Jason Voorhees
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| Friday the 13th character | |
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| Jason Voorhees | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Race | Caucasian |
| Height: | 6'1" - 6'5". (est)[1] [2] |
| Weight: | 250 lbs. (est)[3] |
| Location | Camp Crystal Lake |
| Weapon of Choice: | Machete |
| Portrayed by: | Friday the 13th: Ari Lehman (child) Friday the 13th Part 2: Warrington Gillette (unmasked) & Steve Daskewisz (masked) & Ellen Lutter (one scene) Friday the 13th Part 3: Richard Brooker Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: Ted White Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: Tom Morga Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: C. J. Graham (most of the film) & Dan Bradley (Paintball sequence) Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Jason X: Kane Hodder & (Part VIII only) Timothy Burr Mirkovich (child) Freddy vs. Jason: Ken Kirzinger & Spencer Stump (child) |
Jason Voorhees (born June 13, 1946 [4]) is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. A vicious mass murderer, he has a presence in all of the films, even when he is not the killer. With his trademark hockey goalie mask and machete, he is arguably among the most recognizable villains from any slasher film. Throughout the series, Jason has never spoken aside from occasional mumbles and groans, and a few words in the eighth and ninth film of the series, the latter when he possessed another man's body. Jason is credited as having been created by Victor Miller, the screenwriter of the first Friday the 13th film, in spite of the fact that he barely appeared in that film and much controversy exists about his creation, with Ron Kurz and Tom Savini all arguing they deserve some of the credit. For his part, Miller has gone on record as saying he has avoided watching the sequel films and that he has great reservations about how Jason has been handled.[5]
In 1992, Jason was awarded the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award. He is one (and the first) of only three known completely fictional characters to be given the award. Godzilla and Chewbacca from the Star Wars series are the other two in that order.[6]
Character history
Childhood years
Template:Spoiler Little about Jason's life prior to his drowning at Camp Crystal Lake has been explored in the films. It is established that he was born June 13, 1946 to Pamela Voorhees. Most other details have been left untouched by the film series, the gaps filled in by the novelizations of the early films (particularly for Part 2). The canonical nature of these novels are unclear, but a few details have been incorporated into later films, such as Elias Voorhees being the name of Jason's father. Outside of the Jason Lives novelization, Elias has not been depicted in any media, his ties to Jason's back-story left unclear in the series, although he was mentioned by name in Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday.
Jason's mental abilities and possible retardation have not been officially addressed, and have been depicted with conflicting evidence by both the films and outside sources. Jason's deformed look and hydrocephalic features are also unclear when taking other sources into consideration. The novelizations are explicit that Jason was born physically normal, having developed the deformation seen onscreen through a "regeneration ability" while he had been at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Adding to this is that Victor Miller has stated that Jason was originally conceived of as a normal child akin to the novelizations.[7] It was Tom Savini who designed the deformed look seen in the film. Supporting this scenerio is the fact that in Jason Takes Manhattan Jason's visage appears frequently to one of the main characters, his appearance growing from normal to deformed with each appearance. Later films, specifically Jason X, have taken the concept of Jason possessing a regenerative ability. Despite this, there has yet to be anything surrounding Jason's drowning directly addressed in the film series. The closest thing that refutes the novels' explanation is in Freddy vs. Jason, the more recent of the films, in which a dream sequence from Jason's own mind depicts him as a young child at the camp with his characteristic deformities. However, how trust-worthy this perspective is left to debate.
The only established facts retained through the films' continuity is that Jason supposedly drowned at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957, his body never found. This incident drives his mother to take revenge on those she feels were responsible. After the camp is closed due to the murder of two counselors she had killed, Mrs. Voorhees goes to great lengths to keep the camp from reopening. Her final attempt is a killing spree that ends with her own decapitation in the sole survivor's act of self-defense.
Resurface
Based on the information given in the films, it's presumed that Jason acts out his first murder on Alice Hardy, the woman responsible for his mother's death just two months earlier. It's further suggested that soon after he retreats to the deserted grounds of Camp Crystal Lake and makes his home in a crudely built shack with his mother's severed head in his possession. It is not until five years later does Jason begin a seemingly unstoppable killing spree when two counselors in the adjacent training center sneak onto the closed off area. This event triggers Jason to leave the grounds to kill over thirty victims during the course of a few days as depicted in the second, third, and fourth films in the series. During his spree there are attempts to stop Jason by the few survivors, but none are entirely successful until a young Tommy Jarvis strikes a machete deep into his skull and then repeatedly striking him again and again. This evidently ends Jason's reign of terror, but the cost is Tommy's own mental health and he spends several years in various mental institutions. It is during this time that Jason has been buried. According to the Jason Lives novelization and screenplay, Jason's father intervened to keep his son from being cremated by paying for a proper burial, where he is laid next to his mother in the Eternal Peace Cemetery.
Return from the grave
As made clear in A New Beginning, in which copycat killer Roy Burns assumes Jason's identity to exact revenge for the death of his son, Tommy Jarvis is still haunted years later by his encounter with Jason. Jason Lives begins with Tommy taking a friend to help him dig up and cremate Jason to make sure that he will not return. However, seeing Jason again stirs memories and Tommy, mirroring his mad attack at the climax of The Final Chapter, stabs the rotting corpse again and again with a metal rod. Soon the rod attracts lightning and the burst of electricity brings Jason back to life in a fashion modeled after Frankenstein. With a stronger and more invulnerable Jason roaming back to the Crystal Lake (renamed Forest Green as part of the town's efforts to distance it from its violent history), Tommy devises a plan. Luring him onto the middle of the lake, returning Jason to where he drowned, and chains him to the bottom of the lake. Tommy assumes Jason is "home" and is never seen in any of the subsequent films.
When The New Blood begins Jason's body remains chained in lake's waters some years later after the events of the previous film. His dormant body is resurrected again via the psychokinesis ability of a young woman who had accidently killed her father with the same powers in the same lake. After using these powers once again to stop Jason, he is brought back again at unspecified time later in the eighth film, Jason Takes Manhattan. Brought to life once more with electricity, he boards a cruise ship named Lazarus and kills several high school graduates on their way to New York, and continues to hunt the few survivors of the sunken ship onto the city's streets. In the climax of the film, Jason is caught up in a flood of toxic waste that is pumped in Manhattan's sewer system. The fate of Jason in this event remains debated as the only evidence of him when the waste clears is a young Jason, free of any deformities. As the film depicts one of the characters seeing flashes of Jason, it is possible that this is a mere psychic allusion and not a physical representation of Jason. The confusion of this ending is furthered by Jason Goes To Hell which begins with Jason already alive, never explaining how he escaped the waste in New York.
Regardless of how he had survived and made his way back to Crystal Lake, the ninth film opens with Jason caught in the sights of the FBI. He is overpowered and quickly blown apart. It is established in the film that though Jason's body has been destroyed, his spirit lays in his untouched heart. It is this physical manifestation of his soul that passes from host-to-host in a quest to find another Voorhees, the only means by which he can be reincarnated into his familiar form; but a Voorhees also possesses the only power to destroy him. Once reborn through his sister's body, his niece takes up a special dagger empowered by her bloodline, and uses it against Jason, sending him to Hell.
Clash with Freddy Krueger
When Freddy vs. Jason beings Jason is living out previous murders while in Hell. During this he is provoked by his mother to "wake up", which results in a physical resurrection. However, it turns out that Jason was brought back not by his mother, but that of Freddy Krueger, the supernatural serial killer of the The Nightmare on Elm Street films who can manipulate dreams. Freddy's objective is to use Jason as a mere tool to kill the children of Springwood so they will be attributed to Krueger and thus produce enough fear to restore his powers. However, Jason turns out to be too much for Freddy to control and Freddy resorts to his renewed powers to bring Jason into his world. The battle ultimately spills out from the dream world into the real world. Though Lori Campbell tries to help Jason in defeating Freddy, both Jason and Freddy fall into the water; Jason from massive wounds and Freddy by Jason impaling him with Freddy's own arm.
Jason is later seen leaving the lake with Freddy's severed head in tow. Because the head is seen winking, the nature of who won remains ambiguous.
The future
While much of the details leading up to his capture are unknown, the tenth film establishes that in the year 2010 Jason is being held in the Crystal Lake Research Facility (built on the site of what was once Camp Crystal Lake). Unable to have him executed due to his regenerative ability, the researchers decree that Jason be held in cryonic suspension. However, he breaks free, but is shortly trapped in a freezing chamber. Over four hundred years later, after Earth had become uninhabitable and its populance relocated to "Earth Two" in a new star system, Jason is found, still frozen by a ship full of students. After being brought on board, and assumed dead, he thaws and begins killing as usual until he is effectively stopped by an android who destroys large portions of his body. However, his remains are abandoned on a bed used to help regenerate tissue. Using the metal around him, the nanotechnology helps to rebuild Jason with an armored body, providing him more strength and seemingly invulnerablity. More unstoppable than before, the remaining survivors of the ship exhaust every effort to hold him back until one of the crew members sacrifices himself by tackling Jason into the atmosphere of the nearby Earth Two.
The fate of Jason after coming into the planet's atmosphere has so far only been addressed in comics and novels, which are not necessarily canon.
Appearances outside the films
Jason has also appeared in other media outside of the film series. Though some of these are adaptions, the canonicity of anything outside of the events depicted onscreen is unknown. These appearance include several comic books and even makes a cameo appearance in the fourth issue of Satan's Six that follows the end of Jason Goes to Hell. He has also starred in two different video games [8] and several books.
Jason has also appeared in other unofficial media. The image of Jason has littered popular culture due to the popularity of the Friday the 13th films. This began with the release of the third film in which the character first wears the hockey mask. Since then the hockey mask itself has become synonymous with the character and therefore the franchise. Often times, the mere appearance of a character wearing a hockey mask, especially when imitating situations from a horror film, evoke the idea of Jason. To this extent the general appearance of Jason has more of an impact in the collective public than any particular film in the series. Images of Jason, or depictions of characters in hockey masks, have appeared in various films and television shows. These are used either for parody or as an homage. Dozens of direct references have been spotted in various media. One website maintains a near-comprehensive list.[9]
The men behind the masks
Much like his masked counterpart Michael Myers, the part of Jason Voorhees has been played by various actors; some uncredited, others taking great pride in their parts. Due to the physical demands the character requires and the lack of emotional depth depicted, it comes as no surprise that almost all of the actors are stuntmen with no pre-existing history solely in acting. The best known among them is Kane Hodder who has become a favorite among fans and is often cited as the best to take up the role [10][11][12].
In the original Friday the 13th Ari Lehman portrayed a young Jason, seen only in a brief flashback and the surprise ending. Although he is not the only actor to portray a young Jason (a role that went to Timothy Burr Mirkovich in Jason Takes Manhattan and Spencer Stump in Freddy vs. Jason) he is the first actor to ever play Jason Voorhees.
For the role of the first adult Jason, some controversy arose over the role in Part 2. While Warrington Gillette is credited as Jason, the majority of the role was actually played by Steve Daskewisz, who was simply credited as the stunt double. Gillette only played the role in the unmasked scene, with Daskewisz playing the role in almost all of the character's other scenes except the opening scene, which was done by Ellen Lutter and some feet, hands and shadow shots done by Jerry Wallace. Although this credit was corrected of sorts in Part 3 (in which Daskewisz is credited as Jason for the reused footage from the climax of the film), this confusion existed for years.
Daskewisz was asked to reprise his role in the third film, but turned it down simply because of the money he would have had to put out during filming and refrained, a decision he says he later regretted.[13] Instead, the role went to Richard Brooker, a trapeze artist, cast simply because of his big frame. He took the role believing that dialogue was not a necessity to acting. [14]
More controversy stirred for the part in The Final Chapter when the role was handed over to professional stuntman Ted White. He refused credit for the role, feeling bad about the treatment of the actors who would play the victims.[15][14] He claims that he took the role solely for the money, not wanting his name on what he called a "piece of shit."[14] Although, he has been cited as later saying that the film came out better than he had expected[14] and is credited in reused footage for later films.
Much like with Part 2, there has been confusion over the role in A New Beginning, partly due to the crediting of the killer and not Jason himself. While Dick Wieand is credited as Roy Burns, the film's actual murderer, it was stuntman Tom Morga who performed in the few flashes of Jason, as well as portraying Roy in almost all but the unmasked scenes. As per Tom Morga, a veteran stuntman John Hock (also known as John Hocks Conrad) did the fall onto the spikes, while an unknown actor played Jason in the opening sequence. Wieand, while not ashamed, has been outspoken about his lack of enthusiasm over his role in the film.[14]
C.J. Graham auditioned for the role in the sixth film. He initially lost the role, but was called back five days later for the role when the hired stuntman, Dan Bradley, failed to give the desired performance[14] (Bradley can still be seen in the paintball sequence in the film). A nightclub owner with a military history, Graham performed almost all of his own stunts in the role. Although he was passed over for reprising the role, he has often been cited as speaking highly of his time in the part, and even willing to reprise the role should he ever be asked.[14][15]
The part was then taken up by Kane Hodder in The New Blood where he carried the role consecutively into Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes To Hell, and Jason X. He remains the only actor to reprise the role. His strong following caused obvious upset among fans when he was turned down for Freddy vs. Jason.
For Freddy vs. Jason, the role went instead to Ken Kirzinger, a Canadian stuntman who worked on Jason Takes Manhattan. There has been conflicting reports over the reason behind the casting of Kirzinger, although many believe that it may have simply been due to his residence in Canada, where the film was shot, and thus done to save money[16][17]. Additionally, according to director Ronny Yu, Kirzinger was hired because he was taller than Freddy actor Robert Englund. Ken stands 6' 5" compared to the 6' 3" of Kane Hodder and Ronny Yu wanted a much larger actor to tower over Englund, even though Englund only stands 5' 10". Yu also wanted someone with more "sympathetic eyes." [18]
Trivia
- The teenagers Jason attacks are typically those who are involving themselves in premarital sex, drinking, or drugs. This seems to be explained in Freddy versus Jason, as when Jason was drowning he could have been saved, if not for the camp counselors at Crystal Lake being too involved in the aforementioned activities to notice his predicament. Some of the novels also hint that Jason's anger comes from resentment of the fact that his deformity prevents him from experiencing these things himself.[citation needed]
- Jason is noted for having the largest body count (or victims killed) than any other horror movie icon. According to www.Fridaythe13thfilms.com [1], the total is 146. This total excludes deaths that he did not commit, dream sequences, and murders committed off screen, which do not explicitely show Jason performing.
References
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0457090/bio Retrieved October 30, 2006
- ^ http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0319068/bio General size 3
- ^ http://www.houseofhorrors.com/jason.htm General belief about size
- ^ Friday the 13th Timeline, with sources
- ^ "Friday the 13th sequels". VictorMiller.com. Retrieved 2007-01-12.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wognBoalu1U Jason awarded the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award
- ^ http://www.campcrystallake.com/interviews/victormiller.htm Victor Miller on Jason's design as a boy.
- ^ http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/c64/2006/f.htm Review of Commodore 64 version
- ^ http://www.fridaythe13thfilms.com/media/references.html. List of other media references.
- ^ Jason X review
- ^ Freddy vs. Jason review
- ^ Retrocrush: The 100 Greatest Horror Movie Performers
- ^ 13 Questions with...Steve Dash
- ^ a b c d e f g Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday - The Official Movie Magazine: "The Other Jasons"
- ^ a b Freddy vs. Jason - The Official Movie Magazine: "Jason's Journeys"
- ^ Arrow in the Head 2003 interview with Kane Hodder
- ^ http://www.horrorseek.com/horror/realm/freddyvsjason.htm
- ^ Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th, Peter M Bracke 2006 ISBN 1845763432
http://www.campblood.shiversofhorror.com
External links
- Friday the 13th Fact Sheet (thejerseydevilfactsheet.com)
- The Many Faces of Jason- a look at the various shots of Jason behind the mask
- A series of clips of all 160 deaths in the Friday the 13th series in chronological order (including Freddy vs. Jason).
- A punk project by ARI LEHMAN
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