Victor Miller, the screenwriter who created the original Friday the 13th, has died at the age of 86. Miller died Monday in Alameda, California, according to Variety, which confirmed his death with his son, Ian.
For horror fans, Miller’s passing marks the loss of one of the key figures behind one of the most influential slasher movies ever made. Released in 1980, Friday the 13th helped establish the summer camp slasher as one of the genre’s most appealing formulas, combining an isolated setting, a group of young characters, gruesome murders, and a mystery surrounding the killer. And while Jason Voorhees would eventually become one of the most recognizable villains in horror history, the original Friday the 13th was actually the story of his mother, Pamela Voorhees.
Miller has explained that the movie began as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of John Carpenter’s Halloween. The title Friday the 13th was not even settled on when he began writing the screenplay. The idea for the summer camp came from the need to place young people somewhere isolated from adult help, while the backstory of Jason’s death provided the tragedy that motivated Pamela’s killing spree.
“The rest of the story came as a result of the location and the idea that one by one, the campers would be eliminated by the world’s most protective mother,” Miller recalled in an interview with a Friday the 13th fan site.
Miller wrote the original film’s Pamela Voorhees story and the version of Jason who appears as the tragic boy whose drowning at Camp Crystal Lake sets the story in motion. He did not write any of the sequels that transformed Jason into the hockey-mask-wearing killer who became the face of the franchise.
Miller’s connection to Friday the 13th became even more significant decades later when he fought to reclaim the U.S. copyright to his original screenplay. Under U.S. copyright law, authors can seek to reclaim certain rights to their work 35 years after publication or, in the case of a film, 35 years after its release. Miller filed to reclaim the copyright to Friday the 13th in 2016.
A judge ruled in Miller’s favor in 2018, granting him the U.S. copyright to the original Friday the 13th. Sean S. Cunningham, who directed and produced the 1980 movie, challenged the decision, arguing that Miller had simply written the screenplay he had been hired to write. Miller won again on appeal in 2021.
The ruling gave Miller the U.S. copyright to the material in the first Friday the 13th. The court declined to determine the extent to which the adult Jason from the sequels could be considered a separate copyrighted character. Miller’s victory gave him control over the material from the original movie in the United States, while the company Horror Inc. retained important rights connected to the broader franchise and international territory.
Miller’s death comes at a notable time for Friday the 13th fans. After years of being dormant, the franchise is being revived with Crystal Lake, an upcoming Peacock prequel series from A24. The show explores Pamela Voorhees’ life before the events of the 1980 film, with Linda Cardellini playing Pamela and Callum Vinson playing young Jason.
The series was made possible in the wake of the long-running rights battle, with Miller serving as an executive producer alongside his attorney Marc Toberoff and the other rights holders at Horror Inc.
Crystal Lake will premiere all eight episodes on Peacock on October 15, 2026. Cardellini has already teased that the series will be extremely bloody, describing practical effects involving “blood everywhere.”
That makes Miller’s passing especially bittersweet. More than four decades after he wrote the screenplay that launched the franchise, Friday the 13th is once again moving forward with a story centered on the characters and mythology established in his original film.
Miller’s other television credits included All My Children, One Life to Live, Another World, Guiding Light, and General Hospital. His work on All My Children contributed to the show’s three Daytime Emmy Awards for outstanding drama series writing team.
But for generations of horror fans, his greatest legacy will always be Friday the 13th. The 1980 film may have launched a franchise that eventually became synonymous with Jason Voorhees, but Miller’s original story was something different: a mystery, a revenge tale, and the tragedy of a mother who could not let go of the death of her son.
Without Victor Miller, there would be no original Friday the 13th as we know it. And without that movie, there would be no Camp Crystal Lake, no Jason Voorhees mythology, and no decades-long horror franchise that continues to haunt audiences today.
Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans.