenio Hall was very much afraid of Jason Voorhees, and so much of the anxiety he presented on camera was genuine. Hodder even confessed to grabbing him by the neck backstage at the end of the show, remaining in character even when the cameras weren’t rolling.
My parents broke their rule and allowed us to stay up a little later that night to see Jason on television, and we were bouncing off the walls from sheer excitement and went to bed with big grins on our faces. It was a spot that only Arsenio Hall was capable of, inadvertently lending even bigger credibility to not only Kane Hodder’s often underrated acting prowess, but the sheer skill that it took to scare an audience without saying a single word.
In hindsight, Arsenio Hall was so far ahead of his time. He just seemed to know how to have fun and not take his show too seriously, allowing for a moment that became forever captured as one of the most iconic, and memorable, moments in horror movie history.
Where Can I Watch It? The interview is thankfully not hard to find at all. You can watch it on most video streaming websites including (and especially) on YouTube. It has also been featured on numerous horror documentaries and retrospectives for decades. Watch below!
The post When Jason Voorhees and Arsenio Hall Delivered the Best Horror Movie Marketing of All Time [TV Terrors] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
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