Friday the 13th "Fun" Facts

Last year I re-watched the Friday the 13th films with a co-worker who had never seen them before.  To be fair she was only 21 years old and the first nine movies came out before she was born.  After watching the first movie she said, “Jason wasn’t even in the film?”  What she thought she knew about Jason and her response was that he was a really messed adult male with a bad childhood who decided to kill a bunch of people.  She also thought that his killing grounds were spread out over a large, state-wide area not the same woods.  Also, she thought that there were only three or so movies in the franchise.

As we continued watching the films more revelations came to light about the series that I think a lot of casual fans might not remember.  Almost everyone I know thinks of Jason Vorhees as this mindless, supernatural killer who will stop at nothing to kill everyone and everything.  It’s what he does.  But Jason didn’t start out that way, most know he wasn’t the killer in the first movie, but there are plenty of other facts that people don’t know.

Jason was born on Thursday June 13, 1946, the first film takes place on July 13, 1979.

Jason’s cameo at the end of the first film is proven to be a dream based on his appearance in the second film as a grown adult, thus Jason never actually appeared in the first film

Jason doesn’t wear his iconic hockey mask until part 3

In parts 2, 3, & 4 Jason is human, he cries out in pain, hurries after his victims, and is hampered by injuries

Jason Voorhees is killed in Part 4 by Tommy Jarvis

Part 5 features a Jason impersonator wearing a hockey mask with two blue triangles, however, when Tommy hallucinates of Voorhees he’s wearing the traditional mask with the three red triangles.

Part 6 is my favorite film in the franchise. Tommy Jarvis is back this time portrayed by Thom Mathews. This is the first time that Jason is resurrected on film. In the end of the film Jason is simply anchored to the bottom of Crystal Lake but is shown with his eyes open at the end.

Part 7 is when the series goes even more supernatural as the final girl in this flick has psychokinetic powers. She uses her powers to accidentally resurrect Jason while she witnesses her drunken and abusive father beating her mother. At the end of the flick she uses these powers once again accidentally resurrecting her father who drags Jason back down into the lake chaining him up again. Yup that happened.

Part 8 has Jason resurrected when underwater cables in the lake are pierced by a boat anchor and zap him to life. Jason then stows away on a larger boat of teenagers that is on the class graduation trip to New York City. At the end Jason has acid thrown in his face and drowns in sewage waste water in the sewer system of New York.

Part 9 opens with an attractive undercover FBI agent luring Jason into a trap where the FBI and a SWAT Team trap and shoot Jason full of lead on the grounds of the old Camp Crystal Lake.  How he got from the sewers of New York back to Camp Crystal Lake, who the hell knows?!?!  This movie is the most absurd film of the series.  At his autopsy the coroner is compelled to eat Jason's heart and get possessed by him.  Jason passes from person to person as the movie progresses until the worm or giant black sperm Jason finds his dead half-sisters body and crawls inside her vagina where he is reborn as full grown adult with hockey mask and the same dirty clothes we are used to seeing him in...this actually happened.

The final girl is Jessica, Jason't niece, who uses a mystical dagger to stab Jason in the chest releasing all the souls of Jason's past victims who then drag him to hell.  Later a camera shot shows Voorhees mask laying in the dirt and Freddy Krueger's claw hand burst from the ground pulling the mask down to hell.

Part 10 set over 15 years after part 9 and somehow Jason is back killing with no explanation.  The US Government has Jason captured and have tried killing him several times with no success so they decide to freeze Jason.  455 years later he is found, brought aboard a spaceship, is thawed out, wakes up and begins killing.  In the end while on approach of Earth 2 Jason is jettisoned into the atmosphere where he burns up upon re-entry.

Part 11 Freddy vs. Jason This film takes place after Part 9 and before part 10.  I actually like this flick and thought they did a good job melding the two words of Jason & Freddy together.  The rest of the cast though, can't at all say it was any good.  I enjoyed each other deaths as they happened.  In the end, Jason beheaded Freddy, who winked at the camera had Jason walked away holding Freddy's head.

Friday the 13th (2009) I enjoyed this flick, in it Jason is mortal, it opens in 1980 with him watching his mother being killed after her murder spree and picks up 30 years later.  It's a combo of elements from the first four films, so it's not a sequel but a reboot. 

I enjoyed the first four films, part 5 was okay, part 6 was my favorite and parts 7, 8, 9, & 10 got more and more absurd as they went.

There hasn't been a Friday film since 2009 although many films started pre-production but never came to pass.  Currently the rights to the franchise are being battled over in court.  Who knows if we will ever get another film.  The recent success of Halloween and it's upcoming sequels Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends I was hoping it would kick start another Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street.  

Until Next Time!