Misc
HORROR 101: Everything You Need to Know About Jason Voorhees
Welcome back to Horror 101, a series of articles where we explain horror movie legends and their lore. For beginners, the confused, or just those who need a refresher, these articles are for you.
Though Summer has ended, the things we did over the summer will never leave us. The cookouts, the drinks by the fire, that masked guy who put an axe in our friend’s spine. Have you ever wondered why that happened? Well, today’s article is for you. We’ll be going through the history of one of horror cinema’s most famous slashers, Jason Voorhees, explaining how he does it, what makes him tick, and perhaps even answering what’s going on in that lumpy giant brain behind the hockey mask.
The usual rules apply for this type of article: I will not be taking into consideration any comics, books, or television shows. We’re strictly doing the official films, beginning with Friday the 13th (1980) and ending chronologically with Jason X.
We’ll also consider the 2009 reboot for one crucial detail.
So, let’s make like a machete and cut right to it.
WHO IS JASON VOORHEES?
It all begins with Camp Crystal Lake, a campground (in New Jersey!) owned by the Christy family. Born to Pamela Voorhees, the cook at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason was born disabled, which led to being bullied as a child. Often mocked and teased by younger campgoers and ignored by irresponsible camp counselors, Jason lived a short and miserable “first” life.
While swimming in Crystal Lake in 1957, the counselors left Jason alone and surrounded by cruel children who chased him down and threw him off the dock. A panicked Jason drowned, which caused the camp to be closed temporarily when his body was never recovered.
Unbeknownst to Pamela and the rest of the world, Jason survived drowning and wandered the woods surrounding Crystal Lake until adulthood, surviving in an old shack. Pamela was nonetheless struck with grief and became bitter and resentful, murdering two of Camp Crystal Lake’s counselors in 1958. She would go on to set several fires and sabotage the camp’s many reopenings, leaving the Christy family destitute.
In 1980, the eldest son of the Christy family, Steve, attempted to reopen the camp and ended up drawing the ire of Pamela, who began murdering to tarnish the camp once more. Her spree ended when she was killed in self-defense by camp counselor Alice Hardy. Jason would recover her remains and create a shrine for his mother’s head, soon mirroring her habits as he became full of rage and resentment.
Taking up a machete as his weapon of choice, and later donning his iconic hockey mask in Friday the 13th Part III, Jason Voorhees became a menacing killer, whose legacy would span decades and even extend outside of the camp to places like Manhattan, and eventually the stars themselves.
WHY DOES JASON VOORHEES KILL?
The two most prominent reasons for Jason’s bloodlust are to seek vengeance for drowning and to get revenge for his mother’s murder. In the 2009 reboot, we see it explicitly. Still, it’s only implied a grown Jason saw Alice killing his mother and started targeting teens because of it.
While it’s lampshaded that Jason hates drug use and premarital sex in a couple of films in some very funny ways, that was really Pamela’s gripe about the counselors. I think it’s safe to say those concepts are probably lost on him, given that he’s not very smart.
Respectfully, of course.
HOW DOES JASON VOORHEES DIE?
After years and dozens of kills, Jason Voorhees had become the stuff of nightmares. But he was still human, and after suffering wounds throughout the first 3 films, was eventually weak enough to be killed during the events of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, where his skull was cleaved with his own machete.
The person who took him out was Tommy Jarvis, a young boy, and special effects hobbyist living at Crystal Lake. His traumatic experience with the killer and legends of his uncanny survival made him believe Jason would return. This fear was only exacerbated when Roy Burns took up Jason’s mantle and terrorized a teenage Tommy at Pinehurst Halfway House.
WHO IS ROY BURNS?
He’s the replacement “Jason” after Tommy Jarvis killed Voorhees the first time. He was a paramedic who went mad when his son, Joey, was murdered by a disgruntled member of Pinehurst. He got thrown on a wall of spikes and died.
I like Roy, but he’s not the focus of this article, so let’s move on!
HOW DOES JASON VOORHEES KEEP RETURNING FROM THE DEAD?
After Tommy Jarvis’ encounter with Roy Burns, he becomes especially paranoid and goes to dig up his nemesis during a thunderstorm, intending to destroy his body. In the process, Jason’s corpse is struck by lightning, and he inexplicably returns from the dead. This raises many questions, and the Friday films have spent a lot of time explaining why that happened.
Throughout the series, it’s stated that Jason has an unrivaled regenerative capability. In Jason X, it’s shown that the U.S. government was keeping him in cryostasis specifically to study that ability. The rules are vague, but we can make a few assumptions about how this ability works.
Jason Voorhees can take just about any amount of physical punishment as long as his body is still mostly intact. For instance, the ending of Jason Takes Manhattan shows him being dissolved in a flood of toxic waste and drowned, but he still keeps going. If his body is blown apart or significantly dismembered though, as seen in Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, he can’t return without assistance. In Jason X, a swarm of nanites accelerates his natural healing and turns him into Uber Jason.
In Jason Goes to Hell, we see he has one last trick up his sleeve to evade death: transferring his spirit into another person. In the film, Jason is described as an entity that wears bodies like suits; this degrades anyone he possesses, filling them with disease and slowly melting them from the inside out. From there, he can return to his complete form by possessing another Voorhees blood relative, which allows him to regain his hulking zombie body.
And his mask… For some reason?
SO…IS JASON VOORHEES A DEMON THEN?
There are two schools of thought on this question:
1. Jason Voorhees himself is a demon who can naturally regenerate his body, or
2. The Voorhees bloodline is cursed, and that forces Jason to keep coming back.
In Jason Goes to Hell, Professional Jason hunter Creighton Duke says Jason is something humankind has never seen before but doesn’t actually explain what he is, or why only Voorhees blood relatives can take him out. A scrapped effect for the film showed Jason in a much more demonic form, implying it’s the former, but this never actually made it to the screen.
Some people say he may be a demon of another kind. Jason being a deadite is an idea popularized by director Adam Marcus for the film Jason Goes to Hell. It’s still only a fan theory with very little backing outside the props Marcus borrowed for the film.
Jason doesn’t explicitly enjoy causing suffering; instead, he seems to do it mostly out of sheer rage. His eyes aren’t white, he never verbally mocks his victims, no one ever calls him a deadite, and they never call the weapon that destroys him a Kandarian dagger. Most importantly, the Necronomicon is never read in any of the movies to summon his spirit. He just gets struck by lightning and comes back.
So regardless of whether he’s a demon or not, he most definitely isn’t a deadite.
HOW DOES JASON VOORHEES MOVE SO FAST?
Among Jason’s abilities, post-resurrection are superhuman strength, durability, and speed. Most instances of Jason “teleporting” result from his victims getting disoriented (as they’re often running through a forest and may or may not be intoxicated). This, combined with Jason’s athletic ability and bad film editing, creates the illusion of teleportation.
In the case of Jason Takes Manhattan, it’s a lot of bad editing.
CAN ANYTHING ACTUALLY KILL JASON VOORHEES?
The answer is yes, but also, no! Satisfying, I know.
Creighton Duke says there’s only one real way for Jason to be destroyed: “Through a Voorhees was he born, through a Voorhees may he be reborn. And only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die”.
This is true in the short term, as he is killed by his niece, Jessica Kimble, using a…mystical Voorhees dagger that she stakes his heart with. Eventually, Jason would be freed by Freddy Krueger, using the last traces of power he had to pull the Voorhees out of hell in Freddy vs. Jason.
Meaning there is no surefire way to put him down permanently.
And as a fan of the Friday the 13th films, that’s quite alright by me. I prefer my nonsensical super-zombies erring on the side of completely unkillable. The only hell Jason Voorhees has to worry about now is the legal hell his film and character rights are in. And with the new Crystal Lake series still in development, it’s anybody’s guess as to when we will see our soggy rotten boy again.
…SO YOU’RE SURE JASON ISN’T A DEADITE?
Oh my god, no. Stop trying to make deadite Jason happen. It’s not going to happen.
***
And that will be it for today’s Horror 101 lesson. See you in the next class and stay tuned to Horror Press’s social media feeds for more content on horror movies, television, and everything in between!
Misc
HORROR 101: What is The New French Extremity Movement?
What is New French Extremity? The term New French Extremity originated in film journalist James Quandt’s article “Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema”. The bulk of the article addresses a rash of more violent films that were coming out of French cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s; the article sites Bruno Dumont’s 2003 art film Twentynine Palms as inciting the criticism, seeing it as the latest in a long line of, to him, unimpressive French films at the turning point of a century.
Welcome back to Horror 101, a series of articles where we explain horror movie legends and their lore. For beginners, the confused, or just those who need a refresher, these articles are for you.
It is certainly ironic to be close-minded as a horror fan. What do you mean you’ll watch fifteen terribly made movies in a week but then turn your nose up at something 20 minutes longer than your usual runtime? (That one was aimed at me, so if you caught a stray, apologia).
But, I’ve always been particularly averse to one grouping of films: New French Extremity, a genre whose name came from an article deriding the very notion of it. In more recent years, I’ve grown some appreciation for its offerings, though, as I’ve come to understand the commentary it has to share. It’s a genre pockmarked by bleak cinematic landscapes, painted with the pains of human suffering and grotesqueries to reflect the horrors of the real world. A genre that often delves into the surreal, wading knee-high through depravity to get there.
…Assuming you can call it a genre.
Like German Expressionism, or Dadaism, it’s a style with some major tenets, but no concrete trappings; debated and shaped by its watchers, and now brought to you here. It’s sometimes hard to grasp, but today’s article will try its hardest to answer the question…
WHAT IS NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY?
The term New French Extremity originated in film journalist James Quandt’s article “Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema”. The bulk of the article addresses a rash of more violent films that were coming out of French cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s; the article sites Bruno Dumont’s 2003 art film Twentynine Palms as inciting the criticism, seeing it as the latest in a long line of, to him, unimpressive French films at the turning point of a century.
Quandt generally writes them off, indicating that they utilize their debauchery as a blunt tool in a clumsy attempt to evoke some sort of philosophical or political message about the human condition, as opposed to the artistic movements of centuries prior like the French Decadent Movement and Dadaism that inspired it. Ironically, the term New French Extremity erupted from this article as the main takeaway for film scholars and critics, because Quandt caps off the article by saying that the grouping of films are too varied in their vision to be considered a proper genre:
The New French Extremity sometimes looks like a latter-day version of the hussards, those Céline-loving, right-wing anarchists of the ’50s determined to rock the pieties of bourgeois culture; but for all their connections (shared actors, screenwriters, etc.), the recent provocateurs are too disparate in purpose and vision to be classified as a movement. […] it appears to be the last gasp of Gallic libertinism.
And so, New French Extremity was minted as a piece of the cinematic lexicon. Jargon meant to describe not only grotesque thriller and horror films coming out of France from the 90s onward, but films whose whole cinematography (both by visuals and by narrative) is rooted in being transgressive. No matter how horrible you think a concept is, New French Extreme will depict it, and no matter how sacred you think something is, expect it to be trampled on with some extremely profane filmmaking. It’s about being so grotesque that they evoke raw and pure disgust, often to reflect the film’s themes or philosophical ideas.
Then, you might ask…
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY AND SPLATTER FILMS?
Surely, films like Saw, Hostel, and Human Centipede have political messages underpinned by their violence. And yes, the Saw franchise in particular can at turns be very meanspirited and violent while being bluntly political; it is what I’d call the most politically American horror film series of all time, and its traps and the major bodily dysfunction they cause are a big part of that.
But in the end, it’s not being an American film that separates it from the genre, as even if it were a French film it wouldn’t fit either. Part of the horror of New French Extreme films is how the violence is presented; it is served as real, raw, and uncut as possible. It is unflinchingly (and unhappily) violent, and grounded in a level of uncomfortable reality. So, there goes another tenet of the movement: it has to crank up the meanspirited energy in its violence, and it can’t really be “fun” in how it displays its extremity.
WHO ARE THE DIRECTORS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY MOVEMENT?
As critical as Quandt was of the idea, he did provide a very handy list of names to focus on as the most prominent voices of the movement:
“François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Catherine Breillat, Philippe Grandrieux—and now, alas, [Bruno] Dumont”.
Names missing from that list, but which crop up later in the article and in the scene in general include Alexandre Aja (director of High Tension), Virginie Despentes (the mind behind the very controversial Baise-moi), Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (the duo behind Inside and this years The Soul Eater), and Pascal Laugier (of Martyrs and Incident in a Ghostland fame). And though Xavier Gens was a bit late to the party with his 2007 film Frontier(s), he is an important director in terms of where the movement went and where it’s going with its politics. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but a good starting point for you if you’re interested in the genre.
WHO IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY DIRECTOR?
The short answer? Michael Haneke. The long answer? Technically, Haneke popularized the use of transgressive elements to shock and disquiet the audience among his contemporaries. Still, Gaspar Noé is the genre codifier and the most dominant voice in the space creatively.
Despite the extreme nature of films like Funny Games and The Seventh Continent (both brutal and genuinely terrifying), I personally find myself in the camp that his movies are not New French Extreme. We can debate the limits of how messed up something has to be before it’s considered extreme until the cows come home. But the fact is, if you put Haneke’s work alongside all of the films I’ve listed above in the previous segment, he would be the odd man out. He is, simply put, considerably more restrained in terms of showing gore and sexual violence, and the majority of his films’ horror and anxiety come from psychological aspects rather than physical consequences.
The material world is the battleground of the New French Extreme, and the nauseating nature of the films is the tool that Quandt named as the hallmark of the movement. With that in mind, I believe that Gaspar Noé, instead, should be considered the godfather of the genre. Given his films are the most well-known and commercially successful of the New French Extreme “movement”, he is more than worthy of the title; not to mention, he’s the most extreme in all regards. I would consider Irreversible’s directing and presentation to be the peak of the New French Extreme, since its nausea-inducing and sickening content comes with plenty of disorienting directing and editing; and for people with better sound setups than mine, you’ll find the little sound design trick that Noé placed in the film to make it as disturbing as possible.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY?
A question that is much less definitional, and much more philosophical. Why the bleak landscapes? Why the hopeless endings? Why so much violence against women, especially THAT kind of violence? And there is no clear answer, as every filmmaker has a different motivation. However, there is an undeniably political slant running through most of these movies that can all generally be applied to the rise of the right-wing and alt-right in French politics from the 1990s onward.
Film scholars like Alice Haylett Bryan and Marc Olivier have pointed to films like Inside, Sheitan, and Frontiers as coinciding with and commentating on the rise of politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy, politicians running on strong anti-immigration platforms and blaming the immigrant populations of France for its ills like the 2005 riots. Though it is less easy to see on the surface level, the Mademoiselle of Martyrs and her secret society are a group of wealthy, white French aristocrats who find purpose through the suffering of others, depicted as the impoverished and WOC; they even describe the process of torturing their martyrs as something they do “systematically”, akin to the policies of a government.
Like the trend of the nuclear monster reflecting our Cold War anxieties in the 50s and 60s, and the spike of home invasion films that took place in the 70s, New French Extreme directors have political engines built into their movies. The shocking parts of New French Extremity punctuate what many of these films are supposed to be: countercultural art meant to attack and depict the dangerous political ideologies that spends the lifeblood and livelihood of underserviced people as currency; ideologies that could very well pose a threat to the existence of a democratic France itself.
New French Extremity’s horrifying sights are not only made effective through the verisimilitude of their directing and production; they are made to remind you of the world’s much more realistic terrors, here right now and possibly yet to come.
DO YOU HAVE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY RECOMMENDATIONS?
So, now for your required reading from this lecture.
Needless to say, all of the films mentioned in this article bear a massive and profoundly long list of trigger warnings (seriously), primarily for their intense violence, depictions of sexual violence, and depictions of pretty much every terrible thing you can imagine. Please make sure to do your research before watching any of these, and don’t skimp on the self care.
Martyrs (2008) has some of my favorite reveals in any horror movie, and an unforgettable ending you won’t want spoiled, so watch this one first. High Tension is a favorite of many Horror Press readers and writers for a reason. It’s an unrelenting, pulse-pounding film that earns its controversial reputation, and you don’t really feel safe until it’s over (if that). Trouble Every Day gets a lot of flak from Quandt in his original article (what doesn’t?), but I went in blind and was completely caught off guard by what the movie turns into, so avoid any spoilers if you want to see something interesting. Sheitan is a head trip of a film, with recurring face-of-the-genre Vincent Cassel cranking up the madness dial on his performance to an 11. Calvaire, likewise, has a very demented villain on par with the main antagonist of Inside, so they would make for a very interesting double feature if you can stomach two at a time. And while I said Haneke is not New French Extreme, if you want something a little quieter but with an ending that will shake you to your core, I suggest watching The Seventh Continent.
That brings me to the one very big question I had writing this:
Should I even recommend Irreversible? It may be the one film that embodies New French Extremity the most, given how far it pushes the envelope. But do I like it?
No.
It personally is just too much for me. It’s bleak, horrific, it will disturb you entirely and might very well ruin your week, and I can’t stand to watch it. Which is the whole point, but there’s a limit to what I can tolerate. I find Noe is unflinching in his determination to make you run from the theatre and abandon the film altogether, especially in its most infamous and cruel sequence.
From a film history perspective, it is undeniably a piece that has carved itself into French cinema indelibly (for better and for worse), and if you want to plumb the depths of human horror, you’ll be hard-pressed to find as difficult of a watch. So, when you ask me, “Should I watch Irreversible?”, I can only meet you with one honest response: you can certainly try to.
Good luck with that, horror fan.
***
And that will be it for today’s Horror 101 lesson. See you in the next class and stay tuned to Horror Press’s social media feeds for more content on horror movies, television, and everything in between.
I’ve talked about Frogman from writer/director Anthony Cousins ad nauseam. It even made my Favorite 3 Horror Movies of 2023 list. Hearing that Frogman was getting a physical release from Terror Vision was music to my ears. And, honestly, how crazy was it that it was also getting shelf space at Walmart?! Very rarely can you find a film that killed on the festival circuit and then was readily available on physical media at both a boutique distribution online store as well as a big box retailer.
August 10th, 2024, would be a day that changed my life; Terror Vision was releasing a deluxe edition Blu-ray bundle with a limit of 100 copies. Typically, boutique labels will do limited edition slipcases for films, limiting them between 1,000 and 2,500 copies. The Frogman Deluxe Edition bundle was different. For $68 bucks, you could get one of the most unique and visually stunning releases of my lifetime. So I purchased it. After preordering this majestic bundle, I waited patiently for two and a half months…and then it arrived.
The purpose of this piece isn’t to rub my one (hundred) of a kind purchase in anyone’s face, instead, it’s to highlight the care and beauty behind this release. Simply put, if you love a movie and find it being released by Terror Vision, you should pick it up. Here is the physical side of what came with this bundle:
- A black MILF (Man I Love Frogman) shirt
- A double-sided foldout poster
- A Frogman-themed brochure of Loveland, Ohio/Frogman Point (With a 15% off coupon for Sticky Tongue Gifts & Collectibles)
- A Loveland, Ohio postcard
- A sticker set
- The Fortune Teller Miracle Fish (not listed on the bundle’s itinerary, but a happy inclusion)
- A Frogman mug
- A bound film-supplement book
- A limited rigid box that perfectly fits over the embossed slipcase
- AND A CD full of frog sounds!
In all honesty, I initially thought $68 was a steep price. As the minutes passed, I knew my chance of picking one up was dwindling. Once I opened the box, put on the shirt, read the book, and drank some lukewarm coffee out of my mug…
I realized it was beyond worth the price.
Terror Vision has set the bar for labels like Shout! Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video, and many more. I do not know who runs the program behind the scenes, but it’s clear they are some of the deepest fans of physical media out there. If I had to nitpick, there was one issue I have with the Blu-ray. The title screen. It’s a flat image with a play, subtitles, and special features option. These options are overlaid over a thick blue bar and it doesn’t feel very in theme. Even though the title screen felt a bit bland, the special features surely made up for it.
All of this is to say, if you’re a physical media nut like myself and you haven’t picked anything up from Terror Vision, then what are you doing?! They have excellent releases like WNUF Halloween Special, Malum, Door, and so much more. And thanks to Terror Vision for all they’ve done, we can’t wait to see what you release next.
‘Black Christmas’ (2019): More Hollow Feminism From Hollywood
The Creep Tapes: “Brad” (S1E4)
[Review] The Thrills and Kills of ‘Ils’ (2006)
The Creep Tapes: “Jeremy” (S1E3)
Why ‘Martyrs’ (2015) Is the Worst Horror Remake of All Time and Never Had a Chance
[REVIEW] My First Ever New French Extremity Film Was ‘Inside’ (2007)
The Creep Tapes: “Mike” & “Elliot” (S1E1&2)
[REVIEW] ‘Calvaire’ (2004) Is An ORDEAL
HORROR 101: What is The New French Extremity Movement?
Physical Media Matters: Terror Vision and ‘Frogman’
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Undercover Horror Classic
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
Is ‘Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker’ Too Problematic for 2022?
Was This Film the Blueprint for Malignant? No, It’s Even Better Than That: A SPOILER-FREE Review of ‘Cherry Falls’
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
This Is What Makes Sue Ann from ‘Ma’ a Terrifying Yet Loveable Horror Villain
Mia from ‘Evil Dead’ – A New Kind of Final Girl
‘Midsommar’ (2019): Dani’s Divisive Development
