Stu before the events of the movie

I was watching it last night, and thought of something. One of those things where it’s always kind of bugged me at the back of my mind, but last night was the first time the thought was formed enough (wow I sound duhm).

Anyway, it’s about Stu, semi-convoluted. In the fountain scene, it’s mentioned that Stu used to date Casey, and then there’s debate as to whether Casey dumped Stu for Steve, or Stu dumped Casey for Tatum. Wondering which one is true.

Basically, wondering if Casey’s death was reactionary, or planned waaay in advance.

Now, this is all speculation on my part, but I feel worth thinking about for a minute.

Essentially, if Stu dumped Casey: Lends to reason Casey’s death was planned far in advance. Like, maybe he and Billy knew how they wanted the first murder to go, ie, one of their female classmates, who lives in the countryside, and isn’t Sidney. And that Stu could date for a bit. All that criteria, there may have been a limited pool to select from. And maybe they wanted one (Stu, since Billy was with Sidney) to date their victim in advance, for purposes of learning the layout of the house. Once that was done, then, as part of the plan, Stu dumped Casey and then got with Tatum to further cement their friend group, and get closer to Sidney.

The simpler narrative of Casey dumping him and him wanting revenge is easier and also makes sense of course, just another angle I thought of that I think has some weight to it.

Two other smaller items about the opening I realized:

1: How did they catch Steve? Can only assume they did something to disable his car on the way to her house, like something in the road to blow out his tires, then grabbed him. But then they’d have to do something with the car, and that’s a big thing in a small amount of time. Unless they were costume-free by the roadside, pretending to have car troubles, and Steve stopped, and figured they were kids he knew from school and he’d be fine.

2: A point of irony. One of the questions they ask Casey is who is the killer in Friday the 13th. In her moment of terror, she jumps to the more recognizable Jason, when it was in fact Mrs. Voorhees. I always feel like this was a trick, as they knew she’d think fast and jump to the wrong conclusion. Similarly, Casey is often-referred to as the first victim in the movie. Maybe the most memorable, certainly the first memorable, but Steve was the first, she was the second. I’m not counting Maureen or any other pre-series off-screen deaths.