Miller has likely repeated this story many times at horror conventions, but it was amusing enough to repeat:
“The week before ‘Friday the 13th’ opened — and I’ve told this story many times — I was literally trying to sell my blood to this company in Bridgeport, Connecticut and they were doing a study of antibodies. I went and they drew a little blood to see if I had enough antibodies for the study and if I did then they would take a pint and would have paid me 25 dollars. They called me back the next day saying, ‘You don’t have enough antibodies, sorry you don’t qualify for this study.’ I didn’t get the 25 dollars.”
At least the study didn’t extract a pint of Miller’s blood and then leave him his and dry, so to speak. They only took a little. But it surely is an indicator of how financially desperate Miller was if he was in a position to give blood merely for a $25 cash infusion. $25 in 1980, by the way, would be worth almost $100 today, which is still not a lot. It’s unclear, however, if Miller was willing to give a pint of blood to fund the release of “Friday the 13th,” or if he just needed a little extra cash on hand for bills or personal reasons.
Either way, “Friday the 13th” was maying so little, many of the people involved were doing it for a quick buck. Actor Kevin Bacon was quoted in the same oral history and noted that he had no money for rent. He was glad to have made the slasher as it covered him financially, and he now learned what it was like to act in a slasher movie.
