Why Do We Love Jason Voorhees So Much?
It’s an open secret that the original Friday the 13th just ripped off John Carpenter’s Halloween. So by logical extension, Jason Voorhees should just be a Michael Myers copycat. Though he didn’t start as the primary villain of the franchise, relegated to little more than a cameo in the original film, the producers who so desperately wanted to churn out sequels decided to turn Jason from a child zombie of the lake to a blade-wielding masked psychopath in the vein of The Shape, with splashes of Leatherface and Norman Bates. This evolution defied the very mythos presented by the original film, which plainly states that the real Jason drowned in Camp Crystal Lake as a child. That’s like, the whole point of the first movie.
While Jason’s rebirth as a backwoods Michael Myers alienated many involved in the original’s production, including a baffled Tom Savini who assumed that Jason must have “survived off of crawfish for 35 years,” audiences were more than happy to suspend their disbelief so that they could watch Pamela Voorhees’ deformed son resume her killing spree. The original Michael Myers envisioned by John Carpenter was retired after the explosive ending of Halloween II, and The Shape wouldn’t return to theaters until 1988. By that point, Jason Voorhees carried his franchise into seven sequels. If slasher fans weren’t going to see the actual Michael Myers skewering horny teens, then they’d settle for the other mute psychopath. On paper, Jason is dead-to-rights a clone that doesn’t have any reason to exist other than to produce sequels to a film that had already been accused of plagiarism.
But…
Here’s the thing, though: Jason’s my guy. And if the sight of a hockey mask makes you think of Mr. Voorhees before anything related to the sport itself, then he’s probably your guy too. He’s risen from being one of the many Halloween wannabes of the era to being an icon in his own right, rivaling Michael Myers to be King of the Slashers.
Jason’s status was cemented by the erroneously subtitled Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Despite the outrage and alarmism of Roger Ebert, who accused this fourth entry of robbing young people of their hopes and dreams, The Final Chapter proved that the audience demand for Friday the 13th was so insatiable that producers pumped out another sequel just a year later. One problem with the next installment: it didn’t have Jason. Sure, it had an unstoppable killer in a hockey mask (albeit one with blue triangles instead of Jason’s red ones), but fans rejected this copycat playing dress-up. They wanted the real thing. They wanted Jason.
But What Is It About Jason?
The question that’s always fascinated me is: Why? Why do we need Jason? Why do we need him to do the hacking and slashing? And how has he become a name synonymous with horror? Even if you’ve never watched a slasher movie in your life, you’ll know Jason on a first-name basis, making him something akin to the Prince and Madonna of horror cinema. Even my father, who holds slasher movies with the same disregard as Roger Ebert, knows Jason. My poor wife who had to sit through a number of Friday the 13th sequels with me on my turn for movie night knew enough about Jason before sitting down and watching it. But she hadn’t heard of Cropsey, Mad Man Mars, or any of Jason’s other obscure contemporaries that cropped up post-Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
So why does this psychopathic hockey enthusiast who began as a fraudulent Michael Myers firmly grip popular consciousness by the throat?
I can’t speak for all the horror fans out there. I suspect many of their answers would have to do with Jason’s gruesome kills and his formidable body count. The gorehound in me can appreciate the special-effects wizardry of watching Jason punch somebody’s head clean off their shoulders or the visceral brutality of seeing him plow a meat cleaver right into Crispin Glover’s face. But that doesn’t pierce the surface in explaining what makes Jason an enduring figure in pop culture. You can find more gruesome, shocking, and provocative violence in grungier and more dangerous exploitation flicks. Nobody’s out here dressing as the killer from Pieces or The Mutiliator, or even the WW2-themed villain from The Prowler, which was also directed by Joseph Zito who went on to helm The Final Chapter.
Let’s Go Back To The Universal Monsters
To offer my own analysis, let me set the context of explaining that my gateway horror experience was with the Universal Monsters. Though they were still chilling and atmospheric flicks for an impressionable grade-schooler, I was more enamored with these Titans of Terror as vehicles of representation for “otherness.” We all side with Frankenstein’s Monster over the mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks because he’s such a poignant and dramatic expression of social anxiety. The Monster’s limited speech ironically speaks to the frustration of articulation, our inability to breach social barriers. This was especially resonant for me as a child growing up on the spectrum.
This was the common thread among The Universal Monsters, who were all outsiders with afflictions. The Creature of The Black Lagoon was a secluded miscreant who would rather commune with nature than civilization, only harming those who disrupted his tranquility. The Wolf Man was a seemingly normal and decent human being, Lawrence Talbot, who succumbed to a curse that brought out the Beast in all of us. Because, as the immortal words go, “even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”
Enter The Monsters Of The Slasher
Contrast these outcasts with the “monsters” of Slasher Cinema. Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger aren’t just dangerous or lethal, they’re bullies. Predators. Willful boogeymen who symbolized the irrational evil and moral apathy that plagued the ‘70s and ‘80s with serial killers, gang violence, and The Vietnam War.
But not Jason. While the mythos surrounding Jason is almost comically convoluted, what we know is that Jason Voorhees was a young, deformed child diagnosed with Hydrocephalus who accidentally drowned at Camp Crystal Lake while negligent camp counselors were off having sex. His mother, played wonderfully by Betsy Palmer in the original film, snaps and seeks revenge against not only the counselors immediately responsible for her boy’s drowning, but against Camp Crystal Lake itself. She’s ultimately killed by a would-be victim, only for the surviving Jason to learn of his loving mother’s demise.
Jason: A Survivor
How or why Jason “survived” is not the point and would degrade this whole piece into a fan theory debate. Whether he simply survived and lived in the woods as a hermit, or was revived supernaturally as postulated by Jason Goes to Hell, this backstory sets a framework for Jason’s habitual killings in a distinctly human manner. That’s an odd word to throw around when talking about an immortal killer who gets revived by lightning in the sixth installment, but Jason’s past as a victim of deformity and bullying contrasts with his modus operandi.
Unlike Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger who prey upon unsuspecting victims seemingly for the thrill of murder and demise, Jason is a solitary creature of the woods and, yes, a Mama’s Boy. He’s a territorial man of habit who only preys upon the partying teens and families on getaway that trespass upon his Forest of Solitude. Other than the occasional misadventure in Manhattan or Space.
Seeking Revenge
I’m not saying that I’ve ever shared the compulsion to go on a killing spree just to dispatch annoying people (at least not in writing I won’t), but horror cinema is the perfect vehicle to give us avatars of anti-social behavior. He’s a nurtured evil, an Elephant Man gone berserk. His deformity also harkens back to classic monsters of yesteryear, especially the Phantom of The Opera. Just like the titular Phantom, Jason was a seemingly harmless boy who was turned into a monster by a cruel, judgemental society. Unlike Michael Myers, who is devoid of any possible psychoanalysis or plausible motive, every one of Jason’s kills is an act of retribution against social and cultural hegemony.
That’s not to say that Jason is as three-dimensional of a character as Frankenstein’s Monster. He’s not exactly a figure of Victorian Literature, although he carried the traditions of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece more than any of his peers. While the Friday the 13th franchise is far more preoccupied with sex and violence, it’s full of subtle moments that still color Jason’s psychosis.
Brief But Poignant Fear
Many fans will probably recall Crispin Glover’s goofy dancing or the myriad of nasty kills as being The Final Chapter’s most memorable moments, but I’ve always been haunted by the silent exchange between Jason and Tommy Jarvis, the weird kid who makes himself up to resemble a young Jason during the climax. It’s just a diversion so that Jason can be ultimately vanquished. But the sight of our protagonist probing and possibly even empathizing with the psychological hangups of our killer is something that horror flicks of the time didn’t even bother with.
I’ve even seen a neurodivergent analysis of Jason, or at least a possible representation of the neurodivergent experience. While Jason isn’t fleshed out definitively enough to prove that he’s an analog for neurodivergence, he shares overlapping characteristics that give him an added layer. His physical deformity, which hilariously changes from movie to movie, could be an externalization of mental and psychological differences that people on the spectrum contend with. It also gives his mask a distinct significance. While Micahel wears his William Shatner mask to give a face to his soulless evil, and Freddy is more than happy to be a disfigured ghoul, Jason masks the same way many of us do, on the spectrum or not. He hides his deformity behind an expressionless plate that won’t betray his vulnerability.
He Just Wants To Fit In!
Jason’s appeal might be most uniquely but accurately displayed by his “appearance” on Arsenio Hall to promote Jason Takes Manhattan. It was Kane Hodder behind the Hockey Mask, who famously played Jason in four installments total. Machete in hand, Jason sits on Arensio’s couch while the audience giggles. Arsenio tries to hold back laughter and figure out how to approach the interview in a not-dissimilar fashion from David Letterman’s surreal interview with an in-character Joaquin Phoenix.
Whenever Arsenio actually stifles the chuckles enough to ask a question, Jason immediately turns to him and goes into defense mode. There’s a shriek behind the audience’s laugh as they go from watching a stoic Jason respond to Arsenio’s personal questions with an ominous glare.
It’s cute and threatening at the same time, a statement that couldn’t be applied to any other icon of terror post-Universal Monsters. That’s because Jason is shy. Nervous. Wary. The poor guy doesn’t know what to do or how to carry himself. He’s clearly got some issues to work out. He honestly reminds me more of The Muppets than the killer of Terror Train, allowing audiences to imprint an adoration onto him that would be impossible with the intentionally cold and sociopathic villains of slasher cinema.
So next time a bunch of drunk teens are making a ruckus next door, or you remember that time that you got bullied at summer camp, just know that Jason is there for you. Also, I will happily induct Jason as an honorary autistic. Go slay for us, champ.
Categorized:Editorials
