You’ll Never Watch These Friday the 13th Sequels the Same Way After Learning This Hilarious Mistake

The title Friday the 13th is about as iconic as a horror franchise’s name can be, but it’s never been all that important to the films’ narratives. Hardly at all, really. It originated from the original film’s director, Sean S. Cunningham, who saw that John Carpenter’s Halloween was a massive success and took out an ad in Variety before even knowing what the film’s plot would be. Friday the 13th is just known to be a spooky day and thus a great name for a spooky movie. Pamela Voorhees and, in the subsequent films, the alive and walking Jason Voorhees had nothing to do with it.

In other words, it’s not their favorite day for killing, as many T-shirts have posited. But has it ever factored in? Only once, arguably twice, throughout the fantastic initial quadrilogy. After that, the date only popped up in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, with Deputy Rick’s line “Happy Friday the 13th.”

Friday the 13th’s Sequels Throw the Calendar Out

The original Friday the 13th opens on Camp Crystal Lake on an unspecified night in 1958. We don’t know the month (it’s June), much less the day. Pamela Voorhees dispatches her first two victims, Barry and Claudette, and we cut to credits.

This is when we start following the chipper and sweet yet ill-fated Annie, who is positioned as the film’s lead. She’s walking into the town closest to Camp Crystal Lake and the text on the screen reads “Friday June 13” and that the year is “The Present.” Friday the 13th opened in 1980, but the film was written and takes place in 1979.

As the film’s poster states, it is a “24 hour nightmare of terror.” We see Annie for the first time at, one surmises, around noon of that Friday the 13th, most of the Crystal Lake counselors are dispatched from late afternoon until it’s pitch-black outside, and after final girl Alice Hardy kills Mrs. Voorhees, we catch up with her the next morning, first in a dream and then in a hospital bed.

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Friday the 13th Part II opens in a suburb, and once more we’re with Alice. It’s August 1979, two years after the events of the first film. However, once Jason exacts vengeance on Alice, we suddenly jump in time by five years. We learn this when Paul Holt, who is opening his counselor training school near Camp Crystal Lake, reveals about how the events of the first film occurred “five long years” ago.

The central location in Friday the 13th Part 2 is Packanack Lodge. It’s not specified what day of the week this occurs, but popular fan belief is that it’s a Thursday. The only killing that occurs on Thursday is the original film’s other surviving and returning character, “Crazy Ralph.”

This would mean the main events of the film, which span two days in total, occur on a Friday. For the sake of branding, a ‘Friday the 13th.’ At the end of the sequel, its protagonist, Ginny Field, is loaded into an ambulance and carted off.

This is also something we see in the opening of Friday the 13th Part III, when Edna Hockett watches a news reporter (played by Part 2 and Part III director Steve Miner) recap the events of the previous two days. This means that Friday the 13th Part III begins on a Saturday (presumably, Saturday the 14th).

We then pick up with Chris Higgins and her friends, who arrive at Higgins Haven the next day, a Sunday. Jason is already there, so he killed the Hockett couple and went immediately to Higgins Haven (impeccable timing, Mr. Voorhees). Like the first film, the events of Part III, from when Chris Higgins and crew arrive to when she’s carried off in an ambulance is set over the course of just 24 hours (and it’s like Part 2 in that, save for the opening scene, the events as a whole take place over the course of two days).

Therefore, when Higgins is driven away in an ambulance, screaming desperately, it’s Monday (ostensibly the 16th). This is also the day when Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter picks up the narrative thread, now on a Monday night.

Jason kills the nurse and the coroner that night, but after the opening scene, we meet and primarily spend time with the Jarvis family and the six teens who are renting out the house next to the Jarvis family home. We see an evening pass with everyone safe, so Tuesday is an all-around uneventful day. It’s Wednesday when two individuals arrive at the location: Jason and Rob Dier.

Rob is the brother of one of Part 2‘s victims, Sandra, who, along with her boyfriend, was impaled by a spear mid-coitus. In other words, he heard about Sandra’s death that past Friday and made it out by Wednesday, only to be killed that night just like most of the film’s other characters.

In summary, al three movies take place back-to-back-to-back and the majority of the killings in Friday the 13th Part 2 occur on a Friday. The majority of the Part III kills occur on a Sunday, and finally, the majority of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter occurs on a Wednesday.

Friday the 13th Didn’t Live Up to Its Name

As you can see, Friday the 13th: Part III and The Final Chapter are both named for a day and date of the week on which they do not occur. Even still, the titles of these sequels aren’t the most baffling thing about them: that would be how Jason is still alive, at all. Some questions are better off not thinking about too much. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

You can stream Friday the 13th movies on various platforms.