Hi. I'm Jason. I like sunsets, easy listening music, and disembowelings. |
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OMG! OMG! OM-F-ING-G!!! You know what I just found out? A new FRIDAY THE 13TH movie is on the table! I'm as excited as when Navin Johnson (Steve Martin in THE JERK) found his name in the phone book! I'm so happy I could kiss a crooked producer! Damn straight I grew up on this stuff. Without Jason Voorhees, it's quite possible that I'd never see a wheelchair-bound teen take a machete to the face. Think of the void that might have left...
Please tell me that you've heard of him. He's a bona-fide icon, as far as I'm concerned. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of homicidal bloodthirsty cold-blooded murder or anything, but if you must kill, at least take a look at Jason's work before you commit to anything. It's truly artful. He should teach a klass at Kommunity Kollege.
But, just in case you are one of the oh-so-few horror illiterates, let me give you a brief but probably not completely accurate history of the Voorhees phenomenon from an excited fan's POV:
So anyway, this mentally disabled and cranially-deformed kid named Jason drowned in a lake at some summer campy camp type place called Crystal Lake. Years later his mom turns up on staff as a cook or janitor or a reclusive hooker or something and starts taking revenge on all of the teen counselors who are supposed to be there for training but are really there to have crazy forest sex with each other. Usually Momma Voorhees waited for the kids to actually start "getting it on" before she hacked them up. It was really cool that she did this because it gave the movie goer a bit of fluff material before the blood started to run.
Eventually the lone survivor cuts off mommy's head. I think it was the first decapitation scene I'd ever seen, so it's fondly vivid in my memory. It's not number one on my list, however, that goes to the recent remake of THE OMEN, when the fire escape ladder thingy unhinges and lops off some dude's dome. Classic.
Anyway, the first film ends with the so-called hero (although I sometimes confuse the protagonist with the supposed antagonist in these films) taking a leisurely and endlessly moronic drift in a canoe on Crystal Lake, only to be interrupted by a water-logged grotesque monsterized boy Jason, who pulls her into the brine with him to sleep with the fishies. But was it all just a dream? Oooooo.
The next three films focus on Jason's rise to murderous supremacy. Somehow he didn't drown all those years ago, built a shrine around his mom's severed head, traded in a potato sack for his trademark hockey mask 
Sloth from GOONIES? No! Jason, unmasked and impaled on a machete! |
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and commenced to kill any and every human being that crossed his demented path. It's possible that he was actually slain in Part III (In 3-D!!!), then arose as a zombie superhuman killing machine for subsequent sequels. This can be assumed since from this point on he merely walks after his victims instead of the usual bloodthirsty jog-chasing from previous films, and we all know that zombies don't run. Check the handbook.
Jason is not around for PART V: JASON STAYS DEAD FOR A COUPLE HOURS. It's a copycat killer. This balances out, however, when one of the returning stars just happens to be none other than Corey Feldman! He's the Corey who was in love with Michael Jackson. Don't confuse him with the Corey who was in love with cocaine. Wait, maybe they were both in love with cocaine. I need to read up on my Coreys...
But then he's back for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES. He's brought back to life in the same manner that most people are brought back to life: Lightning. Personally, I've brought back three dogs, five lizards, a llama, and my grandmother on my father's side in this manner. It's the standard in maniacal back-from-the-deadenings.
Jason kills a ton of people, but everyone blames it on Jason's nemesis: Tommy. This of course pisses Jason off, and he punctuates his frustration through interpretive dance to the tune of Whitesnake's "Still of the Night". Or did I dream that part? Nevertheless, Tommy eventually drowns Jason in Crystal Lake (Jason needs to stay out of that damn lake, really), but in the next film some telekinesis girl goes SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW on him and he comes back to reap a new harvest of mayhem.
Jason finally gets bored of Crystal Lake and bounces out to Manhattan. Apparently he thought he could put together a book deal or something, so he hits the Big Apple and starts killing the crap out of everyone yet again. Once he even punches some guy's head clean off! Viva el vilencio! In true New York fashion, he ends up in the sewer and is melted by toxic waste, the same way I hear Jimmy Hoffa bought it.
But does Jason die? Are you out of your ridiculously miniscule mind? Not on Hollywood's dime! He comes back for a ninth film through some sort of body snatching demonic possession gig to do battle with some dickhead who fancies himself a serial killer hunter. Jason offs the guy, of course, and a score of other unfortunates, until he is somehow actually dragged into hell. No! Not a typo! Dragged into hell!
Fast forward like five hundred years, 
"Let's bring him back to life! He totally won't stalk and kill us all." |
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where a group of planetary archeologists dig up Crystal Lake and--get this--regenerate Voorhees! Uber-Jason picks up where he left off, and we find that blood is still red in the future, as he not only kills kills kills, but if I remember correctly, he also sings his way up to the semifinal round of "Intergalactic Idol" before losing out to a quasar with an attitude that blows like Scatman Cruthers.
Oh! Did I forget to mention that Voorhees kicks it with Freddy Krueger for a spell as well? They team up like USA Basketball's 1992 "Dream Team" to terrorize all comers! My two cents says they could beat the slobber out of ALIEN VS. PREDATOR's ass!
Well, that's pretty much it to this point. Consider yourself caught up. But I know that many of you have that burning question inside that begs to ask, "How does Jason do what he did to those people in that place at those times?"
I was hoping you'd ask that! Let me count off my most favorite Jason murder moments:
10. Ice pick to the temple
This one is special to me because it was his first documented murder. As they say, "You always remember the first time."
9. Double impaling with spear gun
A "Two-fer" on this one! And it was while the two were making the beast with two backs, to boot!
8. Pitchfork through the neck and speared into a rafter
Try saying, "Pitchfork through the neck" out loud. It just sounds right, you know? Think of a time when you really connected with a baseball, or timed a traffic light just right. Now say "Pitchfork to the neck" again. Same feeling? Or am I just mentally unstable?
7. Head squeezed until eye pops out
I have to admit: I rewound that scene like a million times. Jason is such an innovator.
6. Corkscrew through the hand and cleaver to the face
I mean seriously, it's bad enough that the corkscrew is in your hand, but now here comes the cleaver! But that's not the best part. Guess who gets to die in such a glorious manner? Do you know? Do you freaking' know? Try Crispin Hellion Glover, man!
5. Gaden harrow in the throat
I know. I know. What's a garden harrow? Look it up! Then visualize...then gag...
4. Head ripped off
Need I say more? No. Of course not.
3. Head crushed by Jason's bare hands
Apart from the machete, this seems to be Jason's favorite. He even did it once in JASON X after the victim is frozen in liquid nitrogen! My 10th grade science teacher did that with a pencil once. So cool!
2. 
A man who loves his job...loves his life! Jason was truly blessed. |
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Speared in the groin
Not only was the guy speared in the groin, but he was then lifted up into the air and impaled on the bloody thing. I wouldn't even do Bin Laden like that.
1. Machete, machete, machete!
Think, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" ala Jan Brady. This guy wields a machete like most guys work a TV remote. It's just an extension of his own body. If it was an Olympic event, he'd be like the Mark Spitz of the category. Heh Heh, I said CateGORY. Heh, Heh.
*This is out of approximately 129 confirmed kills, based on data compiled from HouseOfHorrors.com
And now a new film is on the way...I wonder if they've put the script together yet? What will be the angle this time? Maybe a buddy flick? Or he befriends a puppy or a rat or a six-footed goat...Or maybe he buids a treehouse and imagines he's in some fantastical world with trolls, fairies, and flying warthogs? Here. I'd like to put out a few suggestions:
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART XI:
JASON IN TIME
Jason gets hold of a time machine and travels through history, murdering every human who has ever existed. Ever. Until there are none of us left. At all.
JASONS!
Some complete idiot clones Jason like fifty times, which, of course, leads to fifty times as many slayings. Possibly set to music. Get Danny Elfman on the line!
JASON VOTES REPUBLICAN
How did Bush 2 get Florida in the 2000 election? That's right. Jason was there. No democrat was safe. The only "hanging chad" you'll see in this one is Chadwick Smithers, a young pollster who tried to keep Voorhees from a voting center in Naples.
JASON ON ICE!
Finally the goalie mask that Jason had made famous has a purpose besides hiding his hideous face as he's taken in the second round of the NHL draft by the Buffalo Sabres. He gives a new meaning to the phrase "penalty kill" in this one as he mans the pipes with a bloody bravado that takes the Sabres all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals where, of course, they fall to the Red Wings in six.
What??? Did I just hear that the new FRIDAY is going to be a remake of some of the earlier films? No new direction? Hmm. Damn. You know what...? THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!!!
I need a nap...and a mojito...and a machete...
Jason 143
Smells of rotten ass
Teenage blood-stained hockey mask
His is Crystal Lake
(Digg your Haiku below!)
I love you, Jason!!! Chi-chi-chi-ah-ah-ah...
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Every other Tuesday
I'm pissed off because you're NOT pissed off. That pisses me off. What else pisses me off? Piss off! Or read this...
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| Jay Ashkinos |
I am an undousable spark; I swear at people in Olde English; I am a phone number on the bathroom wall; I'm shorter than you, but I can kick your ass; I cry at beauty as fervently as I do with sorrow; I have a piece of paper that says I'm smart, yet I lock my keys in my car twice a year. Go figure.
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