Friday the 13
th Part 2 arrived in theaters May 1, 1981.
Filmmakers faced a quandary from the outset, with almost the entirety of the original cast cinematically dead, including the main antagonist, Betsy Palmer’s aforementioned Mrs. Voorhees character. Director Sean S. Cunningham wasn’t keen on the idea of making her son, Jason, the new killer. Though he was used in the stinger ending of the first film, jumping out of Crystal Lake and pulling Alice (Adrienne King) from the canoe in which she was floating, Jason was meant to be a figment of her imagination.
Cunningham thought perhaps the next entry could be an entirely fresh story with no carryover roles or connection to the original other than in the title. Dissatisfied with the planned path of the story and his ideas for an anthology rebuffed, the filmmaker stepped away from the project, passing it on to friend and collaborator Steve Miner, who would make his directorial debut.