DEVIL WORSHIP: JASON VOORHEES

Villain: Jason Voorhees

Breakdown: One of the most notorious mass murderers in history, Jason Voorhees is responsible for over one-hundred murders and speculated scores of others. He carved a bloody swath of terror through the American mid-west and even as far east as New York. His reign of terror has become legendary and his name has become synonymous with Friday the 13th.

He was the first child of Elias and Pamela Voorhees. He was born with a malformed head and as a result he was mentally handicapped. His mother, foreseeing the challenges her son would face in the world, became fiercely protective and devoted to him. The love between mother and son grew deep. It proved to be a love that would last beyond the grave.

Pamela Voorhees worked at Camp Crystal Lake during the summers as the cook. Jason would spend his summers with her at camp growing up. Jason's 12th birthday, June 13th 1957, became the most fateful day of his life, a day that would effect countless lives in the years to come. That day he drown in the lake while a crowd of children laughed. Allegedly the two camp counselors responsible for watching the children were hidden away having sex. Pamela took the death of her first born very hard. In the ensuing two years Pamela slowly descended into madness. She refused to acknowledge their second child, Diana, repeating over and over that her only child was Jason. Pamela returned to Camp Crystal Lake and murdered the two counselors responsible for her son's death. Elias took their daughter Diana and left.

The events of these two years between Jason's death and the murder of the two counselors are sketchy at best. Rumors are that Pamela was so grief-stricken about the loss of her son that she turned to whatever means necessary to bring her son back from the dead. During her pregnancy with Diana it was said that she believed it was in fact Jason reincarnated within her. Other reports claim she turned to witchcraft and ultimately satanic rituals all in an effort to bring about her son's return. All these reports have never been substantiated, despite strong arguments to the contrary. In the following years Pamela did develop a split personality, believing herself to be both her and her son, Jason.

20 years later Camp Crystal Lake, Crystal Lakes, Ohio, reopened. Pamela returned more deranged than ever. She killed seven people in the course of one day, June 13th, her dead son's birthday. Pamela's psychotic murder spree ended that night when her own weapon, a machete, was turned against her. The last counselor left alive, Alice, in an act of self defense took up the machete and beheaded the crazed woman. It is at this point in the story where the rules of reality cease to be.

The legend of that night, the night of Pamela Voorhees's murder spree, took on a life of its own, being told and retold by the local residents. The legend has it that the night of Pamela's death, Jason returned from the grave and witnessed his mother's murder. Several years later Alice, the lone survivor, was found murdered. A year or two later a new camp opened a mile from Camp Crystal Lake, now referred to a Camp Blood. During the preseason before summer 8 more murders occurred. The survivor of the massacre claimed it was Jason Voorhees, now a full grown man, who killed everyone.

The following week saw the grizzly murders of nearly twenty more people at two different sites around the lake. Eyewitnesses claim the murderer wore a clothe bag over his head and then later a hockey mask. By the end of the week out of the 30 or more people attacked only four individuals survived. Many bizarre stories emerged from these events, two stories revolving around the return of Pamela Voorhees, the first being a shrine with her severed head in the center and the second story where a victim claimed she was pulled into the lake by Pamela's reanimated corpse. The former story has yet to be substantiated. In the end Jason's body, having incurred several wounds, was admitted to the county morgue and interred in the cemetery.

Copycat killers emerged and more people were murdered in Jason's name. Years later a survivor of one of Jason's earlier rampages, Tommy Jarvis, dug up Jason's body. Tommy Jarvis claimed that Jason returned from the dead yet again, a zombified unkillable version according to Jarvis. This claim, like so many others, cannot be substantiated but the murders did indeed continue, all attributed to Jason Voorhees. Scores of dead bodies piled up before the ultimate end. Again some of the most outlandish stories have attempted to explain Jason's final demise, that he was physically dragged to hell by demons or that he has been cryogenicly frozen in a government facility.

Review: Jason Voorhees and his iconic hockey mask has become one of the most well known and infamous monsters in cinema history. Jason used to frighten the hell out of me! As I grew older I grew braver and actually watched all his films. Now I am a lifelong fan of this bad bad man. But don't get me wrong, the Friday the 13th series isn't without its blemishes. Some films I'd sooner skip over the others.

What is so enduring about the character? The mask. The machete. His sheer presence. The menace he embodies. All of it is so powerful and evocative. There are hundreds of characters like Jason in film but very few have had the success and longevity that Jason has. Michael Myers is a close parallel to Jason but even then there are many differences separating the two characters. My favorite portrayal of Jason has always been that of actor Kane Hodder. He played Jason in parts 7-10. Part 7 is my favorite in the series specifically for Jason's design. It was the films in which Kane Hodder played Jason that endeared me to the character and made me a fan. In those films he's more a monster than simple killer.

Jason's look from Friday the 13th Part VII

Jason went through three stages of character. First he was merely a character's motivation, a specter in the background of the story. Stage two he becomes a full blown serial killer, an extremely hard to kill serial killer but still human. Then he becomes undead or evil dead. In the ninth film there is a shot of the Necronomicon (the Book of the Dead from the Evil Dead film series) within the Voorhees house. Fans theorize that Jason is an Evil Dead  or Deadite after part 6 in the series. I subscribe to this theory and in fact prefer the deadite version of Jason.

Whichever version you prefer, whichever film in the franchise you prefer, one thing is undeniable... Jason is one of the greatest and most powerful horror icons in cinema history alongside the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman. He has 12 films to his credit. He will be back again one day and it will be the 13th film. If I could say one thing to the future filmmakers of the 13th chapter I'd say, "It better be the most brutal, gut-wrenching, intense, and bloody film in the series." 

Overall Ranking: 7 out of 10

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