How is it that even after so many on-screen character deaths, Jason Voorhees is still able to continue his killing spree? The machete-wielding villain appears in eleven Friday the 13th movies, where he has amassed a death toll of over two hundred victims. Even after some of the characters manage to put a temporary stop to the brute force that is Jason, where he is apparently killed and defeated, Jason Voorhees still keeps coming back to life somehow.
Jason Voorhees was born on a Friday the 13th sometime between 1944 and 1946. He was born with several deformities isolated around his face, an enlarged head, and some mental disabilities that caused his education to be limited. He was mostly kept isolated from his community by his mother. Jason’s mother was very controlling, but he was very obedient to her even after her death, as he would occasionally hallucinate conversations with her. When Jason was around age eleven to thirteen, his mother was offered a job at Camp Crystal Lake. Because they were poor and had no relatives or friends, Jason (who needed the guidance of others and his mom) had to go to the camp with his mother.
The other kids quickly began bullying him. One day, when the bullying escalated from “playful” taunting to assault, Jason was killed by drowning in the lake after being pushed into it when he tried to escape his tormentors. None of the camp counselors helped Jason, as they were busy having casual relations. Because Jason comes back “from the dead” older and larger, it seems more likely that he didn’t die that day at Camp Crystal Lake, after all. Instead, he grew up and came back for revenge. No body (for Jason) was ever discovered, and no one was charged with murder. However, Jason’s mother did not settle for that verdict, as she went back to the camp the next year to murder the counselors whom she suspected were involved in Jason’s supposed murder.
The camp was then permanently closed. It is believed Jason’s mother lived close to the camp during the ‘60s and ‘70s, causing fires and other vandalisms to ensure the camp would not be reopened. Locals referred to the camp from then on as Camp Blood and believed the area to be cursed. And perhaps the area had been cursed by the blood spilled on it, causing Jason to have superhuman strength when he first drowned. One of the movies makes it look like Jason swam to safety after his bullies tried to kill him, whether this means he survived the attack or was resurrected is unknown. It is assumed he either built a small house or found one to occupy so he could wait for his mother to find him—she never did until right before her death. After witnessing his mother’s death, Jason took her head and the machete that decapitated her, and went after her killer.
Jason wore a hockey mask to cover his disfigured face and didn’t go into civilization unless necessary, which was rarely. And anytime anyone would go onto the land where Camp Crystal Lake was located, Jason would brutally kill them out of vengeance for his mother. Some of Jason’s apparent powers include a high pain tolerance, regeneration, and superhuman strength, senses, and durability. Jason is also said to be possessed by a demonic parasite that lives within his respiratory system and allows Jason to keep living despite sustaining fatal injuries. This worm-like creature is known as Hellbaby, and it is responsible for keeping Jason from feeling pain.
In one of the movies—Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives—Jason also became a zombie, so he is essentially immortal. There was a storyline in the franchise where a copycat killer was on the loose, imitating Jason by dressing like him and using a machete to kill his victims. At first, the other characters believed all the mysterious murders that suddenly began meant that Jason was back from the dead—yet again. But the copycat was revealed to be a character by the name of Roy Burns, who went crazy after his son was killed by Jason. One of the main protagonists in Friday the 13th is the character Tommy Jarvis, and he is the one who ended up killing the copycat killer after he came after him. Tommy himself became so unhinged after his experiences with Jason that he also almost became another Jason copycat killer.
Tommy was in and out of mental hospitals, but on his final release, he believed his only way to move on with his life was to destroy Jason’s body—which needed to be dug out of its grave. In a fit, he stabbed Jason with a metal fence post. Tommy made the mistake of leaving the post embedded in Jason’s chest on a stormy night. A lightning bolt struck the metal pole and resurrected Jason once more. Though the movies show Jason “surviving” his drowning, perhaps he did die. Most likely, Jason was initially brought back to life by either his mother—who some believe may have gotten ahold of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (Book of the Dead) from Evil Dead—or by a curse placed on the land by demonic spirits or even by the blood spilled on the land from an unknown past.