Movie Men
Unmasking the Gay Saga of 'Friday the 13th'
By Dylan Vox

Oct 31, 2007

It’s Halloween and every year, inevitably, some television station will put together a marathon of the Friday the 13th movies to help you get in the mood to go out tricking or treating... which ever you prefer. This year, however, wouldn’t it be nice to have a great reason to sit down and watch those hot young co-ed’s with perfect bodies get slaughtered by some overgrown, deformed killer?  

Well, what if all of the hottie guys that came face to face with Jason Voorhees were gay? That would be great, you say? In some cases, it might just be true. With a little research, we uncovered some of the  Friday the 13th boys are now lawyers, doctors, entertainers and real estate investors... and some of them have one thing in common; they’re gay. So grab your hockey mask and machete and let’s hack into the closet of the Friday the 13th series.  

So the original, a box office surprise in 1980, doesn’t exactly have any out gay actors in it, but with hottie Kevin Bacon and Bing Crosby’s son Harry making on-screen appearances you know there just has to be a few gay guys hiding around the corner just waiting to pop out.  

In Friday the 13th: Part 2, Jason may have made his first killing chasing the wholesome Amy Steel around the summer camp, but the boys on the set were having a lot more fun with each other. John Furey played sexy blonde camp leader Paul, and his gay connection is playing cutie Justin Taylor’s homophobic father on Queer as Folk. 

Russell Todd (right), with his hypnotic blue eyes and perfectly cut body, could have stopped any killer dead in his tracks. Appearing in a few eighties classics like Chopping Mall and Where the Boy’s Are, Russell retired from acting and is now an agent for camera operators. He still looks hot, though, and when you catch a glimpse of him in the film with his short shorts on, you just know the naked woman in the water is not really what he had his eye on. 

Sexy Tom McBride left a positive mark in screen history as the wheelchair bound jock, Mark. Tom did a few more films before retiring from acting, but reappeared in a documentary called Life and Death on the A-list, which chronicled his battle with AIDS. The A-list referred to a group of young gay men living in New York during the '80s.  

Jeffrey Rogers walks upside down on his hands with his shirt off most of the film. That alone doesn’t make the drooling hot stud gay necessarily, but as Andy in  Friday the 13th: Part 3, if you want to see some eye candy, he definitely won’t hurt. While sexy Paula Kratka, who flexed his biceps while flinging hay, grew up to be a doctor, and funny man Larry Zerner, whose character provided Jason with the now iconic hockey mask, became a lawyer, it was Andy who brought a smile to every gay man’s life.  

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter actually just turned out to be the one-third mark, but the film is still one of the most successful in the franchise. The film stars the lovely Kimberly Beck, who was an aunt by marriage to Paris and Nicky Hilton for a short time. How gay is that? The film also stars Corey Feldman, who has a very, very close relationship to his “friend” Corey Haim, and Crispin Glover who most people assumed was gay, but turns out he’s just strange. Cutey Peter Barton (left), however, stole the film and his shower scene provides a hot moment for fans before his ultimate demise.  

The New Beginning wasn’t exactly the box office draw that some had hoped for, and they stepped away from the camp aspect of the films, preferring to set the scene in an isolated mental home for wayward teens. Umm… Hot. Unfortunately, the premise wasn’t the only thing lacking. The film only had one major hottie in the cast: John Robert Dixon, who is offed early on.  

Anthony Barrile, from the gay classic film Kiss me Guido, also makes a debut appearance in The New Beginning. Barrile also has done several guest appearances on Will & Grace.  

Part Six of the series is where the story really starts becoming humorous as a more tongue in cheek approach to the out and out slasher genre begins to creep in. Jason is brought back from the dead by hunky Thom Mathews (below), who plays the Tommy character originally conceived by Feldman.  

Today, Mathews is an attractive man in his late forties who has never been married and played Rock Hudson’s lover in the film Rock Hudson. Interestingly enough, Mathews also happens to be best friends with George Clooney, also in his late forties, and also never married.  

Tom Fridly, who played the randy Cort, wore a lot of cut-off sleeves and mesh shirts for a straight guy. He also happens to be John Travolta’s nephew. See how nepotism works in Hollywood.  

Before he was bothering Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Tony Goldwyn (left) was trying to fight off Jason in this sequel. Goldwyn also played the gay guy dying of AIDS who wanted the Designing Women over at Sugarbakers to plan his funeral. Goldwyn again plays gay in the film The Substance of Fire.  

Dubbed Fri“gay” the 13th, part seven ( The New Blood) is chocked full of hot guys and boasts the largest group of out actors in the series. William Butler, Craig Thomas and Jeff Bennett have all gone on to successful careers in their own right after making their sexy splash in this cheesy sequel, but it’s heartthrob Kevin Blair who really makes you forget that the movie is part horror, part horrible. Blair, who now goes by Kevin Spirtas, appeared in the gay drama Defying Gravity and has had a successful career on Broadway and as a singer. He still looks as sexy as he did back in his Friday days, but unfortunately, has given up wearing the tight pants and midriff tees.  

After The New Blood, the franchise finally began to stray too far from the formula and no longer were we blessed with hot bodies running around a camp getting butchered by a crazy mad man. In part nine, you find out that Erin Grey was Jason’s sister and, in part ten, he shows up in outer space. Finally, Jason battled Freddy Krueger while John Ritter’s son Jason and Destiny's Child second in command Kelly Rowland looked on, but the final few just weren’t as much gay fun as their predecessors.  

Ok, so who knows how many of the guys in this legendary horror series are actually gay. Some may have just been dressed gay or experimenting, or some may just be the product of wishful thinking. Either way, isn’t it more fun to watch knowing that there is always the possibility?  

Happy Halloween