Friday the 13th: The Superstition, the Slasher and the Sabbath
Knock on wood, skip the ladders and keep an eye on the lake: it's Friday the 13th. Today is the third and final one of 2026, and it's the last we'll see until August 2027. Few dates on the calendar carry this much spooky baggage, and even fewer have their own hockey-masked mascot. So let's dig into where the superstition came from and how a scrappy little horror movie made the date its own.
Why We Fear Friday the 13th
Nobody can point to a single origin, which is half the fun. Thirteen has been treated as an unlucky number for centuries. One explanation goes back to the Last Supper, where Jesus sat down with his twelve apostles, followed by the Friday of the Crucifixion. Another comes from Norse mythology, where the trickster Loki crashes a dinner of twelve gods as the uninvited thirteenth guest, and disaster follows. Fridays carried their own bad reputation as far back as Chaucer's day.
You'll also hear that the date was cursed after the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307, but historians say the real roots are much murkier. The pairing of Friday with 13 seems to have taken hold in the 1800s and got a big boost from Thomas W. Lawson's 1907 novel Friday, the Thirteenth. Today the fear even has its own tongue-twister of a name: paraskevidekatriaphobia.
Welcome to Camp Blood
Then came 1980. Inspired by the success of Halloween, producer-director Sean S. Cunningham took out an ad in Variety for a movie called Friday the 13th before Victor Miller had even finished the script, which had started life as A Long Night at Camp Blood. Shot in rural New Jersey in the fall of 1979 for somewhere between $550,000 and $650,000, the film was picked up by Paramount and opened on May 9, 1980. It went on to gross $59.8 million worldwide.
Trivia buffs know the twist: Jason isn't the killer in the original. That honor goes to his mother, played by Betsy Palmer, while a young Kevin Bacon meets one of the film's most famous ends. The final jump scare in the lake was makeup wizard Tom Savini's idea. And that whispered "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" in Harry Manfredini's score? He built it from the words "kill" and "mommy."
A Franchise That Won't Stay Down
Jason didn't put on his iconic hockey mask until Friday the 13th Part III in 1982. From there the series grew to twelve films, sending Jason to Manhattan, into space and into a cage match with Freddy Krueger. Altogether the films have earned more than $900 million at the domestic box office, second among horror franchises only to Halloween.
Gamers have their own scars. LJN's 1989 Nintendo game, developed by Atlus, is famous for its purple-clad Jason and its brutal difficulty. The story is still going, too: Peacock's prequel series Crystal Lake premiered in October.
The Most Metal Friday of All
Record collectors have their own Friday the 13th classic. Black Sabbath's self-titled debut came out in the U.K. on Friday, February 13, 1970, rang in heavy metal with its ominous tolling bell and climbed to No. 8 on the U.K. albums chart. Not a bad day for an unlucky date.
So whether you're dodging black cats or cueing up a marathon, enjoy this one. The next Friday the 13th is a long nine months away.
How are you spending Friday the 13th? Tell us in the comments which Jason movie is your go-to, or whether you're superstitious enough to stay home today!