As the Friday the 13th legal saga shows no signs of concluding, fans could be forgiven for losing hope. In September 2018, a judge ruled that the rights to the original film’s screenplay and all concepts within it belong to Victor Miller. Sean Cunningham and Horror Inc. appealed, arguing that the court’s ruling would not just negatively impact them, but could potentially have extremely damaging ramifications for the entire industry. Right now, the case appears to be in purgatory as the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have delayed the judge’s verdict, and so we wait.
This is very annoying for gorehounds who simply want to see Jason Voorhees slicing and dicing his way through a load of young actors in sadistic and creative ways. Fortunately, though, fans have stepped in to fill the gap, most impressively in 2017 when Womp Stomp Films released Never Hike Alone, a cool-as-hell 54-minute fan movie that saw series star Thom Matthews return to the role of Tommy Jarvis.
Now, we’ve got our first look at their follow-up, Never Hike in the Snow. The trailer – seen up above – is great, providing the hit of sinister-Jason-stalking action that I didn’t know I needed so badly. The official synopsis, meanwhile, describes it as:
“Set three months prior to ‘Never Hike Alone,’ ‘Never Hike in the Snow’ follows the strange disappearance of Mark Hill (Courtlan Gordon), a Crystal Lake resident who went for a hike in the dead of winter and never came home.
As Local Wessex County Sheriff Rick Cologne (Vinny Guastaferro) and Deputy Allen Mabry (Bryan Forrest) search for answers, town local Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) believes that his old nemesis Jason Voorhees (Vincente DiSanti) is to blame. Will Diana Hill (Anna Campbell) ever see her son again, or will her son become another lost victim of the cursed camp?”
Even better, Never Hike in the Snow is planned as the second in a series and will be followed by Never Hike Alone II: Never Hike Again, Never Hike Alone III: Jason Takes Crystal Lake and Never Hike Alone IV: The Final Hike (unless this is a joke set of titles). And hey, if Friday the 13th ever emerges from its legal quagmire, then perhaps they should hire Womp Stomp to make a fully-licensed movie. It’s clear that they’ve got the goods.
Never Hike in the Snow will be released on October 13th, 2020.