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Michael R. Moore
12/17/2011
Jason Vorhees and the Development of the Friday the 13th Franchise
Some critics argue that the slasher movie is a fixed tale type that has generated an
endless stream of what are in effect variants. Basically sequels mean the same film, observes
John Carpenter, director of Halloween (1978) (Brottman, 87). Friday the 13th (1980), being the
first of many films to capitalize on the success of Halloween, is very much a slasher film that
does not deviate far from the formula. Its sequel, Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), introduces a new
killer, but nevertheless conforms to slasher clichs. However, as the Friday the 13th series
progressed, the films underwent significant changes. Through an analysis of the films, this paper
will prove that the Friday the 13th series cannot be simply defined as, "duplicates with only slight
variation" (Clover,23), but in fact, are a series of films that become increasingly self-reflexive,
subvert slasher clichs, and use humor to transmute the genre. It will also explain how the
character, Jason Vorhees, the killer from the films, evolved, and as the films changed, became the
hero of the series and a pop culture icon.
The slasher genre encapsulates a series of films produced in the late 70s and early 80s
that followed Halloween, and copied its narrative and cinematic structure in the hope of
replicating it success (Dika, 87). Friday the 13th borrows heavily from Halloween. The brutal
deaths portrayed in Friday the 13th often incorporate shots from the point of view of the killer,
who remains largely unseen. This technique, used repeatedly in the film, was inspired by the
point of view murder in the first scene of Halloween. Another element of the slasher genre is a
group of young people terrorized by a killer. In this group there is usually a central female lead.
She is usually shown to be more intelligent than the rest of the group and she is not sexualized in

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the film. In a slasher film, this character will always be the one who suppress the killer at the end
of the film. This character is often referred to as the final girl (Clover, 35). In Friday the 13th,
the character Alice fits these criteria perfectly.
Another clich of slasher films is a past traumatic event as the motivation for the killers
spree. In Friday the 13th, the killer, Pamela Vorhees, is motivated to murder by her son Jasons
accidental death. The film is set in 1979, but Jasons death occurred in 1957. The date, Friday the
13th, is Jasons birthday. This is similar to Halloween, in which Michael Myers, the killer from
the film, first murdered on Halloween night, then returns years later on another Halloween, to
kill again. In both films, a date commemorates the past and activates the killer. (Dika, 94).
Friday the 13th Part 2, like Friday the 13th, is still very much a slasher film. With Pamela
Vorhees dead, Jason becomes the killer. Keeping with slasher clichs, Jason, as his mother had
been, is only marginally visible (Clover, 30) for most of the film. Also, like the first film, Part
2 features a final girl, a group of young people terrorized by a psychopath, and a past traumatic
event as the motivation for the killer.
As mentioned before, Jason Vorhees is the main antagonist of the film. However, this is
not his first screen appearance. At the end of the first film, Alice, confronts Mrs. Vorhees, and in
a climactic moment, decapitates her. Alice, floating in a canoe the morning after her fight to the
death with Pamela Vorhees, is attacked by young Jason. In an unexpected moment that recalls
Jaws (1975), and the shock ending of Carrie (1976), Jason leaps from beneath the water in
dramatic slow motion and pulls Alice below. This first appearance of Jason was brief but very
effective.
In Friday the 13th Part 2, Jason has grown up, and the film presents him in a way that is
typical of the slasher genre, but unique to the Friday the 13th series. The film begins with a

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detailed recap of the first film. It is important to note that this review is mostly a summary of the
gruesome deaths depicted in the first film. Already the producers knew that fans of the first film
responded to the elaborate, graphic scenes of violence. The tagline for Part 2 was, The body
count continues, and the trailer, like the trailer for the first film, was used to trumpet the
films status as an illicit event (Nowell, 142).
The first scene of the second film starts off with the brutal murder of Alice, the final girl
from the first film. It is soon reveled that Jason, originally thought drowned, has actually been
living in the woods for years. He begins killing again when a new group of young people come
to Crystal Lake, the site where he witnessed his mothers death at the end of Friday the 13th.
Friday the 13th Part 2 is unique in that it is the one film in the series which presents
Jason as somewhat human. He is thought of today as a lumbering, silent, immortal zombie; a
spectral figure that appears from behind the trees to kill, and then returns into an unseen
hibernation state. However, in Part 2, Jason is actually quite human. It is here that we learn that
Jason did not drown in 1957. His body was never found, and he was mistakenly thought dead.
He survived that incident, fled into the woods, and has been living there ever since. In the
meantime, he has become a local legend. There have been many rumors and sightings. One
character explains that he lives off the land, occasionally stealing from local shops when he
needs things. This level of capability shows Jason to be an impressively keen survivalist.
He also shows a high level of skill in his construction of a shack in the woods. An illfated character stumbles upon Jasons home early in the film, and explores the interior. We see
that Jason has not only provided himself with a bed, but his shack even has a bathroom. Inside
his shack there is also a shrine where he keeps his mothers rotting severed head. This is

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obviously an homage to Norman Bates of the proto-slasher Psycho (1960), who kept his
mothers corpse stored away in his home.
In later films, Jason always walks slowly. He seems to materialize out of thin air, and he
has the uncanny ability to be in multiple places at once. However, in Part 2, Jason is seen
chasing his victims at full speed. He is also physically smaller in this film than in later films.
Toward the end of Part 2, Jason attacks a male victim, and wrestles with him. Both Jason and his
victim are about the same size, and the victim is able to subdue Jason and escape. Later in the
series Jason always looks at least a foot taller than everyone, and no character is able to suppress
him. All of these elements add to the uniquely human Jason which only exists in Part 2. This
version of Jason is closer to Michael Myers than the super-human and supernatural Jason of the
later films. Many early slasher films feature a disturbed psychopath as the antagonist in the
tradition of Halloween and Psycho. This very human Jason is another element that makes Friday
the 13th Part 2 a classic slasher film.
Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) is a departure point for the series. This is where the series
starts moving away from slasher conventions, and Jason begins his transformation. It is in this
film that he begins wearing his iconic hockey mask. There are also several elements that are selfreflexive, and the film establishes many of the series tropes. The first self- reflexive moment is
the films opening credits sequence. The sequence is accompanied by a disco-style song. The
first two films in the series use Henry Manfredinis tense score which was inspired by the music
from Psycho, and sets a chilling mood. The song from Part 3 can be read, with its funky bass
line and dance beat, as a wink to the audience. It establishes that the film knows that its viewers
are there for a fun time.

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Another self- reflexive moment in the film comes when a character is seen reading a copy
of Fangoria magazine. At the time, Fangoria had accompanied and reported on the rise to fame
ofthe Friday the 13th films and it became an actual voice for the proliferation of a horror film
culture (Conrich, 159). A close up of the inside of the magazine shows an article about special
effects artist Tom Savini, who had worked on the first film in the series. The addition of the
Fangoria magazine is a nod to the diehard fans of the series that had made the film a box-office
success.
Friday the 13th Part 3 is also self- reflexive in its use of 3D. The trailer for the film
boasts, Jason is back, and this time we cant even keep him on the screen. Throughout the film,
there are numerous moments that exploit the 3D effect. Most of these moments are Jasons kills,
like a harpoon shot directly at the audience, and a characters head squeezed so hard that his
eyeball pops off the screen. There are also numerous non-violent uses of 3D. For example, a
character passes a joint directly to the audience, and another character sits right above the camera
playing with a yo-yo which continually shoots off the screen. These moments that are contrived
to utilize the 3D effect literally break the fourth wall.
The first two films both feature one character that is always telling jokes and goofing
around, and both films have some light-hearted moments, but just enough not to be completely
bleak. In Part 3, however, the group of victims includes a number of farcical characters, and
comic situations. For example, there is a two dimensional, stereotypical stoner in the film
who, with his long beard, John Lennon glasses and head band, is an obvious visual reference to
Tommy Chong. This character is never seen without a joint or bong in his hand. At one point in
the film, the stoner character enters an outhouse to smoke another joint. Jason approaches and
shakes the structure violently. The character looks at his joint and exclaims, heavy shit! The

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first two films in the series do very little to develop their characters, but it is not until Part 3 that
we see these types of completely undeveloped, comical characters. These types will become a
majority of Jasons victims in coming films.
Another comic and self- reflexive element of the film is the character named Sheldon.
Sheldon has an interest in horror makeup and special effects, and at one point in the film, he
fools the other characters and the audience into thinking he has been killed. He screams off
camera, and when his friends rush to him, they find him with a hatchet buried in his head, and his
face covered in blood. When everyone screams, he begins laughing. He reveals to them that the
hatchet is not real, and shows them how he pulled off the illusion. This scene, early in the film,
refers to the artificiality of the films gore effects to come, and points to the fact that they are all
just illusions. This gives the audience permission to marvel at the gore, and enjoy it aesthetically
as an effect without feeling immoral.
As stated earlier, Jason acquires the hockey mask about half way through the film.
Sheldon finds the mask and uses it to scare another character. Later, Jason kills Sheldon and
takes the mask. It has since become the face of Jason Vorhees and a symbol of the series. After
Jason begins wearing the mask, the series leaves behind a major slasher clich. No longer will
the audience see marginal flashes of the killer, and point of view murders common in Friday the
13th and Friday the 13th Part 2. From the midpoint of Part 3 and beyond, Jason will almost
always be seen in full view by his victim, and the audience.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) starts the day after Part 3 (therefore, actually
talking place on Saturday the 14th). Jason, thought dead, is taken to the morgue of the local
hospital where he wakes up, and begins killing again. Like Part 3, the film takes place in and
around the woods near Camp Crystal Lake, but not actually at the camp where the first two films

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are set. The film begins with a pre-credits recap of the last three films. The audience is only
reminded briefly of the small details one needs to know about Jason. Again, we see a montage
containing most of the kills from the previous films. The screen goes dark, and Jasons mask
flies toward the audience from the darkness, just as the title had in the previous three films. The
mask is now well known as a representation of the series.
The Final Chapter begins a unique trilogy within the Friday the 13th series about the
character of Tommy Jarvis, played in this film by Corey Feldman. Tommy Jarvis is a pre-teen
boy who loves video games, and making monster masks. He is an interesting addition to the
series. Up until this point, the Friday the 13th series has always used the slasher device of the
young group separated from the killer by the opposition normal/abnormal (Dika, 92). This film
challenges that convention by having a boy who is also separate from the young group. This
isolation associates Tommy with Jason. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum.
Another way the Tommy character works is by giving the younger viewers someone to
identify with. Tommy is also used to subvert a major slasher clich. He is the central figure of the
film, and confronts and subdues Jason at the end. Therefore, he takes the place of the final girl.
The rest of the characters are composed of the typical Friday the 13th stock: horny teenagers who
are only concerned with getting intoxicated and having sex.
One by one, the characters are killed by Jason until only Tommy and his older sister are
left. Tommy shaves his head to appear more like Jason as a young boy (Tommy had previously
seen a picture of Jason as a young boy in a newspaper clipping). The connection between the two
is then illustrated as Jason loses his killer instinct at the sight of Tommy. Jason is confused, and
Tommy uses this to his advantage. He hacks Jason repeatedly with his own machete until Jason
is surely dead. After the incident, Tommys sister is shown in a hospital bed talking to doctors

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who assure her that Tommy will not be emotionally scarred by the event. Tommy then appears in
the door way, slightly in the shadows, with his shaved head, and arms at his side. His appearance
suggests a dwarfed version of Jason. It is implied by the final image of the film, Tommy staring
psychotically into the camera, that he is in fact not sane, and the film ends. The title, The Final
Chapter, really means that this fourth film ends the story of Jason Vorhees human life.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) begins with a figure stalking through the woods
on a stormy night. We see the figures silhouette as he walks purposefully through the forest. His
stomping boots come to a stop, and the camera pans up to reveal that it is Tommy Jarvis. The
film has already associated Tommy with Jason by presenting him in this scene in the typical
chopped up fashion the audience has come to recognize from the slasher genre. The audience has
only previously seen Jason in this marginally visible way (Clover, 30). Yet the figure is
Tommy and not Jason as the audience expects. This is another example of how the series
subverts slasher clichs.
Tommy is standing at a clearing where Jason Vorhees grave is marked by a crude
wooden tombstone. He watches two men approach, and they begin to dig up the body. The men
open the casket, and reveal the worm-covered body of Jason. Jason suddenly comes to life, and
dispatches both men while still lying down. The next shot is of Tommys surprised and
tormented face, and then there is a dramatic wide shot that zooms in slowly as Jason rises from
his grave. The lightning crashes illuminating his whole body. The gothic setting of the
dilapidated graveyard, complete with gnarled trees and crooked crosses is reminiscent of
Universal horror films of the 1930s; this scene associates Jason with classic movie monsters.
Tommy suddenly awakens. The whole scene had been a dream.

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Throughout A New Beginning, Tommy Jarvis is tormented by visions of Jason.
Meanwhile, we see Jason systematically killing the typical characters. Now most of his victims
are usually introduced in the same scene they are killed in, thus further disassociating the
audiences sympathy from anyone but the killer. Tommy, because of his violent past, is assumed
by most of the characters to be the prime suspect of the murders, but at the very end of the film,
it is revealed that the killer was an imposter. The psychotic killer was a paramedic seeking
revenge for his own sons death. He took on the persona of Jason to do his killing. The film only
using Jason in this way does little to progress the character. However, because a person would
use the Jason persona to kill, does suggest that Jasons infamy had become legendary, both in the
world of the film series, and in real life. The film concludes with Tommy putting on a hockey
mask, supposedly taking over the role of Jason. However, this ending remains permanently
unresolved as the next film in the series does not continue where A New Beginning leaves off.
Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) is unique for several reasons. First, the title
inverts the expected Title/Subtitle formula. Putting Jasons name first is evidence of the iconic
status of the character. The film also features many self -reflexive winks at the audience
(Wee, 45). It is laden with humor and intertextuality. It is also the first film in the series which
establishes the ideal Jason: an unstoppable, resurrected zombie serial killer.
Jason Lives opens with Tommy Jarvis and a friend returning to the Camp Crystal Lake
area to cremate Jasons remains. The opening scene is very similar aesthetically to the gothic
opening of A New Beginning. Again, we see gnarled trees, crashing lightning, and a dilapidated
graveyard. However, unlike A New Beginning, the setting is not in the imagination of Tommy
Jarvis, but is a real location. We also get the first hint of humor in that Tommys friend is played
by comic actor Ron Palillo, best known for his role as Arnold Horshack on the 70s sitcom

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Welcome Back, Kotter. When Tommy unearths Jasons casket, and begins stabbing him
repeatedly with a metal rod, Palillo looks directly at the camera, purposely breaking the fourth
wall, and says, Oh shit in a knowing way to the audience. The metal rod Tommy stabbed Jason
with is struck by lightning and brings Jason back to life. This is a clear reference to the
Frankenstein films. From this point on in the series, Jason will always return in some sort of
resurrection, and he will also be slow-moving and gigantic, further associating him with the
classic elements of Frankensteins monster. Also in this film, the general store near Camp Crystal
lake is named Karloffs, another nod to the famous monster.
Palillos character attempts to bring Jason down by hitting him with a shovel. The shovel
breaks over Jasons head, and Jason does not seem injured at all. Jason spins around and punches
through the characters chest. This is the first instance of Jasons superhuman strength. Although
he had incredible endurance and strength in previous films, he never displayed this sort of
uncanny power. Tommy escapes and the camera moves in to an extreme close up of Jasons eye.
The image freezes, and a black circle opens from the pupil of his eye. Then, in parody of the
James Bond opening, Jason walks, in profile, from the right of the circle. He reaches the center,
and slashes his machete towards the audience. Blood runs down the screen and washes away to
reveal the title. In this opening, Jason is firmly established as the films star (Conrich, 183).
This parody also drives home that this film will be like no other entry in the series.
Later in the film, we see another example of self- reflexivity and humor. A couple is
driving down a dirt road. They are lost. The male character is looking at a map and they are
discussing the area. The female character driving the car sees Jason and slams on the breaks. She
then says, We better turn around. The male character asks, Why? and she responds

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Because Ive seen enough horror movies to know that any weirdo wearing a mask is never
friendly.
Another moment which breaks the fourth wall is when the caretaker for the cemetery
where Jason was buried finds the freshly unearthed grave. He exclaims, Who would do such a
thing? He then looks directly into the camera and says, Some people have a very twisted idea
of entertainment. Valerie Wee suggests that these moments amount to little more than inside
jokes (Wee, 47). However, it can be assumed that viewers of this seventh film in the series have
familiarized themselves with the six previous films, as well as other horror texts. They have most
likely also been put into position to defend their twisted idea of entertainment. This is an
important acknowledgement of the audiences awareness of horror films, their conventions, and
their place in popular culture. The self-reflexivity and intertextuality of Jason Lives is also
unique and significant because it exists within the series it seeks to satirize. The film is not only
self -reflexive but also self-deprecating.
Jason Lives is also unique in that Jasons violent killings are not gory. Through quick cuts
and sound effects, the deaths still have impact, but no longer do we see the heavy make-up
effects and Grand Guignol style deaths of the previous films. There is also no nudity, which had
become a staple of the film series. The toned-down violence and lack of nudity can be seen as
another way that this film has subverted expectations of the slasher genre.
At the end of the film, Tommy Jarvis lures Jason back to Crystal Lake. He has attached a
chain to a large rock, and taken it in a small boat to the center of the lake. Jason enters the water,
and several moments later leaps out onto the boat, referencing his very first screen appearance.
Tommy struggles with Jason and manages to get the chain around his neck. The rock goes
overboard and sinks to the bottom of the lake. Jason is seen struggling beneath the water and

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then goes still. Back on land, Tommy and his love interest celebrate Jasons defeat. Then the film
cuts back to beneath the water. Jason is still motionless, then a close up of his blinking eye
reveals that he is not dead, only restrained.
The theme of Jasons death as merely a temporary condition had by this point become a
joke. Acknowledging that Jason is not dead in this final moment of the film reassures the
audience that the ritual retelling of the tale (Brottman, 88) will continue; Jason will never truly
die. In an unstable world, there is a sense of security in this that fans of Jason have latched on to.
Alice Coopers Man Behind the Mask begins to play as the credits roll. The song was
specifically written about Jason Voorhees for this film. A video for the song was played
repeatedly on MTV in the summer of 1986. The video features Alice Cooper and Jason Vorhees
working together to capture and torment audience members who have entered a theater to watch
Jason Lives. The cross-promotional video is another example of the iconic status that Jason had
reached at this point, and the interconnectedness of horror and heavy metal cultures. It also
showed how Jason had achieved a marketable status outside of simply selling movie tickets.
Starting in the mid 80s, the iconic status of Jason led to Friday the 13th merchandise
(Conrich, 183). Today, Jason can be found on lunch boxes, t-shirts, posters, and action figures;
there is even a Friday the 13th snow globe. As an example of how absurdly popular Jason was by
1989, he appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show to promote Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes
Manhattan. Usually, only actors or occasionally directors from films make these kinds of
promotional appearances. That it was the fictional star making the appearance is a testament to
characters cultural significance. It is also evidence that audiences now viewed Jason as the hero
of the series.

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Jason Vorhees appeared in two more films produced by Paramount Pictures before
moving to New Line Cinema, which produced 1993s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and
2001s Jason X, which saw Jasons inevitable trip into outer space. Then, in 2003, Jason
appeared in the crossover mash-up, Jason vs. Freddy, in which he battled with Freddy Kruger
from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. In 2009, the series was rebooted, and with the
success of that film, a sequel is being planned. For over thirty years now, the Friday the 13th
franchise has endured, and like Jason, may prove to be impossible to kill. Analyzing the first six
films of the Friday the 13th series reveals Jasons slow evolution into the iconic character he is
today. It also shows how the series changed from straight slasher to postmodernist commentary
on the genre it helped to create. Jason Vorhees now lives within popular culture on the same level
as classic movie monsters like Dracula, The Mummy, The Creature From The Black Lagoon and
Frankensteins creation.

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Bibliography
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Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film
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Conrich, Ian. Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema.
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Dika, Vera. The Stalker Film, 1978-81. American Horrors: Essays on The Modern American
Horror Film. Ed. Gregory A. Waller. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Print.
Nowell, Richard. Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film
London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010.Print.
Wee, Valerie. The Scream Trilogy, Hyperpostmodernism, and the Late Nineties Teen Slasher
Film. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.