Athlete of the Year to Mr. Friday the 13th: Westport filmmaker re-envisions Jason Voorhees

WESTPORT — Over the last 20 years, Vincente DiSanti has gone from The Standard Times' 2002 Athlete of the Year to being nicknamed "Mr. Friday the 13th" for his thriller fan film, "Never Hike Alone."

"In sports, I always wore 13 for my football or baseball number ... everything was 13," DiSanti, 38, said.

The Westport local said he lived near a pond, which he thought was a perfect hiding place for Jason Voorhees, the murderous villain of the "Friday the 13th" franchise. "I loved horror movies. I grew up watching all the Jason movies," he said.

"As I got older, it was really what led me to want to work in film because I just wanted to know how these movies were made."

In 2017, DiSanti attended Worcester State University majoring in TV and film production. Upon graduating, a friend invited him to Los Angeles to assist with the visual effects team on the set of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

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"I was getting Chinese food for all the artists that were making Brad Pitt look like an 80-year-old man," DiSanti joked.

His goal was to work his way through the industry and eventually stumble onto a "Friday the 13th" project. However, the franchise hit a wall around the same time.

"It had been in development for almost eight years, as they kept canceling film after film and going back to the drawing board," he said.

So, instead of waiting, DiSanti decided to create his own film.

Making a 'fan film' movie

"I just kind of got sick of waiting, and was like, you know what, I'm just gonna have fun and do it myself," he said.

He created a production company called Womp Stomp Films and started with just hanging out with filmmaker friends on the weekends, getting into a van on Friday, driving up to the California mountains, and taking photos and filming concept scenes, with DiSanti dressed as the villainous Jason Voorhees.

The group then stumbled across an abandoned camp, as if straight out of an '80s campy slasher film. "It was its own horror movie in itself going up there," DiSanti said.

"Working as an independent filmmaker, you don't get like great sets, you don't have access to a lot of things."

He said that location is where his fan film, "Never Hike Alone" was born.

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Producing a fan film does not infringe any copyright issues; in fact, it falls under the Fair Use Copyright Act as long as it's clear the filmmakers are making a fan film as part of the title or official tagline.

The film can raise money, but cannot turn a profit. Money made through fan films usually goes toward a charity or back into another budget to make future fan films.

There are also a few additional rules that are a case-by-case basis for the fan film that is being produced, such as not being able to use actors from the original film. However, DiSanti said the creators behind the "Friday the 13th" franchise are pretty relaxed with further restrictions. For instance in DiSanti's fan film, actor Tom Matthews, who appeared in "Friday the 13th, Part Six," made a cameo.

Premiering the fan film

In 2017, the 55-minute film premiered at Telluride Horror Show during its Friday, Oct. 13th, launch day. DiSanti said he was nervous. "We didn't know if that concept would translate because it wasn't a body count film," he said, adding there weren't any girls running around topless or gory death scenes with tons of fake blood.

"To me, I just wanted to make a 'Friday the 13th' film that was scary again, that made Jason scary again and focused on that."

The film was an overnight success with incredible reviews such as Birth Movie Death writing, "It’s the well-made product of someone who truly loves, understands and fears Jason Voorhees."

Viral Youtube channel Dead Meat, known for its videos totaling up "kill counts" for movies with comedic narrative by host James A. Janisse, reviewed "Never Hike Alone" skyrocketing their film's viewership to the millions.

Currently, the view count on the fan film is 3.5 million views.

Soon after the premiere, the "Friday the 13th" franchise hit another roadblock when its planned movie was scrapped by Paramount after its previous horror film "The Ring Two," flopped at the box office.

"They looked at Friday the 13th and said, you know what, we're not making a $25 million bomb. They canceled Friday, the 13th," DiSanti said.

Then in 2019, the future of the franchise took another major hit when it was sued over copyright claims by original screenwriter Victor Miller.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, there is a provision of copyright law that allows authors, after waiting 35 years, to reclaim copyright material by terminating grants. They have been in litigation since.

Thus, DiSanti took this as another opportunity to keep making fans film turning to crowdfunding websites to raise $200,000 to budget their next film.

But as they were about to start production in California, the pandemic happened.

"We went into the pandemic, not really knowing what was going on, I had three more films planned, but I was putting them on hold until we knew more about what was going on," she said.

On set of 'Finestkind' in New Bedford

In 2022, DiSanti returned to Westport to be with his family. "I wanted to spend some quality time at home because I've been away for 14 years," he added.

Upon his return, he heard that "Finestkind" would be filming in Fairhaven and was able to make it on the set as a production assistant.

"It was a breath of fresh air. I felt like I was on set in L.A. but I was in my backyard," DiSanti said. "And it was what I always wanted... that experience to be able to shoot around here."

He said it was great watching Oscar-winning director Brian Helgeland work with his team. "When you get to watch those people work, you watch efficiency happen at the highest level, you can take those nuggets of knowledge and then bring that to your smaller set."

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DiSanti said he would like to discover more local filmmakers in the SouthCoast area. "I want to meet all these people," he said. "When people start working together, they want to stick together and they keep those teams that work together as long as they go."

He hopes to start producing other projects in the region and hopefully put it on the map as a place to come and film.

For now, DiSanti will be releasing another fan film "Never Hide from the Snow," as well as returning to Los Angeles in spring 2023, to start shooting a sequel to "Never Hike Alone."

On June 5, Womp Stomp Films announced it was also teaming with Mako Animation to bring the first-ever "Friday the 13th" animated fan film titled "Ghost in the Fog."

"If somebody has passion for doing something in their life, don't wait, just do it, figure it out, and find the people that are going to go on that journey with you," DiSanti added.

"I wanted to do something, and I just go for it and see where it takes me. And it has taken me here. I love it."

Standard-Times staff writer Seth Chitwood can be reached at schitwood@s-t.com. Follow him on twitter: @ChitwoodReports. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: 'Friday the 13th' fan film creator wants to bring more films to region