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Even the biggest fans of the Friday the 13th franchise have to admit that the series isn’t on the cinematic vanguard. Creator Sean S. Cunningham saw the big returns generated by John Carpenter‘s micro budget Halloween and put his own holiday-themed horror movie into production, announcing the title long before he had a cast, a crew, or even a script. Killer Jason Voorhees didn’t even get his iconic hockey mask until midway through the third entry.
So how did Friday the 13th become a financial success in its own time and a beloved franchise today? Simple: it’s all about the kills. Right from the beginning, Cunningham knew that fans wanted subversive thrills, and so he hired the legendary effects artist Tom Savini to work on the first movie, setting a standard for everything that followed.
For this Friday the 13th, we’re going to look back at the 10 best ways Jason (or Jason pretenders) offed the denizens of Crystal Lake.
10. Kevin Bacon Gets Penetrated in Bed (Friday the 13th)
Revisited today, the original Friday the 13th from 1980 feels like an outlier in the franchise it launched. Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) does all the killing to get revenge for the death of her son Jason, and the film has a more obviously Giallo-inspired whodunnit structure. However, there is one aspect of the original that all of the sequels try to match: the kills.
No kill better demonstrates this point than the death of counselor Jack Burrell, who gets an arrow shoved through the back of his neck. Played by future great Kevin Bacon, Jack and his girlfriend Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) sneak away to a cabin for some alone time during a storm. After finishing, Marcie goes to wash up while Jack leans back to enjoy a post-coital joint. Only then does he notice the blood dripping from the top bunk, blood leaking from victim Ned (Mark Nelson). However, Jack notices too late, as Pamela’s (surprisingly beefy) hand grabs his head, holding him down as she drives an arrow through his Adam’s apple.
9. Campground Rotisserie (2009)
Time has only helped the 2009 Friday the 13th remake. Even if the movie can’t quite overcome bad decisions like squeezing the plot beats of the first two films into an extended prologue or providing an explanation for Jason’s apparent ability to teleport (underground tunnels). But like all the torture-heavy horror of the 2000s, the mean-spirited tone of the movie has been reevaluated, allowing us to admire what once revolted us.
From this new perspective, the early kill in which Jason cooks a woman in her backpack is a thing of cruel beauty, establishing this Jason (Derek Mears) as more intelligent than previous iterations. After discovering the body of his dead friend, camper Richie (Ben Feldman) rushes back to find his girlfriend Amanda (America Olivo) trapped in her sleeping bag and dangling over the campfire. He runs to free her, but gets caught in a bear trap, forcing him to further mutilate his leg while watching his girlfriend burn alive.
8. Post, Coital (Jason Goes to Hell)
There isn’t a lot to recommend about Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Not necessarily because it’s a bad movie—even though it is sloppy in its construction—but because it’s not really a Jason movie. The whole plot about Jason being a demon worm who infects other people after his body is destroyed makes the flick seem like an interloper in the franchise.
Still, we do get one classic Jason kill, even if “Jason” in this case is an infected coroner played by Richard Gant. When hitchhikers Luke and Deborah (Michael B. Silver and Michelle Clunie) sneak off to a tent to have sex, the coroner follows them. Right at the moment of climax, Coroner Jason shoves a fence post through the tent and right through Deborah’s chest. He then yanks the post upward, splitting Deborah in two and spilling blood all over Luke.
7. He’s Killing Me (The Final Chapter)
Most Friday the 13th fans agree that either fourth entry The Final Chapter or Part VI: Jason Lives belongs at the top of the franchise rankings. However, neither of those movies have the most spectacular kills. Instead, they satisfy fans by offering other genre thrills. In The Final Chapter‘s case, that means a tight slasher with interesting side characters.
Those interesting side characters make for the fourth movie’s best kill, in which Jason takes down Rob Dier (Erich Anderson). Rob enters midway through The Final Chapter and presents himself as an expert, having been hunting Jason since his sister Sandra (Marta Kober) was killed in the second film. But as soon as he actually finds Jason, Rob fumbles it, first tripping on the stairs and then running right toward his enemy—who proceeds to pin Rob to the wall and starts hacking him to bits. Still, Rob does prove his expertise in one way, shouting, “He’s killing me!” as Jason does the dirty deed.
6. Smiley Face (Jason Lives)
After The Final Chapter perfected the Friday the 13th model, Jason Lives parodied it, injecting self-aware humor into the series. Writer and director Tom McLoughlin revitalizes Jason as a Frankenstein’s Monster who lumbers after antagonist Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews), while the nearby campers make knowing wisecracks along the way.
The combination of humor and horror is found in the movie’s best kill. A corporate retreat sends a group of doughy office workers to play paintball in the woods outside of Crystal Lake, giving the drones an opportunity to indulge their inner Rambo. After being bested by the new female executive, would-be Alpha male Burt (Wallace Merck) mutters about gender equality while hacking through the foliage with his machete. In need of a new sharp object, the resurrected Jason catches Burt by the arm, tearing away the appendage, and smashing his head into a tree trunk, leaving behind a smiley face and a splash of blood.
5. Unmanning Handstanding Andy (Part 3)
It really took four movies for Friday the 13th to figure itself out. In the meantime, filmmakers filled the movies with all sorts of nonsense to kill time, none more so than the 3D-enhanced third entry. To take advantage of the gimmicky technology, director Steve Miner instructed his actors to stick all sorts of stuff into the camera, from yo-yos to car keys to eyeballs. Most of it is pretty forgettable, even for those watching it in stereoscopic vision, but the loose structure makes space for one of the best kills in the series.
Like his pal Shelly (Larry Zerner), Andy Beltrami (Jeffery Rogers) cannot resist a prank. However, unlike Shelly, Andy knows when to make a joke and when it’s time to stop goofing around. For example, Andy doesn’t pull any goofs before he and his girlfriend Debbie (Tracie Savage) have sex. But after they’re done and she goes off to take a shower, then Andy decides to do a handstand and walk across the hallway on his hands. That is, until Jason appears in the hallway and hacks Andy right down the middle. MPAA censors cut up the scene worse than Jason did, but the weirdness of the handstand more than makes up for the lack of gore.
4. Back to Bed (Freddy vs. Jason)
All these years later, Freddy vs. Jason remains divisive among Friday the 13th fans. Director Ronny Yu’s slick, CG-assisted action and predilection for dutch angles suits the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, but Jason plays a secondary role in the movie, as demonstrated by the nonsense lore about fear of water.
Still, the movie manages to give Jason one incredible kill, early in the film. After having sex with his girlfriend Gibb (Katharine Isabelle), meathead Trey Hutch (Jesse Hutch) leaves to clean off. Like the most bro-tastic of bros, Trey immediately cracks into a brewski, but he’s interrupted by Jason, who starts stabbing away. When the bubbling beer can in Trey’s hand indicates that he’s still alive, Jason grabs both sides of the bed and folds it closed, bending Trey backwards in the process.
3. Death by Enchiladas (A New Beginning)
As this list shows, characters in Friday the 13th movies don’t act like normal people. That’s especially true of the fifth movie, A New Beginning. After the death of Jason in The Final Chapter, A New Beginning tries to reboot with another whodunnit involving someone dressed like Jason. The mystery isn’t interesting, but there’s enough strangeness involved to elevate the film, as seen in its best kill.
Like most Friday the 13th couples, biker Demon (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) and his girlfriend Anita (Jere Fields) like making out. However, their makeout session comes to an abrupt end when Demon’s stomach starts gurgling, sending him running to the outhouse while complaining about “damned enchiladas.” Undeterred, Anita stands outside the outhouse and starts singing, prompting Demon to continue the duet from inside the campground outhouse. Their stinky serenade comes to an end when the killer arrives to slit Anita’s throat and then starts stabbing into the outhouse, eventually impaling Demon.
2. Sleeping Bag Beatdown (The New Blood)
As a horror series set at a campground, Friday the 13th has a lot of sleeping bag deaths. The best of all came in one of the weaker entries, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. Directed by the great John Carl Buechler, The New Blood goes for a sort of monster mash, pitting Jason against Tina Shepherd (Lar Park Lincoln), a girl with Carrie-like telekinetic powers. The match makes for some absurd fight scenes, none of which drive the best kill scene.
Unlike others on this list, Judy (Debora Kessler) does not have sex with her boyfriend Dan (Michael Schroeder). Instead, she sends him off to find firewood first, and slips into her sleeping bag to prepare for her return. That’s when Jason returns, cutting open her tent and yanking her sleeping bag outside. He drags Judy into the woods and slams the sleeping bag against a tree, dropping her bloody body onto the ground. It’s a nasty kill, ironically made worse by the MPAA’s insistence that Buechler cut the shot down to a single slam.
1. Frozen Face (Jason X)
Jason X is easily the dumbest movie in the Friday the 13th franchise. To be clear, I mean that as a compliment. Writer Todd Farmer and director James Isaac completely ignore good sense and good taste to tell a bizarre story set in 2455, when a group of space-traveling archeology students recover Jason’s cryogenically frozen body. Jason stays dormant at first, that is until a professor and a student sneak off for a tryst, the sounds of extramarital sex pulling him back to life.
Unfortunately for intern Adrienne Thomas-Hart (Kristi Angus), that reawakening happens at the same time that she’s examining Jason in a lab. Immediately after coming back to life, Jason grabs Adrienne’s head and drives it into a pool of liquid nitrogen. He then pulls it out and smashes her frozen face onto the table, spraying chunks of flesh and ice across the room.
The post Friday the 13th: Jason’s 10 Best Kills, Ranked appeared first on Den of Geek.
