Victor Miller, the mind behind one of horror’s most enduring franchises, has died at 86 in Alameda, Calif., his son Ian confirms to Variety. Miller wrote 1980’s Friday the 13th, the low-budget slasher that helped cement the isolated summer camp, partying teens, and lurking menace as genre staples. Ian Miller said that services for his father would be held in November, “on Friday the 13th, of course,” reports the Wrap. “He was almost always the smartest, funniest person in whatever room he was in,” wrote the son. “He inspired in me, and many others, a love of photography, music and storytelling. … He had a helluva run.”
Miller once explained that the movie began as an effort to chase the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, down to the idea of a past evil other premises. “The idea for the summer camp came from my instinct that we needed a location where young adults would be cut off from all adult help, the basic idea in Halloween,” Miller recalled. Though he did not write the many sequels, his original film launched Jason Voorhees into pop-culture history. Beyond horror, Miller wrote for soaps including All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital, earning three Daytime Emmys. He is survived by his wife, Tina, and sons Ian and Josh.