Horror and soap-opera king dies after writing one of cinema’s most terrifying screenplays

Victor Miller, the writer behind Friday the 13th, has died at 86. His son Ian Miller confirmed the news and said a memorial service would take place in November, symbolically on a Friday the 13th.

Miller’s story and screenplay for the 1980 film established the foundation of one of horror’s most successful and enduring franchises. The script introduced Pamela Voorhees, her son Jason, and Alice Hardy, a protagonist who became an early example of the “final girl” in slasher films.

Although Miller did not write the many sequels that followed, his work set patterns that came to define the subgenre: an isolated setting, a group of young protagonists, and a threat that systematically hunts them. Friday the 13th eventually grew into a global phenomenon and one of the most recognizable horror franchises in film history.

Miller’s career also extended far beyond horror. He spent decades writing for American soap operas, including One Life to Live, Another World, Guiding Light, and General Hospital. His greatest television success came with All My Children, for which he won three Daytime Emmy Awards.

In later years, Miller returned to the spotlight through a long legal battle over the rights to Friday the 13th. He argued in 2016 that he had written the screenplay as an independent author rather than as a production employee. In 2021, a U.S. appeals court ruled in his favor and confirmed his rights to the original screenplay in the United States. The ruling did not cover international rights or the version of Jason Voorhees developed in later sequels. Miller had also joined Crystal Lake, a Friday the 13th prequel series being developed for Peacock by A24, as an executive producer. The series will focus on Pamela Voorhees, played by Linda Cardellini.