By Bob Deakin
Updated edition of a story published in the Kent Good Times Dispatch in 2003
“They brought him to Sharon Hospital with the fake ax still embedded in his head and took about 28 stitches. They told me he said to the nurse, ‘I have an awful headache,’ and caused quite a bit of commotion at the hospital.” — Lloyd Albin of Kent
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It was 1980. Most of the actors had hairstyles modeled after cast members of TV shows C.H.I.P.S. or Dallas, and the women were entering the big hair era. Horror movies were back, inspired by John Carpenter's Halloween two years previous.
It was time to film Friday the 13th Part 2 in Kent, New Preston, and Warren, Connecticut, featuring Jason, the horrid goon who would star in a series of movies wearing his trademark hockey goalie mask. Paramount Pictures was in charge and used local talent to provide the background characters.
The 87-minute movie was rated R when it was released because of its brutality, to the dismay of a few locals. It was set in the bucolic surroundings of Camp KenMont and the Bromica Mountain Lodge in Kent, as well as The Casino in New Preston on West Shore Road.
A new house now stands on the site of The Casino, which burned down just a couple of years later under mysterious circumstances.
Before the Mask
Friday the 13th Part 2 featured Jason before he donned his hockey gear when he wore only a white sheet over his head with a hole for his eye. Residents in New Preston must have wondered what was happening in the town center (East Shore Rd. and Main St.) during the filming of the opening scene when the pickup truck stops in the village.
A young man and woman bolted from the truck and headed for the phone booth next to 11 Main St. In a flash, a tow truck from Dowler's Garage was on the vehicle, towing it away as part of the plot.
Camp KenMont and Camp Crystal Lake
The late Lloyd Albin of Kent owned and ran Camp KenMont at the time and had about 80 crew members and actors living at the camp for filming during September and October 1980. He was first contacted by a location scout who was considering several camps in the area as a setting. The timing was good, as the children from summer camp had just gone home.
A look at a draft of the script left Mr. Albin skeptical.
“I recommended a number of camps to them because I wasn't anxious to have them in my own camp, thinking that they would wreck the place,” he said with a laugh in 2003. Eventually, however, he gave them the go-ahead.
“What we had was the ideal situation because we could accommodate the people.”
He had a full-time chef still on the premises and charged the crew room and board to live in the bungalows, many of which were used in the film. The camp also had an expanse of woods where Jason's rickety shack could be built, and it bordered North Spectacle Lake, where more shots were filmed.
Bromica Lodge, owned by the late Janet Gordon, was next door on the waterfront and served as the camp counselors' lodge in the movie.
What’s the Plot of Friday the 13th Part 2?
The plot of Friday the 13th Part 2 centered around a dozen young people training to be camp counselors near an old camp where a couple of vicious murders had taken place a few years before, in the original Friday the 13th.
“That's camp blood,” warned Ted, played by actor Stu Charno early in the movie. “You don't want to hear about it, man, believe me.” Such was the dialog and the constant temptation for the characters to poke around looking for signs of the haunting legend that lurked nearby. They quickly found it.
Friday the 13th, Part 2 had one of the highest body counts in horror movie history, and a graphic killing could be expected with nearly every scene change. Even a wheelchair-bound counselor didn't escape the wrath of the ax-wielding maniac.
“Like a Stephen King Novel”
One of the few conditions that Mr. Albin insisted upon was that no panoramic shots of his camp be used.
“It wouldn't help the enrollment,” he added, “if the kids knew that Jason was swimming in the same lake as they were.”
Finally, he remembers the location scouting, the movie makers decided his camp offered the best location and moved in. Still concerned about the prospect of a horror film being made at his camp and potential damage to it, an agreement was made that the production company would put up a bond in the event any damage was done.
Mr. Albin was pleasantly surprised to find the crew polite and well-behaved. One of his employees even got a speaking part as an extra.
“They ate very well and it was like having another group of counselors coming in,” he said. “They were all very nice, outgoing people. It was a pleasure to have had them there.”
The crew worked nights and slept during the day. Breakfast was served at 11 p.m. and dinner at 7 a.m.
“It was like a Stephen King novel,” Mr. Albin said. “If you drove in during the day no one would be around, but then all these people started appearing late in the afternoon.”
A New Jason Is Born During Filming
Laurie Potter of Warren lived on Davis Road at the time of filming and was still celebrating the birth of her son that August. She had coincidentally named him Jason, not knowing about the film to be shot just beyond her back yard. She wasn’t sure what to make of the signs along her road directing people to “Jason.”
Her son's feeding schedule coincided with the filming schedule.
“Because I would get up in the middle of the night, I turned my lights on,” she remembers. “They were doing night filming on the lake and I was right on the other side.”
The light from her home was picked up by cameras, and one of the female production assistants stopped by her home one afternoon. She requested that she cover her windows at night, and was given the materials to do so. Ms. Potter had no problem complying and remembers that she and the PA had a laugh discussing the recent birth of her son.
“She said she heard that I just had a son and named him Jason and said, 'You don't want him to be named after this Jason.'”
Filming at The Casino in New Preston
One day, roughly 100 extras were bused up from New York to The Casino in New Preston. The producer came to Mr. Albin in a panic after learning that the caterer for the day had canceled. The Camp KenMont team stepped in.
“I took my chef and we set up two 55-gallon half drums in the parking lot of The Casino and we cooked lunch for about 200,” he said.
Friday the 13th, Part 2 was released in May 1981 and some actors called to ask Mr. Albin for his permission to have a reunion camp out on his property.
“Of course I said yes and they had a great time,” he said. “When they left, they told me that they had left me a souvenir and I said 'thank you but forget about it.'”
Soon after, one of his real camp counselors was shocked to find one of the heads used in a decapitation scene hanging from a tree in a net. The actors also left him the sign for “Camp Crystal Lake” and he saves both to this day.
Casting Call for Horror Film Extras!
Mick Deakin of Brookfield was an extra in the movie. He heard about the casting call on the radio and went up with a couple of friends for a quick audition and got the part.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was my first filming experience. You do a lot of standing around and waiting.”
He appeared in the scenes shot in The Casino, dancing with a girl in front of the band, The Smokey Boys, who were an actual band in the area, and still are. He remembers one of the male leads in the movie was arrogant – choosing not to step out of his character in the film – but that the rest of the cast and crew were friendly.
In particular, Amy Steel, the female lead, spent time with the locals and joined them in games of tabletop bowling in the bar.
“I remember everything about that movie,” Mr. Deakin (my brother) said this week when asked for more memories. “Me, Kevin Bennett, and Tim Zumpf hung out with Amy Steel. They played music through speakers, not the band, but turned it off to get the actors’ dialog. To get the shot, we danced with no music.”
He, his friends and the others spent one long evening for the shoot.
“It was a great experience, overall,” he said. “The band was lip-syncing and the coolest thing was that they had to do the dialog in the next room.”
The extras were not paid, but all got t-shirts with the inscription, “I was an extra in Friday the 13th, Part 2.” For added comfort, the bar at The Casino remained open for the entire evening.
Friday the 13th Part 2 in Kent, New Preston, and Warren
The Kent and Warren Volunteer Fire departments also helped during filming, creating artificial rain.
“I was fire chief then and we went up there and sprayed the hoses up against the Bromica Lodge to make it look like rain,” remembered former Kent First Selectman, the late Bill Tobin. “We weren't really involved in much else of the production, but they gave us a nice donation.”
Long-time Kent resident and attorney, Boone Moore, was also called to assist, lending animals for the film.
Mr. Albin couldn’t forget one particular night of shooting.
“As careful as they were, the guy who was playing Jason got a gash on his arm filming the scene where the girls try to fight him off with a chainsaw,” he said. “They brought him to Sharon Hospital with the fake ax still embedded in his head and took about 28 stitches. They told me he said to the nurse, 'I have an awful headache.' and caused quite a commotion at the hospital.”
As of the early 2000s, Mr. Albin said about 20 or 30 cult followers of the movie series had come to his camp in search of Jason's old shack or other artifacts. He had the counselor's shack removed following filming to prevent it from becoming a tourist attraction and bothering the neighbors.
Same Opening Day as The Shining
The budget for Friday the 13th, Part 2 was about $1.25 million. Reviews were awful, but it did well at the box office, grossing approximately $21 million (opening the same day as The Shining). Streaming rentals continue to accumulate revenue.
The film had one of the longest pre-credit sequences in movie history – nearly 15 minutes – which made it unique and added to its cult status. Whenever anyone refers to a horror movie of the 70s and 80s, Friday the 13th, Part 2 is always in the discussion and will be for generations.
A Neighborhood Forever Captured on Film
Mr. Albin added one more detail from filming at Camp KenMont.
“There is a nude scene where the pretty young lady takes a dip in the lake. It was a chilly night, and when she came out of the water, they had to cover her right away. They gave the job to one of my neighbors, an old gentleman who owned a farm. He couldn’t believe what was happening, but I think he loved it.”
It’s a tough movie for some to watch, but shots of camps, roads, and homes in the area provide a good reminder of the way the area and its people looked in 1980. The story I wrote for the newspapers 20 years ago are now vintage, with many of my interview subjects no longer with us.
The area has changed quite a bit with gentrification, the loss of farming, and the ongoing sprawl of luxury homes. The old residents of Kent, New Preston, and Warren can stand proud with the knowledge that their memories are forever captured on film, much of it covered in blood.
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Photos and captions of old Kent, Warren, and New Preston film locations.
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