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The Truth About Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
The Truth about Friday the 13th and Jason
With the Friday the 13th/Jason franchise A24 TV series Crystal Lake recently making waves this past October when it debuted on the Peacock streaming platform with all eight episodes dropped at the same time and “revealing the truth” regarding Jason’s “true origin,” I mentioned in my review of the series (read it here) that I had my own theory regarding “what’s really going on” in the franchise as a whole. Within Friday the 13th/Jason fandom, that tends to be a common discussion topic, “what’s really going on” in the franchise. Is there an actual continuity to the whole thing? Does any of it make any sense when you try to line it all up? And you can go online and find plenty of articles and blogs and videos on YouTube “explaining” what’s really going on with the franchise. And with this article, let me add to the overall discussion on what I think is “really going on” when it comes to Friday the 13th and the hockey mask wearing killer Jason Voorhees.
And so, without any further what have you, let me tell you what I think is really going on with the Friday the 13th/Jason franchise. What is the truth when it comes to Friday the 13th and Jason, at least according to me?
The Truth about Friday the 13th and Jason
When it comes to the Friday the 13th/Jason franchise, as I write this, there are twelve “official” movies and one TV series (and, oddly enough, the TV series that’s called Friday the 13th: The Series is not a part of the franchise). Those movies are Friday the 13th (1980), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Friday the 13th Part 3 (aka Friday the 13th Part 3D)(1982), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives! (1986), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), and Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), all released by Paramount Pictures. Then in 1993, New Line Cinema released Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, followed up by Jason X in 2002. Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema teamed up in 2003 for the long awaited franchise fight movie Freddy vs. Jason, and then Paramount and New Line sort of “teamed up” with Warner Bros. in 2009 for the remake Friday the 13th. And then, as I mentioned in the opening, the TV series Crystal Lake debuted in the fall of 2026. The franchise has been around for forty-six years, almost five decades as I write this. And yet, when it comes to what’s really going on with the franchise in terms of its continuity, it’s kind of a mess. It all doesn’t seem to fit together neatly. There doesn’t seem to be a “series bible” like modern franchises tend to have where just about every detail is mapped out and dealt with. Friday the 13th and Jason just seem to exist, with no real thought put into any of it from movie to movie. So how does one reconcile all of this? What is “the truth?”
The truth is the events seen in the first movie, 1980’s Friday the 13th, are the only events that actually happened. Everything else after that, both the sequels and the TV show, is what I like to call a “self-perpetuating urban legend.” Anything that we see happen after the first movie didn’t happen at all. It’s just one big seemingly endless story that grows and grows, with new bits and pieces and details that don’t quite fit together because the story is being told by multiple entities one after the other.
Think about it.
Friday the 13th is a story about a deranged woman killing multiple young people at a summer camp, getting revenge in her mind for the accidental death of her son years before. The woman, Pamela Voorhees, is eventually killed by Alice, one of the camp counselors. This story takes place in what amounts to the real world, in a small town that you can recognize, seems familiar, and you can likely go to. And all of the people in it are real people, from the camp counselors to the townsfolk (even Crazy Ralph!) to Pamela the murderer. They can be stabbed and killed and they stay dead when they are killed, like what would happen in the real world. You could read about the events in the movie in the newspaper or see a TV news report/news documentary and it all would seem kind of “normal” and plausible. The whole thing would be revolting and insane, sure, but it wouldn’t seem that out of the ordinary. Even the beheading at the end of the movie. You could see all of that happening.
The sequels? The TV show? How could any of it ever happen in the real world? Any of it?
Starting with the second movie, the killer isn’t a deranged woman anymore, it’s that deranged woman’s son, the one who died in Crystal Lake decades ago. But he didn’t really die. No, that kid, Jason, somehow survived drowning in the lake and has been living in the woods all by himself. He saw his mother get killed and went and killed the woman that killed his Mom, and then went back to living in the woods so he could start killing anyone else that decides to open/operate the summer camp or do anything in the woods. He’s a big guy that wears a sack on his head, and then he stops doing that and then starts wearing a hockey mask. And he’s hard to kill for some reason. Really, really hard to kill.
Except that one time when he was killed. A kid jammed a machete right into his head, and then that kid chopped him up with that machete. That was supposed to be the end of it.
Except it wasn’t. Jason came back as a zombie after the kid that killed him, now older, dug him up to burn his body, but in the process of trying to do that Jason was struck by lightning and came back to life and started killing people again. That older kid eventually put a chain around Jason’s neck, attached that chain to a big rock, and then deposited Jason right in the middle of the lake (it was part of some weird occult thing or some such). Jason was stopped.
Except Jason wasn’t stopped. Jason came back and fought a young woman that could move things with her mind (it’s called telekinesis in some circles). And then Jason was put back in the lake by the young woman’s dead father’s ghost. Or something.
And then there was that time Jason killed a bunch of people on a big boat, a big boat that was travelling to New York City. And then Jason killed a bunch of people in New York City. Jason was eventually killed with toxic waste in the sewers of New York City.
But Jason wasn’t dead at all. Not really. He was still killing people in the woods next to Crystal Lake. He was then blown up by the FBI. And then Jason came back, this time as a body jumping demon worm that needs to jump into someone that he is related to in order to be “reborn.” And we find out that the only way to actually really kill Jason is by someone he is related to with a special knife. And we find out all of this from a bounty hunter that is hired by a TV show to find Jason and kill him “for all time.” Jason is eventually reborn and then really killed.
Except he wasn’t killed at all. No, Jason then fought a supernatural serial killer that is known to kill people in their dreams or something. And did you know that Jason also went into outer space one time?
Yeah. Outer goddamn space.
And that’s all before the 2009 reboot, where bits and pieces of all of that are smooshed together while we discover that Jason has underground tunnels all over the place.
See what I mean? Absolutely none of this sequel horseshit happened. None of it.
And that doesn’t even include the time a medic decided to get revenge for the death of his son by dressing up as Jason and killing a bunch of people. That particular killer was eventually killed by the same person that killed Jason by jamming a machete into his head and then chopping him up. And somehow that person aged around ten years between those encounters, and he was institutionalized.
And think of that person that killed Jason three times, Tommy Jarvis. The first time we see him, he’s a kid. A pre-teen. He’s then older, although we don’t know how much older. And then when Tommy puts Jason in the lake he’s older but he looks different. What the hell is that all about?
And think of Jason’s appearance. The first time we see him, he’s a kid in a dream. Then he’s a grown man living in the woods with a sack on his head, and then we see him without that sack and he has long red hair and a messed up face. Was that real? The next time we see him, he’s a bald guy with a different messed up face (where did his long red hair go? Did he shave it off in between killing sprees?). Then he puts on the hockey mask, which becomes his signature look sort of out of the blue. He loses that mask in a fight and his face is messed up but messed up in a different way again. And then he becomes a zombie. When we first see him as a zombie, he has a rotted face. Later on, when Jason fights the telekinetic woman, his rotted face is different again. We can also see Jason’s spinal column and some other bones at this point. After the telekinetic woman beats him and Jason is put back into the lake, he comes back again via electricity in a different way and he’s just really soggy now (you can’t see his spine or any of his bones anymore). He looks different again when the FBI kills him, and he seems a bit taller when he fights that Freddy guy. And when he ends up in space, Jason gets turned into a goddamn cyborg. And when the franchise is rebooted he looks different again.
And think of how no one ever seems to remember the mass murder that just happened and was reported in the media multiple times, both on TV and in print? And how the events of movies two, three, and four all allegedly happen over the same weekend and yet, again, no one seems to know a goddamn thing about what just happened? And why do all of the cops and medics and whatnot that keep showing up to deal with the aftermath of the mass murder that just happened never seem to know or be bothered by any of it? And why are all of the cops different, like the sheriff?
And why does the area around Crystal Lake always look different? Even if what’s happening in the next story is happening in the next spot over, why does none of it seem like an area that would, in fact, be right next to the area that we just saw? Why is the sign for the camp the only thing that seems to be the same from story to story?
And remember how it’s revealed in the first story where Jason is a zombie that the town of Crystal Lake is no longer Crystal Lake? How Crystal Lake became the town of Forrest Green? How long did that name change last? Do towns typically change their names because of a horrific legacy of mass murder and then change it back to that old name after more mass murder?
Jason is just one big never ending story. Jason the hockey mask wearing mass murderer never happened. Jason is meant to scare you for no reason beyond some laughs by the storyteller. None of it is real. Jason is bullshit. The Crystal Lake TV show is bullshit, too. Jason is not a product of science gone mad and none of that shit happened, either. None of it.
Pamela Voorhees going on a murderous rampage and then getting killed herself during that rampage by someone she wanted to be another victim? All of the stuff that happened in Friday the 13th (1980)? All of that absolutely happened.
And that, to me, is the truth when it comes to Friday the 13th and Jason.
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Well, I think that’ll be about it for now. Don’t forget to sign up with disqus if you want to comment on this article and any other 411 article. You know you want to, so just go do it.
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