The Events Management Club will be screening the original film ‘Friday the 13th’ tomorrow at 8 p.m. in Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building. Seats are first come, first serve and doors open at 7 p.m.

Audience members will also be able to win various prizes, including advance-screening passes for the new ‘Friday the 13th.’

The film is being shown in anticipation of the new ‘Friday the 13th,’ starring Jared Padalecki, Aaron Yoo and Travis Van Winkle, which will be released nationwide Feb. 13.

In the original film, counselors at Camp Crystal Lake are preparing to greet campers for the summer when someone begins to kill them off one by one. Many years later, the camp is reopened and the grizzly murders happen all over again. Only one person survives Crystal Lake Camp, and the last thing she remembers is the ‘corpse’ of a dead boy, Jason, trying to drown her.

The original version of ‘Friday the 13th’ debuted in 1980 and became the predecessor to many other horror movies which include its main killer, Jason Voorhees.

Lee Meltzer, president of the Events Management Club, which is hosting the event, said the group decided to allow students to see the film on the big screen for the first time.

‘The first ‘Friday the 13th’ came out in 1980, so many of the students here were not born yet and never got a chance to see it on the big screen,’ said Meltzer.

The Events Management Club has been using an array of techniques to get people to come to the movie tonight. Meltzer said two Facebook groups and word of mouth have been the main forms of publicity organized by the group; however, many students still do not know about the event.

‘I’m in Shaffer all the time and I didn’t know that this was happening tomorrow,’ said Clare Stankus, a painting major. ‘There should have been posters up, I might have went tomorrow, if I knew about it.’

However, Meltzer contends that the Events Management Club has been doing extensive outreach and hopes and expects to have a full house tonight. While the problem of a broad range of students not knowing about the event may be overlooked, other students expressed disinterest in the event as a whole.

‘It’s fine that they’re doing it, but it’s kind of pointless,’ said Samantha Thomas, an education major. ‘I’d rather just go to see the new one next week, I don’t have time to see both.’

ampaye@syr.edu

Published on February 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm