During the pinnacle of horror films throughout the 1970s and 80s, a genre would ignite a spark within young, brilliant, and talented filmmakers that would take horror to the next level, with underlying social commentaries to back up its graphic and bloody atmosphere. While Halloween would do a deep dive into the inherent evils that exist in suburban neighborhoods and A Nightmare on Elm Street would take on the nightmarish concept of parental neglect, another franchise would take on the critical themes of abuse, grief, rage, and indulgence, that would manifest Jason Voorhees in the 1980s horror classic, Friday The 13th.
However, in order to truly understand Friday The 13th, one must go back to the beginning, when a mother's despair over her drowned son would give rise to one of the most dreadful slasher icons of all time. What year did Jason Voorhees drown, leaving a trail of bloodshed in his wake?
What is the original Friday The 13th about?
A film that cost 550,000 dollars to make according to Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th, Friday The 13th would bring the iconic masked killer to life and would change the nature of horror slashers moving forward. Friday the 13th begins with the tragedy of an innocent boy, Jason Voorhees, who drowns senselessly at Camp Crystal lake, which sends his mother, a cook for Camp Crystal Lake, into a violent rage, driving her to murder not only those responsible for his death but anyone that fits the mold of such killers. But the theme goes deeper than a mother consumed with grief and rage.
The characters embody a sense of realism, this sense of youthfulness, attractiveness, and sexual elements that comes with such territories of being a teenager. While Friday The 13th condemns the teens for why Jason drowns in the first place, there is something more to say about negligence and being consumed with one's physical pleasures, a price the teens pay for as it ultimately leads to the death of Pamela Voorhees' child. The physical murders serve as a mask for what Friday The 13th's moral sin is: lust. An act of passion that comes in the form of selfishness, lust can breed pain unto others. However, Friday The 13th underscores its entire mood, suspense, and blood-curding imagery with revenge. No matter how well-founded the motive, whether one is innocent or not, retaliation is at the mercy of both parties.
When did Jason Vorhees drown?
Jason Voorhees was born on Friday, June 13, 1947, to parents Pamela and Elias Voorhees, in the small quaint town of Crystal Lake. As a child, Jason's childhood was not the best, as his severe deformities would lead him to a life of pain and isolation. Never attending school, the only emotional and physical contact he would ever grow to know would be from his mother. In 1957, when Jason reached the age of 11 years old, Jason would attend Camp Crystal Lake, where his mother worked as a cook long before the camp would be known as "Camp Blood" for the massacre that would occur, Camp Crystal Lake was a place of sunshine and pristine waters.
Nevertheless, young Jason would soon experience abuse and harassment in this idyllic setting. Because of his deformity, Jason would become a victim of ridicule and ill-treatment from the other children. To escape the relentless torture the campers have caused him, Jason runs down to the pier and falls into Crystal Lake. Jason could never swim. He struggles to stay afloat and disappears below the surface of the waves.
The body was never recovered from Crystal Lake after being saved by Duece Hill, but everyone, including Jason's mother, believes he died the day he went over the pier. Consumed with grief, Pamela blames camp counselors Barry and Claudette and the rest of the camp counselors for his death. Pamela sneaks back into the camp a year later and murders Barry and Claudette, believing they could have prevented the accident that killed her son. Following the murders, the camp is closed, earning it the moniker "Camp Blood."
Who is the original killer in Friday The 13th?
While Jason is forever associated as the franchise's main killer, he is not the original killer who earned the camp its sinister pseudonym, "Camp Blood." While this may come as a shock for some, Jason does not kill anyone at all in the first film. Because of the film's final moments, it's unclear whether Jason appears at all. Alice, the sole survivor of the Camp Crystal Lake massacres, discovers that Pamela Voorhees had a son who drowned in the camp's lake. At the movie's conclusion, a younger Jason appears from the lake and assaults Alice. After the attacks, Alice wakes up in the hospital, leaving viewers to speculate as to whether or not she was violently attacked.
Due to Jason's increased popularity throughout the films and over the years, many people often think that Jason is the original killer in the franchise. While Jason is the masked killer in all of the other films after the first installment, Jason's character often overshadows the fact that the main killer was Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees. Consumed with rage over her son's death, she takes matters into her own hands and attempts to complete the job of killing the campers who caused his death.
In her attempts to secure justice for her son, Friday the 13th makes the point that injustices, no matter how hard we try to right them, frequently remain uncorrected and that those who commit them often escape punishment. Pamela Voorhees has gone down to be one of the most famous slasher villains of all time. At a time when very few slashers had a female villain within the slasher context, Friday The 13th would go down in history as one of the few slasher experiences bold enough to go against the grain.