Movies - Jason Voorhees

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Jason Voorhees (born June 13, 1946) is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. A vicious mass murderer, he has a presence in all the films, even when he is not the killer. With his trademark goalie mask and machete, he is arguably among the most recognizable villains from any slasher film. Throughout the series, Jason has never spoken aside from occasional mumbles and groans. Jason is credited as having been created by Victor Miller, the screenwriter of the first Friday the 13th film, in spite of the fact that he barely appeared in that film. For his part, Miller has gone on record as saying he has avoided watching the sequel films and that he has great reservations about how Jason has been handled.

Childhood years

Jason was born on June 13, 1946 to Pamela and Elias Voorhees. Sometime later, Elias left Pamela to raise Jason on her own.

At birth, Jason was deformed, possibly inflicted with a condition known as hydrocephalus. Originally Jason was created as a normal child by Victor Miller, but was later made to be deformed as the crew behind the film decided he was not "special" enough. It was eventually decided that Jason be deformed (much to the dismay of Victor Miller) and Tom Savini designed the makeup for Jason's visage (view Jason's makeup ). When interviewed, Victor Miller, the writer of the original Friday the 13th, was asked about the new "deformed" Jason and said, "He wasn't a deformed creature from the Black Lagoon, but that's how movies are made. I don't think the ending would have been as good if he were a cute blonde kid who looked like Betsy Palmer at 8 years old, do you?". By this statement, Victor Miller means that although he prefered the "normal" Jason, the jump ending would not have had the same effect if it included a normal looking child. Despite firm evidence in the original Friday the 13th some fans still firmly believe Jason was not deformed at birth, and instead, that his deformity was caused after the time of his supposed drowning(see further down). This fan speculation is untrue as Jason's deformed face can clearly be seen in the flashback to his drowning; pictured .

Some fans believe that Jason was also mentally retarded, though in-film details indicate otherwise -- a retarded child would not be allowed into a summer camp in the 1950s, for example. Interestingly, the novelizations of the films describe the young Jason as quiet and distant but otherwise normal, and make no mention of either deformity or retardation.

In any case, his mother loved him deeply. In the summer of 1957, Jason attended Camp Crystal Lake, where his mother worked as a chef. The other children chased him into the lake while the camp counselors were having sex in a nearby cabin, thus leaving the children unattended. Because he could not swim, he began drowning. The camp counselors didn't hear his cries for help, so Jason slipped under the water and was washed away to the other side of the lake. It is unclear whether he survived, or died and came back to life, but his growth into adulthood by the time of Friday the 13th Part 2
suggests that he survived.

Pamela Voorhees' revenge

Mrs. Voorhees went insane with grief after her son's disappearance. She swore revenge on the people responsible for her son's death. She waited one year to act out her vengeance. On June 13, 1958 she murdered the two teenagers she believed to have been responsible for Jason's drowning. After the incident, the camp was closed. A few years later, Mrs. Voorhees sabotaged an attempt to reopen the camp by setting fire to it. Later still, Mrs. Voorhees poisoned the camp's water to prevent the camp from reopening. Because of these incidents, the locals around Crystal Lake began to believe that the camp was cursed and dubbed it "Camp Blood".

The camp was deserted for years, until a man named Steve Christy, whose parents originally owned the camp, spent $25,000 to try to reopen it. Mrs. Voorhees snuck into the camp and murdered Christy and the six teenage counselors he had hired. The only remaining person, Alice, decapitated Mrs. Voorhees with a machete during a struggle.

Jason resurfaces

Living as a hermit in the camp's forest, Jason was drawn to the bank of Crystal Lake by the cries of two women fighting. He arrived just in time to witness his long-lost mother's bloody demise and was horribly devastated. Alice, his mother's killer (in self defence), was trying to get over the massacre when Jason attacked her in her home, stabbing her in the head with an ice pick. Jason then returned to the forest. Five years later, a man named Paul Holt opened up a camp counselor training ground near the Camp Crystal Lake site. Jason, wearing a burlap sack (commonly misidentified as a pillow case) on his head to hide his disfigured face, went into the area to drive them out of his home. After dispatching six counselors, he struggled with a girl named Ginny, who drove a machete into Jason's shoulder. Ginny returned to the training ground with Holt and they locked themselves in one of the cabins. A few minutes later, Jason appeared to burst through the window and attacked the two remaining counselors. However, it is disputed whether this was only a hallucination by Ginny, who awoke to find herself being loaded into an ambulance and Holt nowhere to be seen (Making Friday The 13th: The Legend Of Camp Blood by David Grove, states that Holt was killed off camera), or that it really happened.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Jason Voorhees ]

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Movies - Jason Voorhees

Childhood years

Pamela Voorhees' revenge

Jason resurfaces

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