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Friday the 13th's Angry Orchard partnership isn't the first love affair between booze and horror - let's talk about Elvira's Coors Light ads

After garnering a cult following in LA, the Coors brand reached out to make Elvira their Halloween spokesperson. Now, with Angry Orchard looking to Jason as a possible ambassador, it's worth remembering what happened

Get ready to taste that delicious brand partnership, Friday the 13th fans, because hard cider brand Angry Orchard are pitching their considerable weight behind our Man with a Machete. On June 26, current Jason Voorhees rights-holder Horror Inc. announced that, for the franchise's 45th anniversary, Wrong Direction helmer Mike P. Nelson, would be bringing the hockey-masked killer back to life in a "short-form vignette" entitled Sweet Revenge. And not only is Angry Orchard sponsoring the project, but they're also building the website on which it will debut.

Here's the thing, though. As fitting as a woodsy, booze drink brand and a Friday the 13th collaboration might seem, it's hardly the first of its kind. In fact, just six years after the first Friday the 13th film appeared in theaters, another boozy brand cats their lot along with a different icon of the genre. That was when Elvira herself, the Mistress of the Dark, became the Queen of Halloween for Coors Light.

According to a VinePair report from 2021, Coors came to Elvira in the mid-eighties because of the cult following she'd picked up due to her locally-broadcast late-nite movie program. The result of their collaboration was a series of commercials, popular Elvira cutouts to be displayed in stores selling Coors products, and even a couple of posters featuring Elvira posing with a guy in a werewolf suit.

The latter is especially hysterical because, prior to the poster, Coors Light has just started marketing their beer under a unique new term - "Silver Bullet."

Unfortunately, the collaboration was not to last. Though Elvira herself (AKA Cassandra Peterson) said that she had "a blast" making the first commercial, a host of factors led to Coors moving away from the horror icon around 1988. These factors, reports VinePair, included the then-ongoing Satanic Panic, unhappiness from the Coors founding family, and dissatisfaction with Elvira's iconic look (fun fact - toward the end, Coors considered sending store pieces of cardboard made especially to cover her cleavage).

These days, the thought of parting ways with a force like Elvira, especially if you're trying to capture the interest of fright fans, seems downright mad. And that is to say that we don't foresee Angry Orchard's relationship with Jason Voorhees going that same direction.

Even if, down the line, cinema's favorite slasher decides to show a little leg.


In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we've cobbled together a couple pieces to send a chill up your spine. Join Popverse as we explore:

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.

 

Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. As Popverse's Staff Writer, he criss-crosses the pop culture landscape bringing you the news and opinions about the big things (and the next big things). In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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