- Born
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- Like William Girdler, Oliver Hellman or even Ed Wood, Sean S. Cunningham had a successful career of starting films cheap and fast. Originally from New York, Cunningham had a vast knowledge of directing films and came to Hollywood. He started about the same time Wes Craven did. Cunningham meets Craven and decided to make a comedy-romance film called Together (1971). Then they both shocked the world with the rape and ultra-violence of The Last House on the Left (1972). Craven directed the flick and Cunningham financed and produced. However Cunningham wanted to get a mix of comedy and horror and made Case of the Full Moon Murders (1973) and then started other comedy films like Manny's Orphans (1978) and Here Come the Tigers (1978) . Struggling in Hollywood Cunningham saw John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and wanted to make a follow up type film but would possibly regret it. Cunningham brought Friday the 13th (1980) into the cinema in 1980, a year of many other horror films. Friday the 13th (1980) was a shocking, gory and violent film about camp counselors being slashed by a killer and had Betsy Palmer in the lead role. Little did Cunningham know that Friday the 13th would have never ending sequels. Cunningham gladly avoided all of them and Friday the 13th remains one of the most popular horror films in history. Instead Cunningham wanted to make it big when he brought a best-selling novel to the screen, A Stranger Is Watching (1982) with Rip Torn, but it was a disappointment. Cunningham went downhill with the over sexed teen comedy Spring Break (1983) and The New Kids (1985). Cunningham then produced House (1985) and several of its sequels. Cunningham next entered the world of underwater terrors after The Abyss (1989) was released. Cunningham did a follow up called DeepStar Six (1989), but it was a flop, however it beat another 1989 underwater thriller Leviathan (1989) at box office receipts. Cunningham was finished with directing and moved on to producing films and teaching. He produced House III: The Horror Show (1989), My Boyfriend's Back (1993) and Friday the 13th's last sequel Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Cunningham then did yet another follow up to Friday the 13th with Jason X (2001).
- IMDb mini biography by: Blythe379@cs.com
- SpouseSusan E. Cunningham(? - present) (2 children)
- ChildrenChelsea CunninghamChristina Cunningham
- Uses atmospheric cinematography from Barry Abrams in both Friday the 13th and A Stranger is Watching.
- Directed the chase sequence in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
- Close friend of Wes Craven.
- At the same time that he was putting together Friday the 13th (1980), he was also working on a kiddie sports movie called Here Come the Tigers (1978). Both he and the studio thought that the latter would be a major hit and that the former would be lucky to get green-lit. Friday the 13th (1980) turned out to be a box office hit, but Here Come the Tigers (1978) was a box office flop.
- Frequently uses music by Harry Manfredini.
- I am not a fan of brutal, ugly horror films. I don't like them, don't enjoy them.
- You can't do anything new with special effects; you can't get any mileage out of killing more people or being more graphic, because it's all been done - you should excuse the expression - to death. The pornography of violence is similar to the pornography of sex, in that when it's presented without substance it becomes a turn-off and it self-destructs.
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