Jason Voorhees

Jason Voorhees is the central antagonist associated with the Friday the 13th horror franchise. His story begins at Camp Crystal Lake, where, as a child, he supposedly drowned in 1957 after falling into the lake while camp counselors neglected to supervise him. The first film, Friday the 13th (1980), does not show Jason as the killer. Instead, his mother, Pamela Voorhees, murders the counselors responsible for the camp’s reopening, claiming that Jason’s death caused her revenge. Alice Hardy kills Pamela by decapitating her with a machete, ending the film’s immediate threat.

Jason becomes the killer in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). The movie reveals that he survived his drowning and has lived in the wilderness surrounding Crystal Lake. He wears a burlap sack over his head and attacks counselors and visitors with tools including a pickaxe and a spear. Ginny Field briefly outsmarts him by wearing Pamela’s sweater and pretending to be his mother, but Jason survives the confrontation.

In Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Jason acquires the hockey mask that becomes his signature appearance. He kills several people at a rural property near Crystal Lake before being defeated by Chris Higgins. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) follows Jason after he escapes a morgue and returns to Crystal Lake. Tommy Jarvis, a young boy fascinated by horror makeup, kills Jason by repeatedly striking him with a machete.

The character returns in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), although the killer is revealed to be Roy Burns, a paramedic impersonating Jason after his son’s death. Jason is resurrected in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), where a lightning strike revives his corpse. From this point, he is depicted as an essentially undead, nearly unstoppable murderer.

Jason travels to Manhattan in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), visits hell in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), and enters space in Jason X (2001). He also battles Freddy Krueger in Freddy vs. Jason (2003). A 2009 reboot retells elements of his origin and presents him as an adult living beneath Crystal Lake. Across the films, Jason is recognized for his hockey mask, physical strength, silence, and repeated connection to the lake where his story began.