Jason Voorhees () is a fictional character and the antagonist of the Friday the 13th franchise. He first appeared in Friday the 13th (1980) as the young son of camp-cook-turned-killer Pamela Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S. Cunningham and Tom Savini, Jason was not originally intended to carry the series as the main antagonist. The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, and comic books.
The character has primarily been an antagonist in the films, whether by stalking and killing the other characters, or acting as a psychological threat to the protagonist, as in the case of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Since Lehman's portrayal, the character has been represented by numerous actors and stuntmen, sometimes by more than one at a time; this has caused some controversy as to who should receive credit for the portrayal. Kane Hodder is the best known of the stuntmen to portray Jason, having played the character in four consecutive films.
The character's physical appearance has gone through many transformations, with various special makeup effects artists making their mark on the character's design. Tom Savini's initial design has been the basis for many of the later incarnations. The trademark hockey mask did not appear until Friday the 13th Part III. Since Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, filmmakers have given Jason superhuman strength, regenerative powers, and near invulnerability. Some interpretations suggest that the audience has empathy for Jason, whose motivation for killing has been cited as being driven by the immoral actions of his victims and his own rage over having drowned as a child. Jason has been featured in various humor magazines, referenced in feature films, parodied in television series, and was the inspiration for a horror punk band. Several toy lines have been released based on various versions of the character from the Friday the 13th films. Jason's hockey mask is a widely recognized image in popular culture.
Appearances
Jason Voorhees first appears during a nightmare of the main character Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) in the original Friday the 13th film; he becomes the main antagonist of the series in its sequels. As well as the films, there have been books and comics that have either expanded the universe of Jason, or been based on a minor aspect of him.
Films
Jason made his first cinematic appearance in the original Friday the 13th on May 9, 1980. In this film, Jason (Ari Lehman) is portrayed in the memories of his mother, Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), and as a nightmare of the film's protagonist, Alice (Adrienne King). Although not a central character in the original movie, he is still the catalyst of the film's plot—Mrs. Voorhees, the main antagonist, seeks revenge for her son's drowning, which she blames on the irresponsible camp counselors. Jason's second appearance was in the sequel, Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). Retconned as never having died, an adult Jason exacts revenge on Alice for decapitating his mother in the original film. Jason (Steven Dash and Warrington Gillette) returns to Crystal Lake, living there as a hermit and guarding it from all intruders. Five years later a group of teenagers arrive to set up a new camp, only to be murdered one by one by Jason, who wears a sack over his head to hide his face. Ginny (Amy Steel), the lone survivor, finds a makeshift shack in the woods with a shrine built around the severed head of Mrs. Voorhees, and surrounded by corpses. Ginny fights back and slams a machete through Jason's shoulder. He is left incapacitated as Ginny is taken away in an ambulance. In Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Jason (Richard Brooker) escapes to a nearby lake resort, Higgins Haven, to rest from his wounds. At the same time, Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell) returns to family property with some acquaintances. An unmasked and reclusive Jason kills anyone who wanders into the barn where he is hiding. Taking a hockey mask from a victim to hide his face, he leaves the barn to kill the rest of the group. Chris fends off Jason by slamming an axe into his head, but the night's events drive her into hysteria as the police take her away.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) continues the story, with a presumed-dead Jason (Ted White) found by the police and taken to the morgue. Jason awakens at the morgue and kills the coroner and a nurse, and makes his way back to Crystal Lake. A group of teens renting a house there fall victim to Jason's rampage. Jason then seeks out Trish (Kimberly Beck) and Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) next door. While Trish distracts Jason, Tommy finally kills him with a machete. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) follows Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd), who was committed to a mental hospital after the events of The Final Chapter, and has grown up constantly afraid that Jason (Tom Morga) will return. Jason's body was supposedly cremated after Tommy killed him. Roy Burns (Dick Wieand) uses Jason's persona to become a copycat killer at the halfway home to which Tommy was moved. Jason appears in the film only through Tommy's dreams and hallucinations. In Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), Tommy (Thom Mathews), who has run away from a mental institution, visits Jason's grave and learns that Jason's body was never actually cremated, but buried in a cemetery near Crystal Lake. While attempting to destroy his body, Tommy inadvertently resurrects Jason (C. J. Graham) via a piece of cemetery fence that acts as a lightning rod. Now possessing superhuman abilities, Jason returns to Crystal Lake, renamed Forest Green, and begins his killing spree anew. Tommy eventually lures Jason back to the lake where he drowned as a child and chains him to a boulder on the lake floor, but almost dies in the process. Tommy's friend, Megan Garris (Jennifer Cooke), finishes Jason off by cutting his neck with a boat propeller.
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) begins an undisclosed amount of time after Jason Lives. Jason (Kane Hodder) is inadvertently freed from his chains by the telekinetic Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln), who was attempting to resurrect her father. Jason begins killing those who occupy Crystal Lake, and after a battle with Tina, is dragged back to the bottom of the lake by an apparition of Tina's father. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) sees Jason return from the grave, brought back to life via an underwater electrical cable. He follows a group of students on their senior class trip to Manhattan, boarding the Lazarus to wreak havoc. Upon reaching Manhattan, Jason kills all the survivors but Rennie (Jensen Daggett) and Sean (Scott Reeves); he chases them into the sewers, where he is submerged in toxic waste and dies. In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), through an unexplained resurrection, he returns to Crystal Lake where he is hunted by the FBI. The FBI sets up a sting to kill Jason, which proves successful. However, through mystical possession, Jason survives by passing his demon-infested heart from one being to the next. Though Jason does not physically appear throughout most of the film, it is learned he has a half-sister and a niece, and that he needs them to retrieve and reinhabit his body. After resurrecting it, Jason is stabbed by his niece Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan) and dragged into Hell.
Jason X (2001) marked Kane Hodder's last performance as Jason. The film starts off in 2010; Jason has returned after another unexplained resurrection. Captured by the U.S. government in 2008, Jason is being experimented upon in a research facility, where it has been determined that he has regenerative capabilities and that cryonic suspension is the only possible solution to stop him, since numerous attempts to execute him have proved unsuccessful. Jason escapes, killing all but one of his captors, and slices through the cryo-chamber, spilling cryonics fluid into the room, freezing himself and the only other survivor, Rowan (Lexa Doig). A team of students 445 years later discover Jason's body. On the team's spacecraft, Jason thaws from his cryonic suspension and begins killing the crew. Along the way, he is enhanced by a regenerative nanotechnology process, which gives him an impenetrable metal body. Finally, he is ejected into space and falls to the planet Earth II, incinerated in the atmosphere.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003) is a crossover film in which Jason battles A Nightmare on Elm Street's villain Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a supernatural killer who murders people in their dreams. Krueger has grown weak, as people in his home town of Springwood have suppressed their fear of him. Freddy, who is impersonating Jason's mother (Paula Shaw), resurrects Jason (Ken Kirzinger) from Hell and sends him to Springwood to cause panic and fear. Jason accomplishes this, but refuses to stop killing. A battle ensues in both the dream world and Crystal Lake. The identity of the winner is left ambiguous, as Jason surfaces from the lake holding Freddy's severed head, which winks and laughs.
In the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot, young Jason (Caleb Guss) witnesses his mother's (Nana Visitor) beheading as a child and follows in her footsteps, killing anyone who comes to Crystal Lake. The adult Jason (Derek Mears) kidnaps Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti), a girl who looks like his mother, and holds her prisoner in his tunnels. Months later, Whitney's brother Clay (Jared Padalecki) comes to Crystal Lake and rescues her. Eventually, Whitney uses Jason's devotion to his mother against him, stabbing him with his own machete while he is distracted when she appears. When his body is dumped into the lake, Jason emerges from the water to grab Whitney and their fates are left unknown.
Literature Jason first appeared outside film in the 1982 novelization of Friday the 13th Part 3 by Michael Avallone. Avallone chose to use an alternate ending, which was filmed for Part 3 but never used, as the ending for his 1982 adaptation. In the alternate film ending, Chris, who is in the canoe, hears Rick's voice and immediately rushes back to the house. When she opens the door, Jason is standing there with a machete, and he decapitates her. Jason next appears in print in the 1986 novelization of Jason Lives by Simon Hawke, who also adapted the first three films in 1987 and 1988. Jason Lives specifically introduced Jason's father, a character who was slated to appear in the film but was cut by the studio. In the novel, instead of being cremated, Jason’s father had him buried after his death.
Jason made his comic book debut in the 1993 adaptation of Jason Goes to Hell, written by Andy Mangels. The three-issue series was a condensed version of the film, with a few added scenes that were never shot. Jason made his first appearance outside the direct adaptations in Satan's Six No. 4, published in 1993, which is a continuation of the events of Jason Goes to Hell. In 1995, Nancy A. Collins wrote a three-issue, non-canonical miniseries involving a crossover between Jason and Leatherface. The story involves Jason stowing away aboard a train, after being released from Crystal Lake when the area is drained due to heavy toxic-waste dumping. Jason meets Leatherface, who adopts him into his family after the two become friends. Eventually they turn on each other. In 1994, four young adult novels were released under the title of Friday the 13th. They did not feature Jason explicitly, but revolve around people becoming possessed by Jason when they put on his mask.