Misc
Ranking Every Jason from the Friday the 13th Franchise
The iconic slasher killer has taken many forms over the years, and I’m not just talking about the different performers who played him (who I have mostly credited below, though there are cases where other stunt performers/costume designers/etc. filled in for certain moments that I’m not going to go through with a fine-toothed comb). Jason’s look, behavior, and even the way he operates changes drastically throughout the franchise, even between consecutive films that are directly linked, which is why there is so much meat on the bone here. Without any further ado, let’s rank every Jason from the Friday the 13th franchise!
May 2025 marks the 45th anniversary of the original Friday the 13th, so now is the best time to take a stroll through the 12-film franchise it birthed. Well maybe not the best time, but I don’t want to wait five years, so we’re ranking every version of Jason Voorhees now, dammit.
The iconic slasher killer has taken many forms over the years, and I’m not just talking about the different performers who played him (who I have mostly credited below, though there are cases where other stunt performers/costume designers/etc. filled in for certain moments that I’m not going to go through with a fine-toothed comb). Jason’s look, behavior, and even the way he operates changes drastically throughout the franchise, even between consecutive films that are directly linked, which is why there is so much meat on the bone here. Without any further ado, let’s dive in.
Every Jason from the Friday the 13th Franchise Ranked
#12 Reboot Jason (Derek Mears, Friday the 13th 2009)
No shade to Mears’ performance. He is delivering a powerful and credible threat here. But there’s something about the warren of tunnels, the kidnapping, and the turning on klieg lights (that I highly doubt were there back when Camp Crystal Lake was operational) to hunt down victims that just isn’t “my” Jason. I prefer a hulking avatar of death rather than the backwoods survivalist mode that he’s got going on here.
#11 Roy (Dick Wieand unmasked & Tom Morga masked, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning)
I love the snazzy powder blue accents he’s rocking here. And frankly, I don’t care who’s behind the hockey mask as long as he’s murderizing people good and proper, but Roy is simply not Jason, so it would be a crime to rank him any higher than this.
#10 Imaginary Jason (Tom Morga, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning)
I guess it’s nice that there is a proper Jason Voorhees floating around in the “copycat killer” movie, but outside of the Corey Feldman prologue, the imaginary Jason mostly just stands around like Michael Myers and watches Tommy Jarvis change. Like, I know Tommy’s jacked now, so I sort of get it, but it’s just not a very interesting thing for Jason to be up to.
#9 Zombie Boy Jason (Ari Lehman, Friday the 13th 1980)
Sure, he provides a potent jump scare that is probably the only reason (other than Tom Savini’s effects) that the movie became such a word-of-mouth smash hit. But his presence at the end of the original Friday the 13th absolutely ruins any hope that the character will ever have a comprehensible continuity, right from the beginning. And this is nobody’s fault! They didn’t know they’d have to make 11 more of these. They just wanted one final shock in the movie, and they were right to want that! But Jason transmogrifying from a dead child to a living adult in Part 2 has plagued continuity-heads for 44 years, and it’s hard for that not to rankle just a little bit.
#8 Jason vs. Freddy (Ken Kirzinger, Freddy vs. Jason)
He has some great kills here (the bed! the rave!), but Jason Voorhees is very much second banana when it comes to his position in the overall narrative. I suppose that’s what you get when the other guy talks and you don’t, but that’s not very fair, is it?
#7 Uber Jason (Kane Hodder, Jason X)
Uber Jason is better in theory than in execution. It’s a fun way to engage fully with the sci-fi premise that they’ve thrown their killer into for basically no reason (New Line really spun out the second they got their hands on the property, didn’t they?). But the design is bad and he just looks plasticky and cheap, not actually menacing or properly enhanced.
#6 Demon Worm Jason (Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday)
Speaking of New Line spinning out… Jason Voorhees primarily manifests in this movie as a body-hopping demon worm. Why is this ranked so high? It’s nonsense, but at least it’s fun nonsense. Plus, I wouldn’t trade the “Jason shaves a cop, transfers the demon worm, and then his previous body melts” sequence for the world. It’s uncomfortable, ooey gooey gross, and just plain weird, which are things I prize in my horror movies.
#5 Funny Jason (C.J. Graham & Dan Bradley, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI)
Beyond the James Bond parody at the beginning of Jason Lives, most of the funny bits in the most purposefully comic installment happen around Jason. I think that’s for the best, in order to maintain him as a credible threat. But he does get a little lost in the sauce here, especially with a Tommy Jarvis and a proper final girl jockeying for screen time elsewhere.
#4 “Final” Jason (Ted White, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter)
This is a real meat-and-potatoes Jason, but he delivers some of the gnarliest kills in the franchise with aplomb.
#3 3-D Jason (Richard Brooker, Friday the 13th Part III)
I don’t like the sexual assault overtones of this Jason, but come on. This is the installment where he embraces his hockey masked self, and that’s simply iconic. Plus, Brooker is acting the hell out of this role, delivering a physical, menacing Jason that has a wiry wiliness that is very different from the raw strength delivered by other performers who I might mention…
#2 Recurring Jason (Kane Hodder, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, bits and pieces of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, the first two-thirds of Jason X)
And oh look, here comes one of those performers now! Kane Hodder’s Jason is a longtime favorite, and for good reason. His Jason is hulking, menacing, and cuts through crowds of nubile young people like a hot knife through butter. However, it’s a damn shame that he showed up right when the franchise was going off the rails, because beyond the telekinetic battle at the end of The New Blood, he only gets a few proper showcase moments scattered throughout his quadrilogy.
He genuinely looks great in his first two movies, though. The rotting zombie face of New Blood and the slimy river rat look of Jason Takes Manhattan are the masked and unmasked versions of Jason that I probably picture the most.
#1 Baghead Jason (Steve Daskewisz masked & Warrington Gillette unmasked, Friday the 13th Part 2)
Betcha didn’t expect to find him here, did you? Now, look. I love the hockey mask. More than the bag. But Steve Dash is acting the hell out of this version of Jason, setting the template for what the adult version of this character could be, now that he has been released from his zombie child shell. Somehow. This makes him a perfect foil for Ginny, who is the best-acted and most effective final girl from the franchise and deserves a worthy opponent.
Ah, Urban Legend…the plucky younger sibling franchise to Scream. If this is the first time you realize that it’s a franchise at all, that is totally fair. The cult classic slasher’s only theatrical sequel was a critical and box office flop. The third film, Bloody Mary, was direct-to-video. The film has an interesting comparative pitch to Scream. While Scream is a meta-slasher toying with the rules of horror, Urban Legend has its killer basing its slice-and-dicin’ off of famous urban legends…and then they just basically did a version of Scream 3 for its sequel. It’s a fascinating trilogy, particularly in how the movies connect. In Final Cut, the first film exists as an urban legend itself. Bloody Mary, however, is a complete standalone that could be read as an urban legend within the universe of the first entry.
The Urban Legend Franchise Ranked From Worst to Best
So…how do these three films rank against each other? Are the sequels worth checking out at all? Pull up a chair, relax, and start mixing your Pop-Rocks and soda; this is the worst-to-best ranking of the Urban Legend trilogy.
Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)
Unsurprisingly, the straight-to-video, nearly completely forgotten supernatural entry is last. Directed by Mary Lambert of Pet Sematary acclaim, the movie is a straightforward supernatural horror. Three teen girls say “Bloody Mary” three times into a mirror, and it resurrects a vengeful spirit.
The movie is not terrible by any means. It is just pretty standard, with some good moments of schlocky, 2000s fun. For those that grew up in this era, it can be a goofy little nostalgia trip! The cheesy SFX, hilariously awkward teen acting, and cinematography of a Coke commercial make it a really easy watch. It’s almost like a much bloodier Goosebumps episode! However, for those not fans of this divisive era of TV-horror, it can be a bit of a slog.
The idea of making a movie that feels in-Universe to the first film is clever. However, it is unclear whether that was the exact intention. Despite this critic’s personal, nostalgic love of this film, it is not connected to the franchise at all. Even if this was a masterpiece, this detail makes it hard to put it anything above last place. Sorry Bloody Mary, I still love you.
Urban Legend (1998)
Ready the guillotine. Light up the torches. Find the IP address this article was written on-but let me explain. Yes, it is controversial not to put this one in first place. Still, it is really more of a tie than second placement. This and Final Cut are vastly different, which makes the franchise interesting, nearly incomparable. They each succeed in their own sub-genres…but this one misses the mark.
Urban Legend is a cult classic for a reason. It is completely itself as a late-90s, teen campus-slasher. The movie takes a simple premise, combining it with a likeable cast and a gothic, dark-academia setting. It feels like it was made for slumber parties and sleepovers. A combination of 80s slashers and campfire tales? Amazing. Plus, the soundtrack is killer.
That being said, the mystery, story, and characters are all just okay. The answers to the mystery (spoilers…?) fall in line with I Know What You Did Last Summer, and many films from the 80s. Prom Night, April Fool’s Day, and The Burning all come to mind. If this came out before Scream, this would be number one, for sure. It is probably, technically, the best film of the franchise, if I had to be objective. However, it just doesn’t reach the levels of originality the final film on this list does.
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
Urban Legends: Final Cut is fantastic. No, really. It’s great, and one of the most underrated slashers of its time. While Scream picked apart the slasher genre in a meta-horror classic, this movie picks apart the horror film industry. The film has a lot of commentary on toxicity in the industry, and it is matched by an on-brand mystery.
A big issue with movies is finding a decent throughline. Look at the first Urban Legend, for example. The reason the killer kills has nothing to do with urban legends themselves-it is just a creepy MO. However, the killer in Final Cut has a motive rooted in filmmaking itself. The movie stays on brand, delivering on its promise. It is distinctly different from Scream, while still being perfect for fans of that franchise.
Without spoiling, the mystery is great. While the final reveal is somewhat predictable, the twists and turns of the story itself are great. For fans of lost media horror like Red Rooms or Cigarette Burns, the mystery veers into that. One part of the film involves a student film with a mystery splice in the film spool. While the movie is funnier than it is scary, and somewhat outdated at points, it still feels the most rewatchable of all three movies.
The Fly Movies Ranked
#5 The Fly II (1989)
#4 Curse of the Fly (1965)
#3 Return of the Fly (1959)
#2 The Fly (1958)
#1 The Fly (1986)
