HISTORY OF THE SLASHER MOVIE
"Friday the 13th" and Jason Voorhees burst onto the horror scene in 1980, at a time when the slasher genre was still in it's infancy.
Even though several slasher movies had already been terrifying audiences all over the globe since the 70's with "Halloween" and "Black Christmas" , "Friday The 13th" still brought something very new and fresh to the silver screen that we had not yet seen before.
Although Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Michael Myers ( Halloween) were the first true, contemporary horror icons of it's time, together with Jason Voorhees, they would pave the way for many horror icons to come like Freddy Krueger ( A Nightmare On Elm Street) Pennywise (IT) and Chucky ( Child's Play).
But even though they were the first "contemporary" icons of the slasher genre, were they actually the first?
You might be surprised to hear that, no, they were not.
Alfred Hitchcock introduced the first true slasher icon Norman Bates, in the 1960 horror thriller "Psycho".
Although "Psycho" was never truly considered a true "slasher" film, Norman Bates, helped to lay the groundwork for contemporary slasher icons like Leatherface and soon after Michael Myers.
But to truly understand how these serial murdering, killing machines got their rise to fame, we have to go back to the beginning.
Since the invention of moving pictures, grotesque depictions of nightmarish monstrosities have continued to haunt the silver screen and horrify unsuspecting audiences the world over.
The best known horror movie, the 1920 film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" some regard as the very first horror movie, but decades prior in 1896, director George Méliès, released a three-minute silent film entitled "Le Manoir du Diable" (The Devil's Mansion) (also called "The House of the Devil" and "The Haunted Castle") that rightfully earns this title.
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920)
Méliès captured horror on camera for the very first time, marking a turning point in the history of cinema. The film survives today, and watching it is a bit like opening a time capsule.
"Le Manoir du Diable" ("The Devil's Mansion") (1896)
Since then, monsters and psychotic, murderous villain's, have graced the silver scream,
so you might think that the "slasher genre" is nothing new and you would be right.
WHAT IS A "SLASHER FILM"?
A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed tools.
Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set slasher films apart from other horror subgenres, such as splatter films and psychological horror films.
The actual term "slasher" was not actually coined until 1974, where it was associated with movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Black Christmas".
Critics cite the Italian giallo films and psychological horror films such as "Peeping Tom" (1960) and "Psycho" (1960) as early influences.
Giallo is the Italian term designating mystery fiction and thrillers.
The word giallo is Italian for yellow.
The term derives from a series of cheap paperback mystery and crime thriller novels with yellow covers that were popular in Italy.
In the context of 20th-century literature and film, especially among English speakers and non-Italians in general, giallo refers specifically to a particular Italian thriller-horror genre, that has mystery or detective elements and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and less frequently, supernatural horror elements.
The slasher genre hit its peak between 1978 and 1984 in an era referred to as the "Golden Age" of slasher films.
"The House On Sorority Row" (1982)
Notable slasher films include "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974), "Black Christmas" (1974), "Halloween" (1978), "Friday the 13th" (1980), "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), "Child's Play" (1988), "Candyman" (1992), "Scream" (1996) and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997).
Many slasher films released decades ago, continue to attract cult followings.
The slasher canon can be divided into three eras: the classical (1974–1993), the self-referential (1994–2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2001–2013).
Slasher films have become formulaic and predictable, defined by rules in ways that other subgenres of horror tend not to be.
In general, slasher films tend to be made up of the same key components; a killer, usually in a mask or some other of costume, stalks his victims; usually, teenagers until only one survivor, the final girl, remains.
"Halloween" (1978)
Slasher films typically adhere to a specific formula, a past wrongful action causes severe trauma that is reinforced by a commemoration, anniversary of a personal tragedy or a holiday tied to a traumatic event that reactivates or re-inspires the killer.
Built around stalk-and-murder sequences, the films draw upon the audience's feelings of catharsis, recreation, and displacement, as related to sexual pleasure.
The killings, usually creative to the point of black comedy, unfold between POV shots of the killer stalking his or her victims.
First of all, it should be noted that slasher villains are human beings, or were human beings at some point.
A giant bug is not a slasher, nor is the shark in "Jaws".
The behavior of a beast can be forgiven, as it’s only performing as nature designed it.
Slasher villains are human killers whose actions are objectively “evil,” because they’re meant to be bound by human morality.
That’s part of the fear that the genre is meant to prey upon, the idea that killers walk among us.
To put us in the killer’s shoes, slasher movies often feature sequences from the killer’s POV, as made famous in sequences like the opening of "Halloween".
"Halloween" (1978)
Slasher killers choose to kill or are compelled to kill for the thrill, or for revenge, but mostly because they’re just filled with indiscriminate evil.
Some are rational, many are completely psychotic but they’re all monsters.
They don’t tend to be sympathetic, or behave with empathy or logic.
Importantly, their killings aren’t inspired by drives that are easy for the audience to understand, such as greed, personal advancement, or to protect someone else.
This is all to say, slasher killers don’t have realistically human motives.
They don’t kill a dozen people because they’re trying to find a diamond, or win an inheritance, they kill because they want to kill, or feel compelled to kill, and anyone could become a victim.
This is an important distinction that will separate some crime and giallo films from slasher films.
WHAT SEPARATES A SLASHER FILM FROM A TRADITIONAL HORROR MOVIE?
Slasher films have a body count.
Slasher villains need at least a modest group of potential victims and they often need to rack up a few early kills to establish both their modus operandi and threatening credibility.
A slasher villain may primarily stalk a single protagonist through the course of a film, but he cuts a path through others in order to get there. One or two kills is not enough, you need more than that to qualify as a slasher.
Slasher films are structured around graphic killings, the only real reasons for purchasing a ticket.
Those killings tend to take place over short periods of time, often (but not always) in remote locales that are far from help.
Many of the killings tend to happen in secret, where individual characters are bumped off or start disappearing, and the protagonist/final girl doesn’t know that these people have died until near the end of the film.
This acts as a “starting gun” of sorts, after which a killer that has operated in the shadows finally reveals themselves and becomes much more directly confrontational, leading to a show-down with the final girl and her authority figure allies. Something like the reveal of Mrs. Voorhees in "Friday the 13th" is a classic example.
Mrs. Voohees "Friday the 13th" (1980)
Because the killings tend to happen over short periods, in secret, we rarely follow police or detective investigations in true slasher movies.
This is another aspect that will help differentiate many Italian giallo films from slashers, as these crime thrillers often join inspectors or detectives on cases, examining bodies or questioning witnesses.
Giallo protagonists, meanwhile, are often wrongly accused in relation to these crimes, and may be trying to clear their names, especially when the murders in these movies are highly publicized, with media frenzies chronicling a killer still at large.
This is rare for slasher villains. Slasher movies are far more intimate than that.
Horror movie geeks, by and large, tend to possess at least some degree of fondness for the slasher genre. You can’t deny the likes of "Halloween" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street", nor the lasting psychological impact they had on a generation of 1970s and 1980s moviegoers.
Even today we’re awash in sequels to some of these franchises, there are, after all, two more "Halloween" films, more than 40 years after John Carpenter unleashed the definitive American slasher on unsuspecting audiences.
The idea of this genre has proven as un-killable as its most famous villains, even after periods of dormancy and reinvention. Somehow, the slasher film always returns.
When you discuss “slasher movies” in the horror community, it quickly becomes apparent that many viewers have very different ideas of what that means.
There are those who act, rather simplistically, as if the genre doesn’t officially exist until "Halloween" in 1978, giving Carpenter the lion’s share of credit.
On the other extreme, there are those who claim that Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho" or Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom" were full-on slasher films 18 years earlier.
WHAT IS THE FIRST TRUE, UNDENIABLE EXAMPLE OF A "SLASHER MOVIE"?
"Black Christmas" (1974)
The film that is typically cited as the first full-on “slasher", is Bob Clark’s 1974 "Black Christmas" as unlike "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" released in the same year, which played out as more of a True Crime documentary than a traditional slasher film.
George Archainbaud's "Thirteen Women" (1932) tells the story of a sorority whose former members are set against one another by a vengeful peer who crosses out their yearbook photos, a device used in subsequent films "Prom Night" (1980) and "Graduation Day" (1981).
Early examples include a maniac seeking revenge in "The Terror" (1928), based on the play by Edgar Wallace.
Herschell Gordon Lewis, the “godfather of gore,” was the leading pioneer of the American torture/“splatter” sub-genre of horror movies, so it’s likely no surprise that his films would seem analogous to slashers from a pure violence standpoint, that they'd have more blood and guts than anything else you’ll be able to find from the time period.
"Blood Feast" 1963, is the first of the splatter films, about a crazed chef who kills people to be served in a cannibalistic feast to an ancient goddess.
However, in terms of structure, "Blood Feast" is less slasher and more like an American extension of Italy’s giallo genre, albeit gorier and under an exploitation mindset.
The story has no final girl, and largely follows the police as they look for the killer, giving it more of a “crime film” vibe, with the added titillation of over-the-top viscera and nudity.
"Psycho" was a significant cultural milestone, and not the sort of thing that many directors were willing to try ripping off in the years that immediately followed but William Castle wasn’t “most directors.”
The shameless king of horror gimmickry couldn’t resist trying to put his own spin on Hitchcock, which resulted in this Joan Crawford-starring film "Strait-Jacket" 1964 , combining the psychological identity themes of "Psycho" with the expectations of the emerging “psycho-biddy” genre following 1962’s "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane"?
Throw in a series of axe-murders, and it’s fair to question if this would qualify as a slasher movie.
Ultimately, this is one of those cases where the killer’s motivation is very un-slasher-like, as the crimes eventually lead to a desire to frame someone for personal reasons, with the killer murdering people in order to arrange her own marriage.
Likewise, "Strait-Jacket"’s killings are spaced out and well publicized, with a corresponding police investigation, which we’ve already established isn’t common for the genre.
"Strait-Jacket" is ultimately just a collection of whatever elements Castle thought would work at the moment.
One of the most influential gialli ever made, Mario Bava’s "Blood and Black Lace" (1964) is a sumptuous-looking film that initially plays very much like a slasher. It has a cast of nubile young ladies, all of whom are stalked by a shadowy, masked figure. It has long, drawn-out sequences of pursuit and killing that would fit right in with later slashers. The film, however, has no final girl, because it more or less kills off all of its protagonists by the time we reach the third act.
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
This is because "Blood and Black Lace" eventually shifts its focus onto the killers themselves, revealing that their motivations are quite concrete and logical:
They kill for money, for love and due to personal betrayal.
Likewise, the killers eventually turn against each other, leaving us without a traditional protagonist.
This movie remains a classic of the genre, and the style in which its killings are shot can be considered major slasher influences, but it ultimately falls well short of the “slasher” designation.
"10 Little Indians" (1965) is more of a thriller than it is a genuine horror film, this adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1939 detective novel of the same name bears mentioning for a convention that is very common to slashers: bringing a bunch of people together in a remote locale, where they’re killed one by one.
"10 Little Indians", though, has more in common with an Old Dark House or “mastermind revenge” movie, in the mold of 1939’s "The Man They Could Not Hang", in that the killings are to some degree justified by the fact that the “victims” are revealed to be criminals themselves. So too are the death methods very unlike those in slasher films, as you won’t find a slasher killer using poison (or guns) to hunt their quarry.
Slasher killings are considerably more intimate and personal than simply shooting someone in the head.
The U.K. film "Fright" (1971) is an interesting case, given that it contains several elements that will be echoed by two of the earliest and most important slashers.
The fact that it follows a babysitter character can’t help but evoke "Halloween", while the threatening calls received by the heroine pre-date "Black Christmas" while drawing from the same source material of the “babysitter and the man upstairs” urban legend.
"Fright" (1971)
It’s certainly a horror film, but it stops short of “slasher,” notably because it has no body count and only a single killing.
Still, it wouldn’t take many changes to make this one fit our criteria.
The babysitter (Susan George) is close to being a final girl, even if she eventually defeats the killer by shooting him.
Add in a cast of supporting characters to be murdered, and you’d be most of the way there.
It’s closer to an early version of "When a Stranger Calls" than it is "Halloween".
Mario Bava pushed the boundaries of gore and violence in the giallo genre forward in a big way via "A Bay of Blood", a.k.a. "Twitch of the Death Nerve" (1971) (we’re only seven years past his "Blood and Black Lace"), with the kills getting way more gruesome than in that film, looking like they would be right at home in any golden age 1980s slasher.
In fact, they were, as 1981’s "Friday the 13th Part 2" blatantly copies not one but two of these kills, first the machete to the face, and then the instantly iconic impalement of two lovers mid-coitus.
If you’re scoring the kills alone, then "A Bay of Blood" is totally a slasher film.
But once you take a look at the wider plot, "A Bay of Blood" starts to disqualify itself. There is no real final girl—as in "Blood and Black Lace", it ends up being a film about a bunch of self-destructive, greedy people without a true protagonist. The killings are also committed for financial gain and inheritance, which is just about the least valid slasher villain motivation there is. Although the film has kills that would eventually go on to get copied exactly in the slasher genre, a group of people fighting to inherit a bay does not a slasher film make.
Another interesting selection, one that comes quite close to meeting all of our slasher criteria, "Home For the Holidays" (1972)is an obscure TV horror movie which revolves around a family patriarch (Walter Brennan) who believes his second wife is plotting to kill him.
He summons his daughters (including Sally Field and Jessica Walter) to the family mansion, but when they arrive, people start dying, one by one, attacked by a mystery figure in a yellow rain slicker.
"Home For the Holidays" (1972)
The disguised killer has a particularly “slasher” feel, possessing the sort of unique look essential for the genre, but the motivations for the killings are eventually revealed to primarily stem from family drama and greed, rather than from a typically psychotic slasher origin point.
Nor do the killings themselves really possess the flair that is typical for the genre, though it’s the film’s unconventional ending that ultimately pushes it further from the slasher camp and into the realm of psychological thriller.
"Torso" (1973)
The first film to adequately meet all of the slasher criteria, thereby qualifying as the undeniably “first” slasher movie is not a work by Carpenter, or Hitchcock, or even Bob Clark. It’s a giallo, and not a well-known entry from Bava, Argento or Fulci. No, it’s Sergio Martino by a nose!
"Torso" is a gritty 1973 feature that fills in the slasher blanks that Bava’s "A Bay of Blood" couldn’t quite complete. It contains so many slasher bonafides that we simply can’t withhold the title from it.
"Torso" takes place in central Italy, where a spate of killings at a college campus lead to a group of risque, sexually promiscuous young women sequestering themselves in a remote country mansion until the crimes blow over.
Little do they know, they’ve been followed into the countryside by the masked killer, who proceeds to stalk one girl in particular, Jane (Suzy Kendall), trapping her in the home with all her friends as they’re murdered and dismembered.
"Torso" has all the little flourishes you expect in a genuine slasher: killer’s POV shots; extremely graphic killings; a secluded location; constant themes of voyeurism; a masked killer; an actual final girl; and, finally, you have a killer whose initial crimes are revealed to have been for logical—if deeply misogynistic—reasons, but who then develops a taste for murder and goes totally crazy, killing for pleasure.
This isn’t a guy seeking a payoff, or an inheritance.
He feels more like a supernatural spectre or silhouette, one that evokes the outline of both Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers.
"Torso" is by no means a cinematic masterpiece, nor is it a gold standard for slasher tropes.
The final girl, for instance, doesn’t participate much in the killer’s defeat, but even Laurie Strode was saved by Dr. Loomis in "Halloween".
It’s a true slasher and a giallo all at once, much as Michele Soavi’s "Stage Fright" would be in 1987.
If you consider yourself a student of slasher history, "Torso" is a film to immediately place on your to-do list.
WHY DO PEOPLE LOVE SLASHER FILMS SO MUCH?
The appeal of watching people inflict violence upon each other dates back thousands of years to Ancient Rome, though fictionalized accounts became marketable with late 19th century horror plays produced at the Grand Guignol.
Maurice Tourneur's "The Lunatics" (1912) used visceral violence to attract the Guignol's audience.
In the United States, public outcry over films like this eventually led to the passage of the Hays Code in 1930.
The Hays Code is one of the entertainment industry's earliest set of guidelines restricting sexuality and violence deemed unacceptable.
Crime writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, influenced horror literature with her novel "The Circular Staircase" (1908), which was adapted into the silent film "The Bat" (1926), about guests in a remote mansion menaced by a killer in a grotesque mask.
Its success led to a series of "old dark house" films including "The Cat and the Canary" (1927), based on John Willard's 1922 stage play, and Universal Pictures' "The Old Dark House" (1932), based on the novel by J.B. Priestley.
In both films, the town dwellers are pitted against strange country folk, a recurring theme in later horror films.
Along with the "madman on the loose" plotline, these films employed several influences upon the slasher genre, such as lengthy point of view shots and a "sins of the father" catalyst to propel the plot's mayhem.
HOW DID THE TERM "FINAL GIRL" COME TO REPRESENT THE HEROINE IN SLASHER GENRE?
The final girl trope is discussed in film studies as being a young woman (occasionally a young man) left alone to face the killer's advances in the movie's end.
Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the heroine in "Halloween", is an example of a typical final girl.
Final girls are often, like Laurie Strode, virgins among sexually active teens who is a paragon of virtue to balance out the pure evil of the antagonist.
Sometimes that role of final girl is arguably split between multiple characters, as in a film like "The Slumber Party Massacre".
Rarely, the final girl is a boy, as in "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2" but the rest of the same rules apply.
The core victim pool, meanwhile, is classically made up of younger people or teens, who are “behaving badly” in some way that flouts the rules of polite society, often by indulging in sex, drug use or hedonistic living.
The final girl stands out in this group by behaving more virtuously, responsibly or tentatively than her friends.
Some of The Best Slasher Films of the 80's
"Scream" Ghostface (1996)
Several slasher film villains grew to take on villain protagonist characteristics, with the series following the continued efforts of a villain, rather than the killer's victims (for example, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Chucky, and Leatherface).
The "Scream" film series is a rarity that follows its heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) rather than masked killer Ghostface, whose identity changes from film to film, and is only revealed in each entry's finale.
You're All Doomed: The Story Of The '80s Slasher Craze
Everybody's A Suspect: The Slasher Revival Of The Late '90s
THE HISTORY, BACKSTORY AND TIMELINE OF JASON VOORHEES AND FRIDAY THE 13TH
Now that we are caught up on the history of the slasher genre, we can fully delve into one of the most memorable and icon villains of the slasher genre Jason Voorhees from the horror classic "Friday The 13th".
When you think "Friday The 13th" you immediately think Jason Voorhees and his hockey mask.
But for those in the know, Jason Voorhees did not actually appear as the unstoppable, hockey masked, killing machine that we have grown to know and love, until "Friday The 13TH Part 2" in 1981 and did not get his iconic hockey mask until "Friday The 13TH Part 3" in 1982, even though he did briefly appear as the boy in the lake at the end of "Friday The 13th".
"Friday The 13th' carried a dark secret that would not only redefine the horror genre but would eventually cement the rise of the horror icon.
"Friday The 13th" was very clever to turn their slowly developing story of a psychotic madman, into a bit of a dramatic soap opera of sorts, something that the horror genre had not seen at this point.
From a grief stricken mother (Pamela Voorhees) going on a killing rampage to avenge her son Jason's death, to a young, previously believed dead, Jason, having to personally witness the execution of his beloved mother right before his very eyes, has all of the makings of a plot line that you might have seen on a daytime soap opera like "All My Children", "Guiding Light" or "As The World Turns".
According to mythology, the number 13 has long been considered unlucky.
But thanks to the "Friday the 13th" movie franchise, horror lovers around the world have reclaimed this day as a celebration.
That being said, after all these years and so many sequels, it can be hard to remember what really happened in all the "Friday the 13th" movies.
Let's dive into Crystal Lake and take a look at the entire "Friday the 13th" story, finally explained.
The concept for "Friday the 13th" began as nothing more than a title. "A Long Night at Camp Blood" was the working title Victor Miller used while he drafted a script, but Cunningham believed in his "Friday the 13th" moniker and rushed to place an advertisement in International Variety.
Sean Cunningham’s "Friday the 13th" (1980) is one of the most iconic franchises of the slasher era, but the timeline of the events quickly becomes convoluted—beginning with the first sequel. A closer breakdown of the series in order of release, without benefit of retconning information created in later films, reveals several interesting facts some fans have let pass with little notice.
When "Friday the 13th" was released by Paramount Pictures on May 9th, 1980, it was an immediate box office hit.
The low budget film that Cunningham made in response to the huge success of John Carpenter's "Halloween" (1978) was given a strong marketing push by the studio.
The television commercials and print ads created audience awareness uncommon for such an under-the-radar film with no marketable stars.
The violent shocker ended up grossing nearly $40 million domestically, easily making the top twenty of film releases that year.
The original film spawned seven sequels under the Paramount banner, three follow-ups, sans the "Friday the 13th" title, after New Line Cinema acquired the rights to the Jason Voorhees character, and one reboot from Platinum Dunes.
Though the original eight films were made in quick succession, adhering to a loose continuity, the timeline of events was often left up to the whim of the assigned screenwriter.
Going in sequential order, and disregarding novelizations, comic books and video games, the cinematic "Friday the 13th" timeline is both wildly inconsistent and rarely representative of its title date.
1957, 1958, 1962: Pre-Crystal Lake Massacre
In the original "Friday the 13th", a very specific timeline is created regarding the events that happened before Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) murdered seven Camp Crystal Lake employees, including owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer).
Kindly truck driver Enos (Rex Everhart) offers up the years of significant bad luck events that have haunted the camp over the years. “A boy drowned…” in 1957.
A year later, sometime in 1958, two counselors were murdered – as seen in the opening of "Friday the 13th".
Though no specific date is given, it is interesting to note that there was a Friday, June 13th in 1958.
In 1962, the camp almost reopened, but “the water was bad”.
There is also a mention of some fires that affected the camp as well.
These occurrences, aside from the 1957 drowning, are inferred to be the work of Mrs. Voorhees in an attempt to keep the camp closed.
June 13th 1980: Friday The 13th The Present
After the opening credits of "Friday the 13th", a graphic reads: Friday, June 13: The Present.
One would assume that the present would mean the year the film was released: 1980.
Since June of that year did, indeed, have an actual Friday that fell on the 13th, it’s a safe assumption that the original film takes place on this specific date.
While the true age of Jason when he drowned is unknown, Mrs. Voorhees states that “today is his birthday”.
However, it is believed that Jason was only eleven years old when he allegedly drowned.
This gives some weight in her choosing this particular date for revenge, though later films would not place much significance on the actual day.
After the original film, the Friday the 13th date in the titles became more of a symbolic reference.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH"
(Originally released on May 9, 1980)
Two counselors at Camp Crystal Lake are murdered in 1958, and the camp is closed.
Attempts to reopen the camp fail because of arson and contaminated water.
In 1979, another attempt is being made to open the camp.
On Friday the 13th, the counselors hired to work there are killed off one by one.
The killer: Pamela Sue Voorhees, whose 11-year-old son, Jason, allegedly drowned while swimming at the camp in 1957.
Voorhees faults two counselors, who she believes were making love instead of supervising children who were swimming in the lake.
The lone survivor of the camp massacres is a woman named Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) who decapitates Mrs. Voorhees with a machete — in slow-motion.
BODY COUNT: 12
Jason: (Ari Lehman)
Final Girl: Alice Hardy (Adrienne King)
Famous cast members: Betsy Palmer and Kevin Bacon
Box office: $39.7 million
August 1980: Friday The 13th Part 2 (Pre-Credit Sequence)
Final girl Alice Hardy, the sole survivor of the Crystal Lake Massacre, is killed by Jason. According to Paul (John Furey) in "Friday the 13th Part 2", Alice went missing from her apartment two months after the tragic events.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2"
(Originally released on May 1, 1981)
Alice lasts about five minutes as Jason tracks her down and avenges his mother's death.
Five years later, teens arrive for counselor training at a camp adjacent to Camp Crystal Lake.
People start getting sliced and diced. Virginia "Ginny" Field (Amy Steel) runs into the woods and ends up with Jason in his shack.
She confuses him by pretending to be Jason's mother, kills him and escapes.
But Jason never dies.
He shows up and attacks her again, and she is carted off by the authorities at the film's end.
What happened to Jason? To be continued.
Though "Friday the 13th Part 2" takes place five years later, at a training camp for counselors on Crystal Lake, the specific date is never mentioned, already making the title purely symbolic. Looking at the actual calendar year for 1985, there were only two months that did include specific Fridays that fell on the 13th—September and December.
Given the rather arbitrary time jump, it seems screenwriter Ron Kurz could have worked in a fictional date to match the film’s title, but the “bad luck/birthday” angle was quickly abandoned.
BODY COUNT: 10
Jason: Steve Dash though Warrington Gillette is credited as Jason, Steve Dash shot most of the scenes as Jason.
Final Girl: Virginia "Ginny" Field (Amy Steele)
Box office: $21.7 million
1983: Friday The 13th Part 3 In 3-D (Flashback)
Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmel) reveals to her boyfriend, Rick (Paul Kratka), that she was attacked by a deformed man (Jason), prompting her to leave Crystal Lake.
Spring 1985: Friday The 13th Part 2
It is also interesting to note that Paul also reveals that it has been five years since Alice has gone missing.
This is where the timeline begins to unravel.
Director Steve Miner, who would go on to direct the heavily re-written "Halloween: H20", has stated that they intentionally moved the timeline forward several years to give Jason a chance to get older, but this reason doesn’t make much sense.
Jason is clearly an adult in the opening segment, which took place the same year as the original film. "Friday the 13th" took place 23 years after Jason supposedly drowned, so at the very least, Jason would have been in his early 30s at that time.
Spring 1985: Friday The 13th Part 3 In 3-D
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3" IN 3-D
(Originally released on August 13, 1982)
Picking up the day after the events of "Friday the 13th Part 2", this 3-D entry follows unstoppable killer Jason Voorhees as he terrorizes young adults in a family cabin near Crystal Lake.
Aside from Chris mentioning her ordeal with Jason in the woods two years prior, there is no specific date to these events.
Jason’s reign of terror, which began the night before at Camp Packanack, the counselor training camp and ostensibly ended at his forest hideaway, simply continues.
A woman named Chris revisits her summer home in the woods.
A couple of her friends upset a motorcycle gang.
Jason happens to be in her barn and starts killing her friends and the bikers.
The film is shot in 3-D, giving the murders some added flair.
Chris eventually buries an ax in Jason's head, and he is taken away by the police.
BODY COUNT:12
Jason: Richard Brooker
Final Girl: Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmel)
Box office: $36.7 million
Spring 1985: Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter
"FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER"
(Originally released on April 13, 1984)
Unlike the ending of "Friday the 13th Part 2", where Jason was nowhere to be found, his presumed dead body is taken from the farmhouse and delivered to the morgue.
The killer, who has changed body type, clothing, and choice of mask in the two days he’s been stalking, is still alive.
The third night of the prolific killer’s epic spree has him murdering his way out of the morgue, only to find his way back to Crystal Lake the next day. "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" takes place primarily on day four of the 1985 killing spree.
Adding more confusion to the timeline is the introduction of Pamela Voorhees’ tombstone, discovered by a fresh set of young victims.
The stone reads: “Pamela Voorhees, 1930 – 1979, At rest.”
Much has been made of this decision, which contradicts the original film’s 1980 date when she was killed.
Some fans have gone as far as retconning the entire timeline to explain this mistake, which is a bit extreme considering the comic book logic of the series as it progressed.
Another odd timeline discrepancy in "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" happens with the character of Rob (Erich Anderson).
It turns out that Rob’s sister was Sandra Dier (Marta Kober), the counselor-in-training who was impaled in bed with her boyfriend Jeff Dunsberry in "Friday the 13th Part 2".
Rob appears to have been investigating Jason’s antics for a while, even carrying with him a half dozen articles on his crimes.
His sister was killed a mere three days before, based on the timeline, which makes his knowledge of the killer—an unknown phantom until two days prior—highly unlikely.
It also makes multiple articles on Jason Voorhees rather suspect.
In the filmmaker’s defense, the franchise was in its fourth year, making the official timeline easy to forget.
In "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" Jason wakes up at the morgue, kills two folks and heads on his merry way back to Crystal Lake.
The Jarvis family is there, as is a group of sex-obsessed teens who are renting a cabin.
Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) is a 12 year old boy, who likes horror make-up, turns himself into a young Jason look-alike.
The ruse works long enough for he and his sister, Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck), to put a machete into Jason's head.
BODY COUNT: 13
Jason: Ted White
Final Girl: Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck) and for the first time, a Final Guy: Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman)
Famous cast members: Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover
Box office: $30.3 million
1985 – 1991: Crystal Lake Becomes Forest Green
1990: Friday The 13th: A New Beginning
After another five year jump, the fifth
chapter in the slasher saga begins with Corey Feldman reprising his role as Tommy Jarvis in a nightmare sequence.
Having killed Jason for certain in the previous installment, Tommy continues to have nightmares about that fateful night.
12-year-old Tommy is now 17, and played by actor John Shepherd, who is sent to a halfway house where the patients are systematically killed by someone wearing a hockey mask.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING"
(Originally released on March 22, 1985)
Tommy believes that Jason is alive.
A house inmate kills another, and the victim's father Roy Burns comes for the body.
More inmates are killed in methods strikingly similar to Jason's but the killer is a dead inmate's disturbed father, who is dressed like Jason.
Tommy and two others kill him.
Tommy is still plagued by violent dreams and we see him put on a hockey mask and kill Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman) . Was it just a dream?
BODY COUNT: 22
Who we think is Jason: Roy Burns (Dick Wieand)
Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) and Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman) and Dudley from TV's "Different Strokes" himself, Reggie Winter (Shavar Ross)
Box office: $20.6 million
1991 "Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives"
Though not exactly clear on the timing, "Friday the 13th: VI Jason Lives" picks up about a year after "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning".
Tommy Jarvis, now 20 and played by Thom Mathews, is still in the care of an institution; this is referenced by his friend, Allen (Ron Palilio), in the beginning of the film.
Hoping to stop his hallucinations of the killer, Tommy drives to the cemetery where Jason is buried.
Tommy and a friend dig up Jason's grave, Tommy wants to make sure that Jason is really dead.
In a fit of rage, he uses a cemetery gate rod to stab the corpse.
Lightning hits the rod, which inadvertently awakens the sleeping, seemingly undead killer.
Jason’s tombstone simply has his name written on it, avoiding any continuity issues.
However, Deputy Cologne does mention that the date is Friday the 13th, which would not have worked in the context of this timeline?
However, there was a Friday the 13th in June of 1986, the year the film was released theatrically.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES"
(Originally released on August 1, 1986)
The sheriff Mike Garris (David Kagen) thinks Tommy is responsible for Jason's latest round of killings.
With the help of the sheriff's rebellious daughter Megan Garris (Jennifer Cooke), Tommy chains Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake, where the killer drowns.
Eventually, with the aid of Megan, Tommy confronts Jason on Crystal Lake after his killing spree. Tommy uses a chain to tie a boulder to Jason's neck to keep him underwater.
Jason however pulls Tommy from his boat into the lake and drowns him, thus ending poor Tommy's lucky survival streak through three movies.
Unfortunately, Tommy Jarvis's story ends here and he will not live to see another "Friday The 13th" movie.
THE SAD LEGACY OF TOMMY JARVIS
SHOCK ROCK MASTER ALICE COOPER MADE THE TITLE TRACK.
"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" is a song by American shock rock musician Alice Cooper. It was released as the lead single from his 1986 album "Constrictor", and the theme song of "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives".
The song is heard various times throughout the film and in the end credits.
Two other songs, "Teenage Frankenstein" (also from "Constrictor") and "Hard Rock Summer" (which remained commercially unreleased until 1999) are also featured in the film.
The song features the famous "ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma" (admittedly in its popular misheard version, "ch-ch-ch, ha-ha-ha") sound effect, a trademark of the "Friday the 13th" series.
The song is well known for its music video, which combines clips from "Jason Lives" with original footage featuring Cooper performing the song and Jason Voorhees played, as he is in the film, by C. J. Graham menacing teenagers at a midnight showing of "Jason Lives".
Some of the film footage features the Paintball scene where Jason was played by Dan Bradley, which was filmed before he was replaced by Graham.
This video was not present on any home media release until 2020 when Shout Factory's line Scream Factory released it as a bonus feature on their "Friday the 13th" deluxe box set.
BODY COUNT: 18
Jason: C.J. Graham and Dan Bradley
Final Girl: Megan Garris (Jennifer Cooke)
Famous cast members: Ron Palillo was Arnold Horshack in TV's "Welcome Back Kotter"; Tony Goldwyn played the bad guy Carl Bruner in "Ghost."
Box office: $19 million
October 1991: Friday The 13th: The New Blood (Flashback)
Jennifer Banko, who portrayed Tina Shepard as a child in the opening flashback of "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood", went on to play Leatherface's daughter in the 1990 sequel "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III".
A “flashback” at the beginning of the film reveals Jason still at the bottom of the lake before focusing on the Shepherd lake house.
A young Tina Shepherd (Jennifer Banko) runs from the house after hearing her father yelling at her mother.
A calendar outside the front door shows that the date is October 13.
However, the 13th did not fall on a Friday in October of that particular calendar year.
Tina ends up killing her father through a telekinetic rage, sending him to the bottom of Crystal Lake.
2001: Friday The 13th: The New Blood
A teenaged Tina Shepherd (Lar Park-Lincoln) returns to the lake house several years later as part of her therapy.
Though there are no specific ages given, Tina is at least 8 to 10 years older.
Director John Carl Buechler has stated that Jason was at the bottom of the lake for at least ten years before he was reawakened, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD"
(Originally released on May 13, 1988)
Tina possesses telekinetic powers like Carrie White in Stephen King's horror classic "Carrie".
Through her telekinetic powers, Tina reawakens the dormant Jason, who proceeds to murder several more people.
Tina believes she is responsible for her father's death by drowning at Crystal Lake.
She returns to Crystal Lake in an attempt to bring back her father.
Jason surfaces instead, and a great deal of killing ensues.
Tina finally gets her dad to come up for air, and he pulls Jason back into the lake.
BODY COUNT: 15
Jason: Kane Hodder
Final Girl: Tina Shepherd (Lar Park-Lincoln)
Box office: $19.1 million
2002: Friday The 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan
Jason is once again reawakened from a respite in Crystal Lake, this time from an electrical line. He hitches a ride on a cruise ship, taking a group of graduating seniors to New York.
Given the year of the film's release, 2002 Manhattan looks a lot like 1989 Vancouver.
This is the true end of the official "Friday the 13th"-branded timeline, but a psycho killer won't stay down for long.
Plus, the franchise was too popular and successful not to continue.
"FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN"
(Originally released on July 28, 1989)
A high school group goes on a cruise to New York.
One female student remembers almost being drowned by Jason, who apparently didn't drown in the previous film.
Jason happens to be a stowaway, intending to take care of some unfinished business.
Jason sinks the boat and many of the students with it.
The survivors make it to Manhattan, as does Jason.
He eventually gets caught in toxic waste in the sewer.
We watch as he turns to bones.
Is this truly the end of Jason Voorhees?
BODY COUNT: 19 (not counting those who went down with the ship)
Jason: Kane Hodder
Final Girl: Renie Wickham (Jensen Daggett)
Box office: $14.3 million
2006: Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
When New Line Cinema took over the Jason character, the original timeline seems to have been disregarded.
Since the actual film was released four years after the final Paramount production, 2006 is a speculative bet, though the entire movie looks like a '90’s Canadian television series.
Jason’s background is filled in with busy nonsense, including a half-sister and the Necronomicon.
When Freddy Krueger’s glove reaches up to take Jason’s mask down to hell for a planned shared universe, time no longer seems to matter.
"JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY"
(Originally released on August 13, 1993)
Jason's remains are sent to a morgue, where his still-beating heart entices the coroner to eat it, allowing the killer's soul to possess him.
Jason, in the coroner's body, escapes the morgue, killing another coroner and two FBI guards in the process.
An all-out FBI attack blows up Jason, but his heart allows him to possess the bodies of others. Creighton Duke realizes that Jason is still alive and that the killer can live again by possessing his relatives' bodies.
He also knows that only a Voorhees can destroy Jason for good.
Jason kills Diana Voorhees (Erin Gray), his sister, and her corpse is the vehicle for his rebirth. Jason then goes after niece Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan) and her baby Stephanie Keegan (Brooke Scher).
Jessica stabs Jason with a special dagger and sends him to hell.
While Voorhees switches bodies throughout the film, Jessica manages to avoid death, but she needs express assistance from her husband Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay) to defeat the evil slasher.
Later, a dog unearths Jason's mask while digging in the dirt.
Freddy Krueger's ("A Nightmare On Elm Street") laugh is heard as his gloved hand bursts out of the dirt and pulls Jason's mask into hell, thus setting the stage for the "Freddy Vs. Jason" movie.
If you're a hard-core fan, you'll know Mark & Brian were radio DJs who loved horror flicks.
They were able to score a role in "Jason Goes To Hell" as the two cops who had a gruesome demise.
This promo poster was a cross promotional deal Mark & Brian had with New Line Cinema to promote the movie.
BODY COUNT: 22
Jason: Kane Hodder
Final Girl: Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan) her baby Stephanie Keegan (Brooke Scher) and Jessica's husband Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay)
Famous cast member: Erin Gray appeared on TV's "Silver Spoons." and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" just to name a few.
Box office: $15.1 million
2006: Freddy Vs. Jason
Though the timing is sketchy, this long-in-planning match-up supposedly takes place mere months after "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday" .
Though made an entire decade after that release, it seems that the two slasher titans, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, were only forced to share space in hell for the time span of a summer break.
Though the series’ timeline is incoherent, at least all of the films happened in chronological order until this release.
2010: Jason X (Beginning)
I don't understand the fascination with wanting to send horror icons into space?
In 1996, they sent the Leprechaun into space in "Leprechaun 4 Leprechaun In Space".
I wonder if this is where they got the idea to send Jason flying among the stars?
Super killer Jason is still alive, but was captured and cryogenically frozen.
Before being frozen, Jason was taken in for study, and went on one last killing spree after breaking free of his restraints.
Now we fast forward and I mean hyper-speed fast forward to the year 2455.
SINCE THE TIMELINE ENDS AT JASON X. I HAVE DECIDED TO LEAVE THESE LAST THREE MOVIES BELOW BY ORDER OF RELEASE DATE.
2455: "Jason X" (2002)
(Originally released on April 26, 2002)
In "Jason X" the frozen killer Jason is discovered and inexplicably taken aboard the Grendel, a spaceship on its way to Earth Two.
Jason thaws out and begins another reign of terror—this time in outer space.
Rowan was a scientist working for the U.S. government, and the project leader of a group running experiments on Jason Voorhees, an undead mass murderer who had been held captive since 2008 in the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility.
She attempted to execute Jason several times, but to no avail due to Jason's regenerative capabilities.
In 2010, Rowan decided to cryogenically freeze Jason until they could decide what to do with him but was stopped from doing so by her superiors, who planned to conduct further research into Jason's immortality and regenerative powers for profit.
However, this plan failed when Jason broke free of his restraints and killed a team of soldiers meant to transport him to another facility, leaving only Rowan on the receiving end of Jason's wrath.
Rowan managed to evade Jason and cornered him in the cryonic chamber.
Taking the killer by surprise, Rowan knocked Jason into a cryonics pod, sealed him in, and activated it.
However, before the process was complete, Jason sliced through the door with his machete and stabbed Rowan in the abdomen, critically wounding her.
With the containment breached, the room automatically sealed, and cryonics fluid spilled into the room, Rowan was frozen along with Jason.
In the year 2455, a group of students on a field trip from Earth II came to the facility and discovered the frozen bodies of Jason and Rowan, subsequently taking both back to their ship, the Grendel.
Though Jason was pronounced dead, Rowan was subjected to regenerative nanotechnology process which simultaneously reanimated her and healed her stomach wound.
The shocked and confused Rowan was then brought up to speed.
However, it quickly turned out that the initial assumptions of Jason being dead were wrong. Jason awoke in the morgue and quickly went about his usual business: killing anyone and everyone unlucky enough to cross paths with him.
Just as Rowan and two students were cornered, Jason was attacked by the android KM-14, who easily overpowered Jason and apparently killed him by blasting off his right arm, left leg, a portion of the right side of his chest, and most of his head.
Unfortunately, KM-14 unwittingly knocked Jason into a medical station, which subjected him to the same nanotechnology procedure used to reanimate Rowan and resurrected him as Über-Jason, as even more powerful cyborg.
Weylander activated preset charges that blew up the ship, but even these were not enough to stop Jason, who quickly returned only to be distracted by a virtual reality simulation of Camp Crystal Lake and dragged into the atmosphere of Earth II by Sgt. Brodski, where both are apparently killed by the heat of atmospheric reentry.
Rowan, one of the few survivors left at this time, contemplated her new life and subsequently settled down on Earth II with a fresh start.
BODY COUNT: 25
Jason: Kane Hodder
Final Girl: Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig)
Box office: $17.1 million
"Freddy Vs. Jason"
(Originally released on August 13, 2003)
For the first time in four consecutive "Friday The 13th" movies, Kane Hodder would not reprise his iconic role as Jason Voorhees, instead Jason would be played by Ken Kirzinger.
Two horror icons face off in this supernatural movie.
Disfigured serial killer Freddy Krueger ( "A Nightmare On Elm Street") (Robert Englund), who attacks his victims in their dreams, has lost much of his power since citizens of his town have become less afraid of him.
Enlisting the help of fellow violent murderer Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger), Freddy orchestrates a new killing spree.
However, when the hockey-mask-wearing psychopath won't stop chopping up Freddy's intended victims, the two ghouls start to battle each other.
BODY COUNT: 24
Jason: Ken Kirzinger
Freddy: Robert Englund
Final Girl: Lori Campbell (Monica Keena)
Box office: $116.6 million
"FRIDAY THE 13TH" 2009 REBOOT
(Originally released on February 13, 2009)
The 2009 reboot of "Friday the 13th", directed by Marcus Nispel, condensed the first three films, more or less, into a modern retelling.
The original Crystal Lake massacre, referenced visually at the beginning of the film, takes audiences back to the original date on the timeline: Friday, June 13th 1980.
As this is the ideal way to end the convoluted slasher timeline, Jason’s murder spree then picks up roughly 30 years later when the reboot was released.
Against the advice of locals and police, Clay (Jared Padalecki) scours the eerie woods surrounding Crystal Lake for his missing sister.
But the rotting cabins of an abandoned summer camp are not the only things he finds.
Hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees lies in wait for a chance to use his razor-sharp machete on Clay and the group of college students who have come to the forest to party.
The final two survivors, Clay and Whitney, manage to chain Jason up, stab him with his own machete , and send him through the wood chipper.
The scene fades into dawn, where Clay and Whitney rest on the boating dock on Crystal Lake.. Ignorantly, they dump Jason's body, his mask, and his mother's locket into the lake.
When Whitney drops the locket into the lake she begins to cry.
Then, all of a sudden, just as they are about to leave, Jason - still alive and very angry, rips through the dock and grabs Whitney, leaving the fate of all 3 characters unknown.
BODY COUNT: 14
Jason: Derek Mears
Final Girl: Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) and his sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti)
Box office: $92.7 million
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