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Throughout the planning and filming of the 1980 slasher filmFriday the 13th, none of the film’s cast and crew, led by director and producer Sean S. Cunningham, envisioned that it would become a box-office success, much less launch an enduring franchise featuring Jason Voorhees, who was initially presumed to be dead by the film’s creators. Of course, the main antagonist inFriday the 13this Jason’s deranged mother, Pamela Voorhees,aka Mrs. Voorhees, a grief-stricken, vengeful psychopath who attempts to murder the entire staff of Camp Crystal Lake over Jason’s supposed 1957 drowning death which she blamed on inattentive camp counselors.To the makers ofFriday the 13th, Jason was a victim, not a villain.
However, after the film became the sleeper box-office hit of 1980 and a sequel became inevitable, the only option, especially given Mrs. Voorhees’ gruesome demise inFriday the 13th, was to feature Jason in the sequel,Friday the 13th Part 2, which begins with the premise that Jason survived his drowning and grew up to be a deformed man who seeks revenge for his mother’s death by killing anyone who enters his domain.
One of the biggest challenges with establishing Jason as the face of theFriday the 13thfranchise was creating a frightening look for him. Jason’s true emergence as a compelling horror icon occurred with the second sequel,Friday the13th Part III, the film that introduced Jason’s signature hockey mask, which instantly turned Jason intoa pop culture horror icon.
Arguably the most important contributor to the success of the originalFriday the 13thfilm and resulting franchise is legendary effects expert Tom Savini. In addition to creating various gruesome effects for the film, like the shockingKevin Bacon arrow scene,Savini brought Jason Voorhees to life through one of the most iconic jump-scare horror scenes in history.
While Victor Miller’s original screenplay forFriday the 13thdescribes Jason as being a relatively normal-looking boy who has drowned, Savini turned Jason into a deformed creature, as seen in the climactic lake scene in whichFriday the 13thfinal girl Alice, the lone survivor of the Camp Crystal Lake massacre, floats in a canoe on Crystal Lake, before decomposing Jason suddenly rises out of the water and pulls Alice downward.
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Savini took inspiration for the scene from the 1976 supernatural horror filmCarrie, fromthe climactic jump-scare scenein which Sue Snell, in the midst of a nightmare, places flowers on the burned remains of Carrie’s crumbled home, where Carrie’s bloody arm explodes through the rubble and clutches Sue, who then awakens screaming in her bedroom, just as Alice awakens from her seeming nightmare in a hospital room.
Despite Alice’s closing “Then he’s still out there” line, the lake scene was intended to be a dream, and neither Sean S. Cunningham nor Miller ever considered the possibility of Jason actually being alive. Jason was purely intended to serve as a catalyst through which his mother finds the motivation to kill a group of camp counselors in Jason’s name.
Jason Wears a Burlap Sack in Friday the 13th Part 2
InFriday the 13th Part 2, which takes place five years after the events of the first film, adult Jason Voorhees sports a decidedly backwoods blue-collar look, with black worker-style boots, blue-jean denim overalls, a red plaid button shirt, as well as a burlap-sack mask with a single eye-hole cut out of it. This look is accentuated by the deformed Jason’s decayed yellowish teeth and stringy reddish-brown hair.
Friday the 13th Part 2began filming in October 1980, virtually in tandem with the theatrical release of the acclaimed 1980 biographical drama filmThe Elephant Man, which is based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, called John Merrick in the movie, a man who was afflicted with a rare genetic disorder that gave his facial features an abnormal and overgrown appearance, to the point where Merrick wore a burlap sack over his head while out in public.
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WhenFriday the 13th Part 2was released in 1981,Jason’s burlap-sack appearance elicited derision and laughter from audiences and critics instead of terror. The negative reaction to this look, which also resembles that of the killer in the 1976 horror filmThe Town That Dreaded Sundown, forced director Steve Miner to abandon the burlap sack and completely redesign Jason’s look for the third installment.
A Friday the 13th Part III Crew Member Provided Jason’s Hockey Mask
The course of theFriday the 13thfranchise and pop culture was transformed withFriday the 13th Part III, in a scene in which a practical joker character named Shelly dons a hockey mask while holding a spear gun. After Shelly is killed by Jason off-screen, Jason takes the hockey mask, along with the spear gun, which he then uses to kill a girl, Vera,the new Jason’s first victim.
The hockey mask featured inFriday the 13th Part IIIoriginally belonged to Terry Ballard, a property master who brought a 1950s Detroit Red Wings hockey mask to the set one day, at a time when director Steve Miner and his effects team were struggling to think of a new mask design for Jason. Miner and his team loved the look of the hockey mask, which was altered for the film with the addition of punched holes and red arrows to give the mask a distinct appearance.
In addition tojolting theFriday the 13thfranchiseand the overall horror genre,the hockey mask forever altered Jason, who subsequently became a virtually unstoppable killing machine, in a franchise that presently encompasses 12 films and has grossed nearly $470 million at the box office, an impressive achievement for a character who was initially thought to have drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake.Friday the 13th Part IIIis streaming onParamount+.
