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Friday the 13th was not only the name for one of the most famous horror movie series created, but also the title to a TV series that ran from 1987-1990. Originally, the name of the series was supposed to be the 13th Hour, but in order to draw people to the title it would be named Friday the 13th. This is the title although the series has no relation to the horror movies.

The producer’s name was Frank Mancuso Jr., and he was notable for being a producer for the actual Friday the 13th films. He produced from Part 2 to Part 8. Also, the main character of the show played by actor John D. Lemay was the leading character in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. The synopsis of the show starts off with an antique shop owner who makes a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques of his shop.

If he did this for the devil, he would in turn receive wealth and immortality. However, the man became tired of doing this for the devil and broke the deal. The devil then came and took his soul for doing so. The store was boarded up and inherited by the man’s niece and her cousin. They started to sell these cursed antiques without even knowing before they were stopped by a man who knew the girl’s uncle and what these objects were.

The series follows these three people trying to track down all the cursed objects that have been sold. They have to capture them, and once they do they are locked in the basement of the antique since the objects couldn’t be destroyed. These objects usually gave someone extraordinary power or deepest wishes that are used for one’s personal gain. Therefore, all these people are extremely reluctant to give up this power that they have received. Season 1 was recently released on DVD this past September.

Works Cited/ Further Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th:_The_Series

Chris Friday the 13th, Horror Movie Characters, Science Fiction/Fantasy

photo taken from londtontown.com

Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in Highgate, London, England which opened up in 1839. It is the resting place of Marxist Karl Marx and Sir Ralph Richardson. The cemetery is known to supposedly be haunted by quite a few ghosts including a ghostly old woman wandering the graves and numerous ghost faces starting from the gates to the cemetery. The most famous of all the reported ghosts of the cemetery would be the Highgate Vampire.

The Highgate Vampire was a media sensation surrounding the cemetery dating back to the early 1970s. The hype began when a group of young people roamed the cemetery back at a time when it was heavily vandalized by intruders. David Farrant, one of its members, on December 24, 1969, saw a gray figure when passing by the cemetery which he considered to be supernatural. All the others claimed to have seen a variety of different ghosts they reported to be roaming Swains Lane in the cemetery.

Sean Manchester, a second local man, confirmed Farrant’s account and claimed that a “King Vampire of the Undead”, a medieval nobleman, who practiced black magic in the medieval Wallachia, had been brought to England in the early eighteenth century by coffin. Manchester claimed that modern satanists have roused him. He said that the right thing to do would be to stake the body, then behead and burn it, which is considered illegal so it was never done. Later, Farrant claimed to have seen dead foxes in the cemetery, with throat wounds and drained of blood. He later agreed that it might be a vampire.

Both Farrant and Manchester had an emerging rivalry between each other, fighting over which one would be the first to bring down the vampire. Manchester said to his associates that he would have a vampire hunt on Friday, March 13, 1970 to rid of the claimed vampire in the cemetery. Within two hours of having interviews of Farrant and Manchester shown on TV, a swarm of people climbed over the gates and walls of the locked cemetery beyond the police’s control.

Although the vampire was never found, Manchester kept making returning trips to the cemetery in later years. He had a psychic sleep-walking girl lead him to many places in the cemetery with some companions. She led him to a specific catacomb that was empty. After climbing down a rope through a hole in its roof, he found empty coffins into which there was garlic and sprinkled holy water put on. A few months later, charred and headless remains of a woman’s body was found not far outside the catacomb. This led to a massive surge in both Farrant and Manchester’s activities. Farrant was caught outside the cemetery with a crucifix and a stake. Manchester, led by his psychic sleep-walking friend, visited the cemetery a few days later, during the daytime. He was about to stake a corpse that he believed was transferred from a previous tomb until one of his companions asked him to desist and he did. In his book, he claims to of staked and burned a body in an empty house in the Highgate area.

Farrant was jailed for damaging memorials and interfering with body remains which Farrant claims to have been done by satanists, not him. Both Farrant and Manchester compete to this day on who is the more competent exorcist or better researcher of the paranormal.

Works Cited/Further Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_Cemetery

Jason Biographies, Friday the 13th, Ghost Encounters, Haunted Places, Urban Legends