By  Professor A. Griffin 

Jim, an awkward, geekish young man has just had sex for the very fist time. His pal, Ted, has teased him about his lack of sex appeal and loser status throughout the entire vacation out to the country cabin. Now Jim was THE MAN! He just bedded a beautiful girl named Tina, a virtual stranger, who seemed to just pick him out of all the other guys at the party. He had sex! Hot, raunchy, no-strings attached sex! Sure, Tina had done most of the work, but she said Jim was incredible! He never felt so proud, so strong, more satisfied this night than he had ever felt in his young 18 years on the planet. Time to celebrate! He flaunted his conquest to Ted, alone and stoned on the couch, and watching a stag loop film from the 1940’s. He laughed and joked and wanted to toast his amazing experience with a bottle of wine. His life was going to change. He felt confidence, new pride, and realized that he would never again be the butt of anyone’s jokes, if he could only find that corkscrew. This would be a grand start, a life changing moment, where’s that corkscrew? He could bring two glasses of wine up to share with Tina, naked and warm back up in bed….dammit, where’s the goddamn corkscrew?  

PAIN suddenly flooded over him….images flashed before him…his hand, impaled on the cutting board by the missing corkscrew, blood, HIS BLOOD gushing all over the countertop….a man standing before him with a hockey goalie’s mask on, eyes burning with hatred and fury,…why? What had he done to this man? He could smell his own blood, and feel his heart race, but oddly realized he had made no sound…shock had silenced him…he thought of Tina, his pal Ted just in the next room…and saw the goalie raise a meat cleaver up and bring it towards him with incredible force….why? What had he done? All he did was have sex for the very first ti-……….. 

There was a time, Night Creatures, when hockey masks meant only one thing. A game of hockey. Now, of course, American pop culture has imprinted us with another thought when we see a hockey mask. Jason Voorhees. The maniacal killer from the Friday the 13^th series who took to wearing this stylish mask after slitting the throat of an overweight, practical joking, teen named Shelly in his third film appearance, and taking the famous face covering from him.

When I was first exposed to the series during the decade of decadence known as the 1980’s, I was growing from boy into man. There were a lot of mixed emotions and new feelings that I was dealing with for the very first time, and there were a lot of mixed emotions displayed on that big screen, from terror and lust to laughter and disgust. 

Like the Grand Guignol Theatre of Horrors, these films dared you to watch, be titillated and then shocked. I was a fan from the beginning, and have gone along for the ride ever since.

The mood of the film is sustained by eerie sounds of the forest, and one of the most frightening, effective and instantly recognizable musical themes in horror. As the film builds to a tension-filled climax, a violent thunderstorm erupts, making the murders even more effective in the lightning flashes and the thunder peals. Earth-shattering thunderstorms become a mainstay of the Friday the 13^th series, as if nature itself is reacting to the horrors.  

The main thrill and appeal of the series was of course the incredible gore effects (the film finally made Tom Savini a major player) as one by one teenagers were gutted, shot with arrows, cleaved in the face with axes, and pierced with arrows from under their beds. The murders where gruesome and graphic and left nothing to the imagination. The killer? A middle aged woman named Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) who had lost her only son, Jason when he drowned at the same camp. Jason was supposed to be watched...every minute, because he was a “special” child. Born as a mongoloid, Jason needed extra special care and attention. The counselors who were supposed to be watching Mrs. Voorhees’ pride and joy were off having sex, instead of paying attention to her precious, special, brave boy...who just loved to swim.

They must pay. It wasn’t fair that special little Jason should die while teenage sinners filled with lust, drugs and alcohol, which were responsible for his death, should live on without a care in the world. Oh, Mrs. Voorhees would MAKE them care. Oh yes. She would indeed. Mrs. Voorhees’ blood-rage was finally ended when a brave young counselor beheaded her with a machete in a climatic showdown on the shores of Crystal Lake. Rest in peace Pamela Voorhees. 

I don’t want to scare anybody, but I’m gonna give it to you straight about Jason. His body was never recovered from the lake after he ‘drowned’. The girl that survived that night at Camp Blood, that Friday the 13^th? She disappeared a year later. Blood was everywhere. Rumor has it that Jason saw his mother beheaded that night, and took his revenge. A revenge he will continue to take if anyone dares to enter his woods. Jason’s out there.

-Paul from Friday the 13^th Part2. 

In Friday the 13^th Part 2 Jason, (played by Warrington Gillette) now a grown man, takes his revenge on Alice (Adrienne King), the survivor of the original film, and returns to his home in the woods of Crystal Lake. The camp next to the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake (now called Camp Blood by the locals) is opening and Jason is driven by the same motivation as his insane mother. These people hurt my mommy... now I have to hurt them. It’s important to note that Jason DID NOT drown in Crystal Lake. 

Revenge is still the factor, revenge for his mother’s death, revenge against the people who let him ALMOST drown, and for the years of being alone and lost in the woods. The child has grown up to be a powerfully built man and makes a fierce killer. 

(I’d like to take this time, Night Creatures, to theorize on the age of Jason Voorhees. He drowned when he was a child; let’s say 15 years old. 5 Years later, the events of the first film take place, making him 20. A year later he begins his killing spree. 21 years old is a little young to be killing, but hey…Michael Myers started young too.)  

Jason’s ‘look’ wasn’t perfected yet, as he was wearing a plaid shirt, overalls, and a pillowcase over his head with one eyehole cut out. (He’s lucky the Elephant Man didn’t sue!)

In Jason’s debut as a killer, he piles up 10 bodies using various methods.

An icepick, barbed wire, a hammer, a spear, and a good old-fashioned butcher’s knife, all were put to bloody use and the screen flowed red for the first time at the hands of Jason Voorhees. 

 

I saw Friday the 13^th Part 2 at my neighborhood cinema, the Northshore theatre in Houston, Texas. It was actually more of a grindhouse, a one-screen relic that played first run features but always doubled with second runs to get people in. The double feature I saw that night, Friday the 13^th pt2 and Halloween 2, was unforgettable, and the walk home (it was within walking distance) was full of shadows and night, with wind through the trees and strange noises that made me believe someone was following us. Perhaps someone with a pillowcase on his head, a bad attitude, and an axe! 

Andy was a strong boy, and he grew up into a strong young man. Tonight he was feeling good; he had a nice buzz and had just finished making love to his girlfriend Debbie. They had made love many, many times, but never in a hammock. The experience was amazing and Debbie’s body had never been so great to touch and feel. Andy was in a great mood. He was feeling silly as he walked on his hands to Debbie in the shower. He loved watching her naked and wet, loved knowing that she was his, and loved the fact the all was right with the world. Debbie asked for a beer and Andy could use one too, so back on his strong arms and upside down to world, Andy went back into the hallway, heading downstairs to get beer for himself and his love. He bet that he could make it all the way downstairs on his hands and back up again. It would hurt, but the workout would feel good and his arms would be pumped and his chest hard. It would feel good when he and Debbie made love again…it would…

In 1982, I was 13 years old. And I was in the midst of my horror movie mania! That year saw, Alone in the Dark, The Beast Within, Cat People, Christine, Creepshow, Poltergeist, The Evil Dead and the return of Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13^th Part 3 IN 3-D! That’s right, Night Creatures; can you imagine the thrill, the exuberance, that I felt when I first saw the come-ons for this film on television? This is when trailers for films were meant to scare you, to build up anticipation until the great day came. I recall that this film was released on a Friday the 13^th, and it was one of the best. Certainly, it was no Gandhi, released the same year, but in terms of screams per minute and thrills it was a non-stop roller coaster ride, AND in box office, Jason ruled unequaled!

(Side note: Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior was released in 1981, and the main villain in that film, Lord Humongous, wears a hockey mask and looks very much like the Jason we know today. Could the producers of Friday the 13th have seen that film and insisted that J.V. adapt a similar ‘look’? Far fetched? Coincidence? Perhaps. But before that, nobody thought of a hockey mask as being a frightening thing. Well, nobody except a hockey player trying to score.) 

Part 3 takes place immediately following the events in part 2, which puzzle Jason-o-philes, because Jason has suddenly gained 20-30 pounds, and has lost his beard and all the hair on his head. Oh well, continuity be damned, this Jason (now played by Richard Brooker) is a monster. Huge, hulking and deliberate, Jason Voorhees works very hard in this film. The body count this time, is at 12 with his running total at 22. Jason kills a group of teenagers staying at a cabin in the woods that are not counselors and have nothing to do with trying to open a summer camp. They are just 8 sex-crazed, drug using, post high school grads trying to have a good time IN JASON”S WOODS!

The revenge motive wears thin, and Jason seems to be killing for no good reason. Perhaps he recognizes the emotions of lust and exuberance, and instinctively wants to snuff it out? Well, whatever is going on inside Jason’s rage filled brain, believe me, this film works in the best classic, camp-fire, urban legend style.  

Beware the crazy retarded son of Mrs. Voorhees, he’s out there and he’ll kill you!  

Why? That’s what’s so disturbing about it, there is no real reason, is there? Jason has his work cut out (sorry) for him, as he not only has numerous teens to kill, but a gang of bikers as well.

But this time the action on the screen leaps into your lap in 3-D! Numerous sharp implements, a dangling eyeball, a yo-yo, a harpoon, a joint, and Jason’s outstretched arms popped out of the screen and in our faces. The 3-D effect was a nice touch but the film plays just as well in 2-D. The most memorable part of the film for me? Rick (Paul Kratka), the preppy hero type, is grabbed by Jason just outside the cabin. His girlfriend, and our heroine Chris (Dana Kimmell) steps out to look for him, and just misses him behind her, struggling and being held silent by Jason. His eyes plead in terror for her to see him, hear him,…help him! But alas, she turns and goes back inside, shutting the door and his chances for survival. Jason places both hands on either side of Rick’s head, lifts him off the ground and pops his head like a zit. (His eyeball flies at the audience in 3-D!) Chris, by the way, tells Rick earlier about a dim memory of being attacked by Jason years earlier in these same woods. The memory flashback is a bit confusing, as it really has no bearing on anything else. It also shows a pre-hockey mask Jason without his hair! The ending is a cop-out as it relies too much on the shock ending set-up from the original, but substitutes Mrs. Voorhees jumping out of the lake and grabbing the lone survivor (who has just put an axe into Jason’s head and left him for dead in the barn.)

The final shot of the film shows Jason right were Chris left him in the barn, with the axe still embedded in his head, very still and apparently very dead.

But despite the ending, the film as a whole, from the opening, (where Harry Manfredini’s famous theme is given the new wave treatment) to the gut-wrenching heart pounding conclusion with Chris locked in a barn with a rampaging Jason, is the classic Friday the 13^th film. 

I recall sitting in a crowded 4-screen Cineplex, wearing my 3-D glasses just like everyone else and screaming with excitement and joy with each Jason appearance. I loved watching my fellow audience members in this film, they laughed, shrieked, and talked to the screen. Women hid in the crook of their dates arms and a shocked group scream in the theatre was always followed by giggles. In short, everyone was having fun! It was incredible.

So far, the Friday the 13^th series was a cash cow for Paramount, but morality groups protested the films, and the Motion Picture Association of America, which had previously allowed so much, was starting to pay more attention. This unwanted attention would be the beginning of the end for the series.  

The sky was filled with lightning. Electricity sparked and flashed and the air itself felt charged. Rain poured down in anger, sheets of water cascading against the windows and leaking through the cracks. Thunder rolled across the heavens in a warning to whoever would listen. Sandra was not listening. She was in the throes of passion with Jeff, her boyfriend. His body moved and filled her. Clutching his muscular back, she let wave upon wave of pleasure roll over her body. Heat between them was causing her to sweat and the smell of their lovemaking filled the room. Sandra’s half closed eyes suddenly bolted open. She thought she had seen someone. She did! Someone was in the room…someone wearing a mask! It looked like a sack. He vanished for a moment but suddenly appeared again with the next lightning flash, closer this time and with something in his hands raised above him. Sandra found herself staring into his one exposed eye. Jeff was still thrusting inside her and was starting to reach his climax when it dawned on her; he’s going to kill us! She tried to speak, but the stranger with one eye thrust downwards and Sandra felt a hot burst of pain in her chest. Warm wet fluid flowed between her and her lover. The lightning flashed again and as her life ebbed out of her and her vision blurred, Sandra saw the stranger with one eye standing over them, watching them die. She held Jeff closer with her last ounce of strength, and slipped away.

Friday the 13^th Pt. 4 begins with the campfire legend of Jason from Pt. 2, highlighting scenes from the entire series. After the opening credits, (where Jason’s hockey mask explodes!) the film begins in earnest at the aftermath of the massacre of Part 3. There is a helicopter searchlight sweeping the wet muddy site and police cars and ambulances are everywhere. The end of part 3 showed the survivor of the film being lead away in a police car, quite insane, in broad daylight, so I guess clean up of this particular bloodbath was an all night affair. Various officials work to clean up the crime scene, taking bodies away and uh,..Taking bodies away, and even….. taking bodies away! (My favorite is the obvious half-body of Andy (Jeffrey Rogers) in the small black body bag) 

As we see the inside of the barn, Jason is still there, having just had the axe removed from his head. His “body” is bagged and strapped to a gurney. (These people don’t check for a pulse?) As the cars and helicopters and signs of civilization finally leave the scene, a strange thing happens.

Director Joseph Zito delivers a great chill when everything suddenly becomes very dark and quiet again. The crickets and the wind are the only sound and the barn and set from part 3 are enveloped in blackness. The screen stays in ominous silence for a few breathless moments longer than it should, long enough to get a very uneasy feeling before continuing on to the next scene at the hospital. It is, in my opinion, the single creepiest moment in any Friday the 13^th movie.

Part 4, then moves quickly into very familiar territory with only a few new twists attempted. Jason (an un-credited Ted White) revives at the hospital, (his breath is noticeable for a split second when they put him in the drawer) and kills two members of the staff before fleeing back to the place he knows best, Crystal Lake. Jason is, at this point, still alive… a living, breathing person, who nonetheless survives fatal blows for some unknown reason. (Later in the series, a couple of attempts are made to explain Jason’s invulnerability, none of them very satisfactory.)

Jason returns to Crystal Lake and once again begins to murder a group of fun-loving teens that come into the woods for fun, sex and frolic. (They apparently don’t watch the news or read the paper as they would have no doubt heard of the massacre near the cabin they rented, or the fact that the body of Jason is missing from the morgue.)

The hitchhiker’s murder is a puzzle to me, as I can’t understand why Jason would so brutally murder a girl for just sitting on the side of the road, eating a banana. Perhaps he was just tired and pissed-off from his long walk back from the hospital? Perhaps his axe wound was really hurting him?

We are also introduced to the Jarvis family, Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) and her two children, Trish and Tommy who live next door to the cabin that they victims have rented. The youngest, Tommy Jarvis (a pre-Michael Jackson influenced Corey Feldman), is a horror and monster fan that creates special effects and make-up that look like they came out of Tom Savini’s workshop. What a minute, they probably did since Savini returns to provide the gruesome effects to the series that made him famous. I even recall the audience applauding at his name during the opening credits! Finally, the series attempts something new with the appearance of Rob (Erich Anderson), a Jason-hunter, looking to avenge the death of his sister at Jason’s hands. (Sandra, speared with her boyfriend Jeff in Part 2). 

Once all the exposition is out of the way (aka: let’s meet the victims) the storm clouds roll in and the body count begins. Jason is quite inventive in this film, finding time to nail one victim up in a doorway cruciform-style ( Back to the Future’s Crispin Glover) and nailing another to a wall behind a door. J.V. apparently found a whole lot of railroad spikes! The murders are gruesome and perhaps the most brutal of the series. Jason is angry, very very angry. “Why do they keep coming?” he must ask himself, “They’re like roaches!” Actually, an amusing part of this great film is the amazing number of murders in a sequence that must’ve left Jason very winded.  

….and so forth and so on. 

The conclusion of Friday the 13^th is a real nail biter, as Jason makes short work of Rob (the ineffective Jason-hunter) with a garden claw and attempts to finish off the Jarvis family. Well, Tommy Jarvis has a plan. He’ll shave his head and distract Jason with flashback memories of his childhood trauma! Jason is locked in a fierce battle with Tommy’s sister Trish (Kimberley Beck) and sustains a major injury to his hand (it’s almost cleaved in two!) but prepares to finish her off when Tommy makes his bald-headed appearance and calls him by name. (Fortunately, Rob left his Jason folder at his house and Tommy took some time to read up on his adversary.)

Jason is indeed distracted, but it’s never quite certain what he plans to do. He stares at Tommy, tilts his head and (in my view) tries to suppress a giggle. But the distraction works, Jason is unmasked and ends up greasing the sharp side of a machete blade with his brainpan, the killing blow delivered by Tommy Jarvis himself. 

When Jason’s mask comes off it falls to the floor in slow motion, as Jason turns around to reveal his face. Since it was Savini who designed Jason to begin with, the Jason from The Final Chapter looks great. His face is bulbous and properly deformed but there is a twisted look of malevolence that has nothing to do with his natural deformities. Jason leers at Trish with his nightmarish face, before Tommy makes the killing blow from behind.

It seemed that the series was leading up to Tommy Jarvis taking Jason’s place as the psycho killer of Crystal Lake, (the ending clearly hints at this) but one thing was certain. Jason was dead. D-E-A-D. 

THE SULTAN OF SLAUGHTER IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE SULTAN OF SLAUGHTER!

The life of Jason ended violently and ironically at the hands of a 15-year-old boy and his days of breathing oxygen were over. Did he think about his mother as his life ended? Did he find it amusing that he was being stopped by a child that he himself once was and in many was still was?  

It would be a few years before we would see the one and only Jason Voorhees again. 

I saw this film in the exact same theatre that I saw part 3 in, and the crowd was packed in like sardines. I was there with some of my school-chums and we were making this an event. We had rented some prime slasher fare for viewing later that night and Friday the 13^th Part 4: The Final Chapter was the kick-off to an all-nighter of blood and horror. (Phantasm and the unbelievable Headless Eyes continued the ghoulish fun late into the night.)

As I mentioned earlier, the crowd in the theatre that night wanted blood…and with each killing the crowd would roar, cheer and clap, that is until Samantha, the pretty naked girl is stabbed from underwater in the rubber raft. That was the turning point. The crowd fell into silence and began to cheer whenever Jason got injured. I found that interesting. What was the last straw for them? The butchering of a nubile skinny-dipper? 

The movie was a blast! I had just as much fun in this film as I did in part 3 and even though Jason was obviously dead, I somehow knew that the grave wouldn’t keep him long. (Thunderclouds gather once again) 

However, the MPAA had enough. The ratings board seemed to single out the horror genre to snip and trim with it’s editing scissors. Fortunately, Jason Voorhees escaped this indignation in his first films. When he is revived in 1986, it would be in a different world with a different attitude toward the slasher film. Jason would (in my opinion) never again return to the pinnacle of his graphic and gory career. 

Also, when Jason is revived, it is as an undead monster, a living corpse, who has no motivation but to kill.

© The Horror Host Underground