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Boy Scouts Overcome Friday the 13th

If New York decides to commemorate its most infamous film moments, it'll have a lot to chose from. But what are the ramifications? Would you want to work out in the YMCA used in The Godfather, where Michael Corleone had rival gangster Moe Green shot through the eye? How about crossing the toll booth where Sonny is riddled with bullets?

"It doesn't always make sense to play up a film location, but that doesn't stop people from coming there," says Epting, who notes in his book that the original Friday the 13th was filmed at a Boy Scout camp in northwest New Jersey, which doesn't exactly advertise that notoriety.

In the 1980 horror classic, the camp had been closed for more than a decade after a series of grisly murders. Several kids ignore the death curse but are killed one by one by the mother of Jason, a camper who had drowned years earlier. Jason takes over for his mom in sequels.

That's quite a tale to tell around the campfire, but the legend of Jason apparently can't stop the Boy Scouts.

Traveling outside New York and Los Angeles, communities tend to be even more proud of their spot in film history — even when the films get decidedly gruesome. With help from Epting, here are some tourist attractions for movie buffs with a decidedly strong stomach.

Frighteningly Popular Tourist Attractions

Deliverance From Evil: If ever a movie inspired a city dweller to keep far away from the backwaters of the South, it was Deliverance, the foreboding 1972 tale of four men on a canoe trip that turned into a nightmare when the vacationers were attacked and one of them was sexually assaulted.

While Southerners could hardly be shown in a less flattering light, the Rabun County, Ga., Chamber of Commerce says the film actually sparked an interest in Tallulah Falls and increased interest in whitewater rafting. The hit song featured in the film, "Dueling Banjos," has become inexorably linked with the community, and the happy twanging is now easily separated from the film's disturbing subject matter.