First off, I just want to say I am a huge horror film fan. I have been watching them since I was a child. I remember being scared half to death when my parents introduce me to Friday the 13th (not intentionally). I remember waking up in the middle of the night not being able to go to sleep. I
would always walk out in my parent's family room. Both of them would be sitting on the couch. My mom would drink a 7-up soda and my dad would drink a beer. I told my dad how I was having trouble sleeping. He would say just go back to bed and close your eyes than you will fall asleep. I turned around and saw the TV. I saw that it was Friday the 13th part 2. I believe it was the last 15 minutes of the movie because I saw the killer, Jason Voorhees running around with what appeared to be a pillow sack on his head trying to kill an innocent teenager. At the time, it was scary but I was fascinated by it. I
sat down on the floor knowing I wasn't suppose to watch it. My dad did tell me I needed to go back to sleep because this wasn't for kids. He allowed me to finish watching it. I think it was the fact I was
intrigued by it. The final scene of the movie when Jason without his pillow sack jumps through a window and gets Ginny, that is when I realize that the bogey man wasn't hiding under my bed, it was Jason Voorhees.
I always had bad dreams off and on as a kid about Jason Voorhees after watching that last scene from Friday the 13th part 2. When I was introduced to Friday the 13th part three, my bad dreams were recurring. This was the first time that I ever watched a horror movie about a man in a mask killing innocent teenagers out in the woods. This man was hellbent on killing anyone and everyone he saw and I didn't know why (I didn't know the back story about it when I was a child). All of my dreams were pretty much the same thing. I would run away from a man that was wearing a mask and carrying a machete. (My bad dreams got worse when I watched Nightmare on Elm St. Not only did I have Jason in them, Freddy was with him). No matter how fast I would run Jason was right behind me walking, determined to get me. I would run into a empty room and hide. I thought to myself, "I'm safe he can't get me." I would turn around and there he is. I would try to keep running from him and hiding. The worse part of the dreams I had was my mom, dad, brothers and sister would be in the dream. Jason never went after them, only me. I would run up to my Mom and Dad to tell them a monster was after me. They would say "that's nice" or "run along and go play, I'm busy right now." as if they were ignoring me or in a comatose state. Eventually Jason would catch up to me, raise his arm with that machete like I was another camp counselor teenager getting read to die. I would wake up from my bad dreams scared. Sometimes I would wake up my dad telling him I had a bad dream or I would wake him up to tell him I wet the bed again.
In the eighties, horror movies were the big thing. We were introduced to Friday the 13th in 1980, which made a lot of money at the box office. In 1984, Nightmare on Elm St. introduced iconic figure, Freddy Krueger, In 1987 Pinhead from Hellraiser, and 1988, Chucky in the Child's play movies. However, we can't forget about the 70's when Leatherface was introduced in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie (1974) and Michael Meyers in the Halloween movie (1978). I believed these two horror characters in the seventies opened up the door for the creation of Jason Voorhees and other iconic, horror characters created in the eighties.
What frightens me about Jason Voorhees the most is his back story. I'm not going to go into too much detail about it because anyone who watches horror movies knows Jason Voorhees. He is the "father" of horror villains. Everyone knows when Jason was a child he was drowned in Camp Crystal Lake. The counselors weren't paying any attention to him due to the fact they were just partying. When Pamela Voorhees, Jason's Mother, knew about this, she seek revenge to kill all the counselors responsible for Jason's death. She killed almost all the counselors beside one, her name was Alice. Alice chops Pamela's head off. Jason seeks revenge on Alice. However, Jason isn't a child he is a full grown adult. After he gets revenge the terror doesn't
stop. We continue to see Jason Voorhees in a total of eleven films with over 150 kills. I believe out of all the horror villains created in Hollywood, he has the most kills. This is why Jason is the scariest horror icon today.
In most of the Friday the 13th movies they take place at Camp Crystal lake. I have never went camping as a child because I was too frightened to after watching the Friday films. When watching eleven films with most of the people getting murdered in the woods, would you want to go on a camping trip let alone a summer camp? Jason's weapon of choice was always the machete in his films. However, Jason was very creative with his kills. He would use anything to kill a teenager who did drugs or had sex. A man who stands over 6 ft, 225 lbs with a machete in his hand is scarier than a man who stands 5'9, 135 lbs with a big, metal claw on his hand any day of the week. Don't get me wrong Michael Myers was a pretty scary individual in his movies, especially the Rob Zombie ones. What makes Jason better than Michael Myers is that Jason was a walking dead, zombie corpse while Michael Myers was just a human being. No matter what you did to Jason from snapping his neck from a rope to hanging him from a barn to a Corey Feldman taking a machete into Jason's brain to a daughter's deceased, father coming back from the dead dragging him to the bottom of Camp Crystal Lake. You just can't keep him down. He will come back somehow and be stronger than ever and will make more bloodshed.
This is my debut article on Jason Voorhees. I was hoping to do this in one article but I was pressed for time. I do hope to release a new, more detailed article later on this read. Please feel free to comment or express your opinions but please do so in a constructive manner. I hope you enjoy the youtube video I have posted below.