A history of Friday the 13th in cinema, way beyond the horror franchise

Friday the 13th has served as a cinema setting and plot device since before the 1980 slasher film made the date synonymous with Jason Voorhees. The article traces how filmmakers used its reputation for bad luck across several genres, showing that the date’s screen history extends from silent cinema to family comedy.

Émile Chautard’s 1916 silent film, inspired by Thomas W Lawson’s 1907 novel about financial panic, is now lost. Victor Saville’s 1933 British film follows bus passengers before a crash, while 1940’s *Black Friday* stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in a Jekyll-and-Hyde-style science-fiction story. The article also highlights *Freaky Friday*, first made in 1976 and remade in 2003, in which a mother and daughter swap bodies after arguing on the date.