Friday 13th: Horror Holiday!!!

Even though I am in the intense final throes of a 5,000 word essay, I thought it would be wrong to let Friday 13th go by without mentioning it at all.

Friday 13th is my favourite horror series. You can keep your Nightmare on Elm Streets and your Halloweens. Jason Voorhees is the masked serial killer for me. It's got me to thinking, on this most unholy of horror holidays, what is it about the masked drowning victim turned undead killing machine and his films that make me grin like a Cheshire cat when they are mentioned? Lets 'ave a butchers.

Exhibit A: Thom Mathews

First off, we can't discount the fact that Thom Mathews features in part six. Thom Mathews... let me count the fangirling ways. I think Mr. Mathews and his red puffy vest in Return of the Living Dead 2 may have been the moment I became aware of boys and how interesting they are... Him and Christian Slater as Jason Dean, but I digress.

Anyway, I defy anyone to show me a film with Thom Mathews in which isn't of the highest calibre of marvellousness (I don't think that is a word... bite me). To me, Thom Mathews reminds me of... nay... he embodies mid 1980s horror, and not only that but my favourite year for horror... 1986. The part of Tommy Jarvis was played  by three different actors (Thom, Corey Feldman and John Shepherd), Thom Mathews portrayal is the definitive version... Hell, Tommy Jarvis as played by Thom Mathews is the definitive cute good guy in any 1980s horror movie.

 Exhibit B: Jason is an utter BAMF

Keep your dream demons and keep your psychotic siblings, Mr Voorhees is just pure, unadulterated bad ass killing machine, not to mention, the tall, athletic and brooding type. Played by several actors, including Kane Hodder (also known for Hatchet), Jason Voorhees is the personification of big, strong and psychotic. But I feel that the aspect that adds that little extra to Jason, is something his counterparts Freddy and Michael just don't have. Namely, I've always felt a little sorry for Jason.

After all, his death came about from the incompetence of camp councillors that were meant to be looking after him. Poor Jason drowned in Crystal Lake while his counsellors made out/got drunk/smoked weed/went skinny dipping. He goes through such a myriad of life stages and events. To be precise: hermit, axe in the head, dead, reanimated, bestowed with a copycat killer, reanimated by electricity, dead again, reanimated again this time through telekinesis, dragged to the bottom of a lake by a ghost... reanimated again with electricity again... Um... transformed into a child by toxic waste, dragged to hell, CRYOGENICALLY FROZEN, and ejected into space. That's not counting the Freddy Vs Jason crossover or the re imagining....

I'm slightly ashamed that I knew all that without referring to anything but my brain. Only slightly though.

And what's more is that Jason was never intended to carry the film as a protagonist... Got through on his looks, blatantly.

Exhibit C: The Kills

Yeah, I know that Freddy had that awesome marionette grossness going on in The Dream Warriors but come on! Who killed Kevin Bacon by shoving a knife through a mattress and through his throat while he is laying there in a post coitus daze? Jason, that's who. Honourable mentions also go to Cort's RV/Alice Cooper themed death in Part 6 (you can tell which part is my favourite right?), Rick's eye popping (Lulz... oh the lulz) swan song in Part 3 (seen in 3D, its just... filmic poetry) and Trey's death in Freddy Vs Jason.


I am leaving one of the best deaths out because it is worthy of its own exhibit....

Exhibit D: Crispin Hellion Glover.

I don't think I have to explain this one. I'll break it down for you... Crispin Glover, dancing (type it into youtube... wow), "Ted where's the corkscrew!". Le fin.