Star Trek’s Surprise Connection To Friday the 13th
While Star Trek has had some very scary moments and episodes, it’s not the kind of franchise most fans associate with horror movies. Nonetheless, one obscure episode has a very profound connection to one of horror’s most famous faces. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Dauphin” has morph effects created by Dan Curry, a visual effects supervisor who had previously used the same kind of effects in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.
Jason Lives Vs. Wesley’s Dating Life
Before coming to work on this Star Trek show which premiered in 1987, Curry previously worked on the 1986 film Friday the 13th Part VI. This film, of course, brought Jason Voorhees back to life after his previous death at Corey Feldman’s hands in The Final Chapter.
While the hockey mask-wearing killer had always been sturdy, it is this film that resurrects him as a super-strong and nearly unkillable zombie monster.
That brings us to the obvious question: why would this Star Trek episode in particular utilize a morph technique as seen in a Friday the 13th movie? Basically, “The Dauphin” had a plot twist where a beautiful young woman whom Wesley fell in love with and her governess could transform into freaky monsters.
The morph effect in question was utilized to showcase this transformation, one that looked suitably startling to 1980s audiences watching at home on CRT televisions.
Not So Mighty Morphin
Originally, it seemed like this Star Trek episode was going to have more morphing scenes showing off the skills that effects guru Dan Curry had mastered while working on Friday the 13th Part VI.
However, the episode was directed by Rob Bowman, who thought that the monster outfits looked cheap and ugly. Therefore, he tried to minimize the length of time these monsters were shown onscreen, which necessarily limited how much morphing we got to see.
Asteroid Fun
As for Curry, this Star Trek visual effects supervisor also had fun doing something that he never had to do with Friday the 13th: creating realistic asteroid effects for this episode.
He later told a funny story about going to a local building supply store and personally inspecting all of the rocks before hand-selecting the best ones that could pass for asteroids onscreen.
When an employee expressed surprise at someone focusing on rocks like this, Curry told the man what he was really up to and then was unsure if the worker now thought he was even crazier than he did before.
Aged VFX
Now that Star Trek: The Next Generation has been restored for Blu-ray, the morphs don’t look like they aged very well—while the effect is relatively seamless in Friday the 13th Part VI, the Trek version looks like an Animorphs motion comic in high-definition.
Additionally, Bowman’s comments about the monster costumes are more relevant than ever before. Seeing these creatures battle onscreen together, it really looks like someone put a couple of Spirit of Halloween animatronics next to each other and started filming.
Space Jason
If you can get past the wonky morph effects and ugly costumes, “The Dauphin” is a good episode featuring Wesley Crusher, complete with a hilariously flirty conversation between Riker and Guinan. And for horror fans, it’s cool to know that one Star Trek episode has such a surprising connection to onscreen serial killer Jason.
You probably shouldn’t hold your breath for an official crossover between these franchises, but here’s a hot tip: the sci-fi splatter classic Jason X (which even has a kind of holodeck scene) may help scratch that particular itch and is an amazingly quirky horror film unto itself.
