Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller dies at 86

Victor Miller, who wrote the screenplay for the horror classic “Friday the 13th,” died Monday in Alameda, California. He was 86.

Mr. Miller’s death was confirmed to Variety by his son, Ian. Ian also announced the news in an Instagram post, writing that his father “was almost always the smartest, funniest person in whatever room he was in.”

Released in 1980, “Friday the 13th” introduced the summer-camp setting and teen-peril storyline that Variety has described as helping establish tropes still common in the slasher genre. Mr. Miller has said the film began as an attempt to follow John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” which came out two years earlier. In a recent interview with a “Friday the 13th” fan site, he recalled, “First came the concept that we emulate ’Halloween.’”

Mr. Miller was not involved in any of the franchise’s 11 additional films, which grew into one of horror’s most enduring franchises, including a crossover with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and an upcoming Peacock prequel series, “Crystal Lake,” premiering Oct. 15. He later fought to reclaim the screenplay’s copyright from production company Horror Inc.; in September 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Mr. Miller had been an independent contractor rather than an employee when he wrote the script, meaning it was not a work for hire and he was entitled to reclaim it.

Outside horror, Mr. Miller wrote for soap operas including “All My Children,” “One Life to Live,” “Another World,” “Guiding Light” and “General Hospital.” He won three Daytime Emmy Awards for his writing on “All My Children.”

Mr. Miller was born in New Orleans in 1940. He is survived by his wife, Tina Thurston Miller; his two sons, Ian and Josh; and a grandson.