“Friday the 13th” came two years after John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” it begins similarly, with the camera assuming the perspective of an unseen killer stalking amorous teens. The dining hall, where the teens do a sing-along of “Down in the Valley” and “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,” and the loft, where they retire to make out before meeting their grisly end, are just two of the locations you might see with Crystal Lake Tours. Other possible sights include the Camp Crystal Lake sign and the green jeep driven by Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer).
There are three types of tours offered in May, September, and October, and the specifics of each tour vary. The 2.5-hour lakefront tour runs $99 plus tax, and it focuses on sites around the lake where Jason Voorhees popped out of the water in the famous ending jump scare inspired by the movie “Carrie.” If you want to see more filming locations around the camp, your best bet is probably the 3.5-hour extended tour, which adds other locations away from the lake (for $149 to $169, depending on the weekend).
When we ran down the list of spooky movie hotels and cabins where you can spend the night, Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco wasn’t included because most public tours since they started in 2011 didn’t feature an overnight option. In 2018, however, Crystal Lake Tours began offering a special “VIP overnight experience.”
Overnight fun in Friday the 13th’s main filming location
There are evening versions of the extended tour of Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, allowing guests to explore the grounds by flashlight. However, the overnight experience takes things to the next level, letting you enjoy the full extended tour, plus activities like a marshmallow roast around the campfire, a screening of “Friday the 13th” in the very camp where it was filmed, and canoeing on the lake like the movie’s “Final Girl,” Alice (Adrienne King). At $799 to $899 per night, the experience isn’t cheap, but how often do you sleep in one of the cabins used in the filming of “Friday the 13th?”
You’ll be sleeping on a mattress on top of a cot, and they recommend bringing a sleeping bag, along with other essentials like bug spray and a beach chair for the movie screening. We recommend that you check under the cot, too, to ensure no killer is waiting under there to shiv you with an arrow, like Kevin Bacon’s character in “Friday the 13th.”
Should you need to visit the restroom like his girlfriend, you really will have to exit the cabin for another building, so you also might want to be vigilant there and make sure no one’s creeping up on you with an axe. If you forget to bring a raincoat, you can buy a movie-authentic yellow poncho in the gift shop, and if you can’t get tickets right away, there’s always the waiting list.
