The
franchise is mainly based on the fictional character of Jason
Voorhees, who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake as a boy due to the
negligence
of the teenage counselors. Decades later, the lake is rumored to be
"cursed" and is the setting for a series of mass murders. Jason is
featured in all of the films, either as the killer or as the motivation
for the
killings.
Friday
the 13th
Friday
the 13th Part
2
Friday
the 13th Part
3
The
Final Chapter
A
New Beginning
Jason
Lives
The
New Blood
Jason
Takes Manhattan
Jason
Goes to Hell
Jason
X
Freddy
vs. Jason
In the original
Friday the 13th (1980), Mrs.
Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) stalks and murders a group of camp
counselors. She is determined to make sure Camp Crystal Lake does not
reopen,
after her son Jason (Ari Lehman) drowned in the lake while two
counselors,
who were supposed to be watching him, were off having sex and not
paying
attention. The last girl, Alice (Adrienne
King), fends off Mrs. Voorhees long enough to grab a machete to
decapitate
her. For Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Jason's death
as a boy is retconned,
and he gets his revenge on the girl who decapitated his mother.
Afterward,
Jason (Steve Daskewisz) returns to Crystal Lake, guarding it from all
intruders. Five years later, a group of teenagers come to Crystal Lake
to set
up a new camp, only for Jason to murder them, one by one. Ginny Field
(Amy
Steel),
the lone survivor, finds a cabin in the woods with a shrine built
around the
severed head of Mrs. Voorhees, and surrounded by mutilated corpses.
Ginny
fights back, and slams a machete through Jason's shoulder. Jason is
left for
dead as Ginny is taken away in an ambulance. In Friday the 13th Part
III
(1982), Jason (Richard
Brooker) finds his way to Higgins Haven, Chris' family land at Cystal
Lake.
At the same time, Chris Higgins (Dana
Kimmell) returns to the property with some friends. 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 seemingly kills Jason with an axe to 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 where Part III leaves off, with Jason (Ted White)
found by the police and taken to
the morgue at the Wessex County Medical Center. Once delivered, Jason,
not
dead, awakens and kills the coroner and a nurse, and then makes his way
back to
Crystal Lake. A group of friends rent a house on Crystal Lake and fall
victim
to Jason's rampage. After killing all of the teens next door, Jason
seeks out Trish (Kimberly
Beck) and Tommy Jarvis (Corey
Feldman). While distracted by Trish, Jason is attacked and killed by
Tommy.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
(1985) tried to move in a new direction. Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd)
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. Tommy, supervisor
Pam (Melanie
Kinnaman), and a young boy named Reggie (Shavar Ross)
manage to defeat Roy. They learn Roy was motivated to become Jason
after
witnessing the remains of his son, whom no one knew about, butchered at
the
hands of one of the patients at the institution. Friday the 13th Part
VI: Jason Lives
(1986) had Tommy (Thom Mathews) visiting Jason's grave after being
released from a mental institution. It is revealed that Jason's body
was never
actually cremated, but buried in Forest Green cemetery (formerly
Crystal Lake
cemetery). Tommy inadvertently resurrects Jason (C.J. Graham)
via a piece of cemetery fence, which acts as a lightning
rod. Jason remains in Forest Green, believing it is Crystal Lake. After
killing the new camp counselors working there, Jason is chained to a
boulder by
Tommy, and left at the bottom of the lake to die.
Friday the 13th
Part VII: The
New Blood (1988) begins an indeterminate amount of time after Jason
Lives.
Jason (Kane
Hodder) is resurrected again, this time by the telekinetic
Tina Shepard (Lar
Park Lincoln), who was trying to resurrect her father. Jason once again
begins killing those who occupy Crystal Lake, and, after a battle with
Tina, is
returned to the bottom of the lake. Friday the 13th Part
VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) sees Jason return from the lake,
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 the rest of the survivors, with the
exception
of Rennie (Jensen Daggett) and
Sean (Scott
Reeves); he chases the final two into the sewers, where Jason is caught
and
melted away by toxic waste. In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final
Friday (1993), Jason, through unexplained resurrection, returns to
Crystal
Lake, where he is being hunted by the F.B.I.. The F.B.I. sets up a
sting
to kill Jason, which proves successful. Through possession, Jason
manages to
survive by passing his black heart from one being to the next. Though
Jason is
hardly seen throughout the film, it is learned that he has a sister and
niece,
and that he needs them to get his body back. After resurrecting his own
body,
Jason is finally killed by his niece, Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan),
and dragged to Hell.
Jason X (2002)
takes place in the future, where Jason has again been inexplicably
resurrected.
He is being held and experimented upon in a research facility. It is
determined
that he has regenerative capabilities and that cryonic
suspension is the only possible solution to stop him since he cannot be
killed. Jason breaks out of captivity and manages to slice through the
cryo-chamber, spilling the cryonics into the room freezing the only
other
survivor, Rowan (Lexa Doig).
Four hundred and fifty-five years later, Jason's body is discovered by
a team
of students studying Earth. Upon being thawed by the team, he proceeds
to murder
everyone aboard the spacecraft, before finally being blown into space,
and
landing on Earth 2. The most recent Friday the 13th film was a
crossover with A
Nightmare on Elm Street, entitled Freddy
vs. Jason (2003). Set in the contemporary period, Freddy Krueger
(Robert
Englund) has grown weak, as people in Springwood, his home, have
suppressed
their fear of him. Freddy, who is impersonating Pamela Voorhees (Paula
Shaw),
sends Jason (Ken Kirzinger) 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 outcome is left ambiguous, as
Jason
surfaces from the lake holding Freddy's severed head, which winks and
laughs. |
DVD
