Now I know what you are all thinking: how come these men had Jason's facial deformities? I would chalk that up to being a result of being possessed by him for a certain period of time.
- Alternatively, he retroactively changed their looks into them having ALWAYS looked like that.
- This is a good explanation for the early films, but it his lightning-resurrected body in VI muddies the waters somewhat.
- Alternatively, Jason's a drug dealer. Not everyone who farms and sells weed is a user; it could be all business for him. Those little shits are stealing his weed and costing him money.
- Alternatively-alternatively, Jason's neither of these things; the weed is bait. He planted that patch knowing that teenagers would be drawn to it, and inevitably smoke it, making them easier to kill.
- That... actually seems very plausible.
- Jason may not be as dumb as he seems.
This also explains why the kids are so dumb: they are conditioned to run off by themselves.
And finally, 'Jason' gets luxury dinners if he kills off the kids in a certain way; the viewers of the surveillance tapes expect the cliches of a horror movie.
- Alternately, since being able to give people false memories like that would probably imply that this is the future, Jason could be a bio-engineered killing machine. He keeps coming back because when he has a very resilient physiology and can hibernate for very long periods, and if he is killed for good the government just uploads all his memories, clones him, and put the memories in the clone. He may be brainwashed to believe his own origin story. Or perhaps his origin story is actually true, except he was brought back to life and transformed into the Jason we know by the government.
He always dies because that's the event in his life that she most remembers. But in her fantasies, he always comes back. Just before dying, she became so delusional that she re-imagines the recent events with Jason as the killer instead of her (the 2009 remake).
- Specifically, the films all zip past her as visions in the seconds while she clutches at the space where her head used to be after getting decapitated at the end of the first film.
- Well, he *does* escape from his private hell when Freddy, invading his mind in the form of his mother, reminded him that "you cannot die; you are only sleeping."
- Alternatively, Jason's powers are a result of Pamela dabbling in black magic. She used it either in an attempt to simply bring back her lost child with the unusual strength and immortality being an unexpected side effect, or fully with the intent of making him large and extremely powerful, unable to die so that he can kill those Pamela felt were responsible for his death. What she didn't know was that the spells don't work until the conjurer's death.
- Jason being a sort of proto-deadite might also explain the Gainax Endings of the "living Jason" cycle of films (1 through 4) and why he keeps coming back; as long as Jason hasn't been fully dismembered, the deadite spirit inside of him can eventually regenerate his still-living flesh, but when he is put down violently, the spirit will slip out of his body to make one last attack on the survivor(s) — perhaps in an effort to try and steal their body so it can escape being part of Jason?
- Though meant to be a bit of a shout-out, in Jason Goes To Hell, you can see the Necronomicon in the basement of the Voorhees house. It could be possible that Pamela may have went up to the Knowby cabin sometime after the events of Evil Dead 2 (there's no mention of a date in the Evil Dead films, meaning the first two could have taken place well before the events of the first Friday the 13th film), finding the Necronomicon and the tape player. After summoning a Kandarian demon, it could have made a deal to bring her son back, but it would have required her to sacrifice eight souls, and allows Jason's soul to possess her to prove that he could be brought back full. So, Pamela decides to go back to Crystal Lake and think about who her targets would be. But when she gets back, she discovers Steve Christy is working on reopening the camp. So, she decided to sacrifice Christy and the counsellors to complete the deal. However, Alice ends up killing Pamela, which in turn completes the deal and Jason is resurrected. And we also know Freddy Krueger had gone up to the cabin at some point, as two gloves looking similar to Freddy's can be found at the cabin (maybe Freddy spent a summer there, perfecting his iconic weapon).
- To go with the above, in the latest Friday the 13th game, whenever Jason goes to do the teleportation where he can grab a councilor, it switches to a first person POV that acts strikingly similar to the POV of the Deadite force that has chased Ash in the films. Seriously, it's almost identical, minus the sound and the ability to break through things (maybe because Jason has Kandarian power, but not full on like the Deadites).
The drawback to Jason's healing power is that it sacrifices complete restoration in favor of durability and pragmatic evolution. This explains his different appearance in each movie; In Part II he looked the most human, in Part III his head had lost hair and his face began to degrade, and in Part IV he began to become more noticeably decayed in appearance. Jason's time buried in his grave between the end of Part IV and the start of Part VI restricted his ability to regenerate, hastening his transition into an "undead" form.
In addition to jump starts from electricity, Jason's powers are triggered by an ability that is also a "blessing" and a curse for him, this being his limited telepathy. This power to sense thoughts was triggered when he was revived by his healing powers, and are the reason for his decades long seclusion. On the night his mother Pamela was killed, the thoughts of lust and disorientation from being intoxicated were the strongest things he had sensed earlier that day, and he associated them with his mother's own thoughts of revenge before her death. When decadent thoughts become strongest, it accelerates his healing factor and revives him more quickly. This is coupled with an enhanced sense of smell which allows him to track people more easily. The smell of pheromones and weed smoke also send him into a rage due to association with his mother's killers.
Jason's telepathic abilities also allowed him to form a link with Alice, letting him track her to her home and murder her. Alice's hallucination of Child-Jason pulling her into the lake was the moment this link was formed by a then adult Jason. The formation of psychic links with others also have an effect of reviving Jason, as evidenced with Tina in Part VII, Rennie in Part VIII and Freddy Krueger.
- He also puts out intelligence reducing pheromones like those seen on The Cabin in the Woods.
- Well, it does look like a hand throws the cat through Alice's window in Part 2.
- Though that would mean she would have known about him being alive, unless her madness led her to believe that when Jason was helping her, it was his "ghost".
- Alternately, Jason was pulled unconscious from the water and revived by the camp staff. His mother, already a kook, freaked out when she saw her son lying so still and thought he had died, even after he resumed breathing. She went so batshit insane that she thought Jason was a zombie even before he actually became undead, and set about killing the camp personnel to avenge his "death", never realizing she was killing people who'd saved his life. Then she hid her "undead" kid from the world for years and filled his head with nonsense, making him believe he was an unliving revenant so intensely that, when he died for real, he genuinely became one.
- Or maybe he was found unconscious on the lake shore by some well-meaning busybody who'd long considered his mother to be an unfit parent, who took him away rather than report the discovery and let the boy be returned to his crackpot mom's custody. They took Jason to another town and told him his mother was dead, and he believed them ... at least, until he heard on the news about his mother's own rampage and demise. He killed his rescuer/abductor, then went hunting for his mother's killer, and began playing out Pamela's counselor-killing obsessions in a twisted attempt to feel close to the parent whose companionship he'd been denied.
- Or how about this? When Jason was drowning, the kids who got him to go in the water saw that he couldn't swim and went to get help. In the meantime, Jason was able to splash away to the land near the woods in order to get away from the other kids and hid out in the forest. He got lost and was presumed dead by everyone since they didn't see wear he went. He became a hermit and waited for his mother to come back to find him. One day, he hears his mother's voice and realizes mommy came back for him... only to hear his mother scream and find her lifeless decapitated body on the ground... and the machete that killed her. Cue the mayhem...
- Note that Pamela never says outright that Jason was dead, only that he'd drowned and that he'd been her "sweet boy". A person can experience drowning but survive, given proper medical attention, and an event so traumatic could easily scar a young child's psyche so severely that an already-unstable woman might start referring to him - rather, his former personality - in the past tense.
- In the recent Friday The 13th game, you can find a series of audio cassettes that were apparently recorded the day of Jason's drowning with the police interviewing Pamela. Pamela states that Elias Voorhees, her late husband, wasn't Jason's biological father and that she had been raped before marrying him. She explained that she married Elias because she feared the man who raped her was still watching and waiting to take Jason away, with her believing that Elias could protect them. This was before she admits she murdered Elias, with her saying that Jason told her to because Elias was hurting him.. However, seeing that Pamela gets more and more insane during the interview due to Jason's death, it's hard to know how much of the truth she's saying.
- It's possible that dying 'reset' Jason's mind back to his youth, when he was a bullied victim, as opposed to the Jason from 2, 3 and 4, who had spent years isolated and bitter. So maybe after rebirth he sympathizes more with children, and like most kids, likes animals.
- Ari Lehman played the First Jason, whose life ended when he drowned and regenerated in 1957.
- Warrington Gilette played the Second Jason, who had long hair. In 1980, he witnessed his mother being murdered by Alice Hardy in Friday the 13th. He followed her to her house and killed her in ''Friday the 13th Part 2. Five years later, he saw Ginny and Paul in a cabin and burst through the window, grabbing Ginny. She managed to escape and defeat the Second Jason, causing him to regenerate.
- Steve Daskewisz played the Third Jason, who was so ashamed of his ugliness that he wore a burlap sack. He was also willing to do more stunts. He time traveled prior to the Second Jason's regeneration and killed many teens in Part 2. When Ginny disguised herself as his mother, she cut him in the neck with the machete that beheaded his mother. After she left the shack, he regenerated.
- Richard Brooker played the Fourth Jason, who was bald, more athletic, and got rid of the burlap sack. He time traveled to 1983, during which he terrified Chris Higgins. He returned to 1985 and decided to wear a hockey mask. At the end of Friday the 13th 3D, Chris hit Jason in the head with a pickaxe, causing him to regenerate.
- Ted White played the Fifth Jason, who awoke in the morgue and returned to Camp Crystal Lake in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Tommy Jarvis used a machete on him, causing him to regenerate.
- Tom Morga played the Sixth Jason, who emerged from his grave one rainy night and was seen by Tommy Jarvis. He time traveled to 1991 and tortured Tommy by appearing in random places, causing Tommy to believe that Jason was still alive during Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Tommy eventually found him and buried him as he regenerated.
- C.J. Graham played the Seventh Jason, who left his grave when Tommy dug him up a year later in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Live. This Jason was tougher than previous incarnations; his fist could go right through someone's torso. Tommy sunk him in Crystal Lake, causing him to regenerate.
- Kane Hodder played the Eighth Jason, who was awakened in 2002 by a telepath named Tina in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. Tina defeated him by putting him back in the lake. In 2003, he awoke once more to terrify students heading to Manhatten in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhatten. A couple of them evaded him in the sewer. He returned to Crystal Lake in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and was shot by government agents. His heart was eaten, and he possessed multiple people until he was taken to Hell. He managed to get out by 2008, when he was captured by the government. He was frozen cryogenically. He awoke in 2455 and became much stronger when he obtained nanotechnology. He ended up on New Earth. He time travled to 2002. His body tried to deny the nanotechnology by regenerating Jason into a little boy.
- Timothy Burr Mirkovich played the Ninth Jason, who looked like a child and knew how to swim. He ended up in the sewers of Manhatten, where he drowned during the events of Jason Takes Manhatten and regenerated.
- Ken Kirzinger played the Tenth Jason, who fought Freddy Krueger in 2003 during Freddy vs Jason. He defeated Freddy, who became trapped in his mind. The two of them fought Ash Williams in Freddy vs Jason vs Ash in 2008 and Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: The Nightmare Warriors in 2009. In the latter, Freddy made Jason look younger with long hair. They were defeated and sent through a vortex created by the Necronomicon. It was so intense that Jason regenerated.
- Spencer Stump played the Eleventh Jason, who looked like a child and ended up in a nightmare created by Freddy in Freddy vs Jason. he drowned in the nightmare and regenerated.
- Caleb Guss played the Twelfth Jason, who looked like a child. He ended up in an alternate universe in which he was a human and actually died when he drowned. He saw his counterpart's mother getting killed in 1980. He eventually regenerated.
- Derek Mears played the Thirteenth Jason, or Jason the Thirteenth, who wore a burlap sack and then a hockey mask. He killed some teens in 2008 during the Friday the 13th reboot. After this Jason, the character may die since Time Lords normally only have twelve regenerations.
When Jason drowned at Camp Crystal Lake, he never came back; his mother Pamela was the only Voorhees to ever murder anybody. That, or the events of the first movie are merely an Urban Legend told between local kids about the abandoned campground. Either way, a number of psychopaths have exploited the Jason myth to act out their urges, coming to the area, posing as Jason, and going on killing sprees, building his legacy in the process. This is why Jason's body shape keeps changing between movies: it's actually a different man underneath the hockey mask each time.
- Ironically in the recent video game's Tommy Jarvis tapes, this WMG is what the police believe as the truth, that a number of psychos keep coming to Crystal Lake and committing murders and using the Jason Voorhees legends, reinforced by the murders committed in Part 5 by Roy Burns. And what's worse is that the police blame Tommy Jarvis for the cause of the "psychos" coming to Crystal Lake and killing people dressed as Jason because he keeps ranting about it. The heartbreaking thing is that Tommy keeps telling the truth and no one believes that it's Jason's actual doing. But then again, looking at it from the police's point of view, what is easier to believe: a series of psycho murderers dress up as Jason and go in killing sprees or that a Jason Voorhees has come back from the dead to murder people multiple times?
- Jason would be able to switch between barehanded of his machete, with the ability to pick up objects as weapons. Environmental kills would also be a feature, allowing the player to recreate things like the Sleeping Bag kill or drowning someone in a barrel like in Jason Takes Manhattan.
Meanwhile, Jason had always had a Healing Factor, both strengthened and weakened by his own lack of mental development and understanding. He doesn't really understand death, so survives and heals what would be fatal wounds (machete through the shoulder, axe to the forehead), but when Tommy Jarvis slices his head half open (and Jason was even starting to recover from that) then thoroughly mutilates the corpse, Jason is "convinced" he's dead, and his soul moves on (to Hell). Jason also has an evil spirit, a demon if you will, that rides with him and spurs on his killing sprees. When Tommy kills Jason, some of this evil latches on to Tommy, explaining his mental state in Part V. Tommy's obsession with Jason, especially in Part VI, is this evil wanting not just to reunite with the part of it still resident in Jason, but wanting to reunite with Jason itself (since Tommy has proven himself unwilling to be swayed into evil by it). When Tommy attacks Jason with the broken fence pole, the evil jumps back into Jason, and when lightning strikes the pole, it jump-starts Jason's regenerative abilities. His soul realizes that his body is reawakening and comes back to it. Tommy then uses an ad hoc magic ritual to bind Jason back to the bottom of Crystal Lake, at which point Jason once again "assumes" he's dead, his soul once more departing. Then Tina, sensing a presence in the Lake and believing it to be her father (actually the evil spirit inhabiting Jason), reaches out with her psychic powers to try and bring him back. Once again, Jason's soul is summoned back to his body, but notably he now believes himself to be an undead, so his regenerative powers are limited to that dynamic. Tina manages to sink Jason again, again he assumes his finished. Then he's resurrected again by an electrical shock in time to (not) take Manhattan. After that, the Feds can no longer ignore Jason Voorhees, and send a SWAT team and airstrike after him. This time, Jason knows he's dead, but the evil just won't let it lie. Possessing others, it finds its grown too powerful to inhabit a regular human body without burning it out, and needs Jason back because of his regenerative abilities. So the evil arranges to have Jason reborn through a Voorhees woman by expending a lot of its power, but shortly thereafter, is stabbed by the magic dagger which destroys the evil outright and banishes Jason back to Hell yet again. Now, Jason has never been fully aware of his healing factor, until Freddy (in the guise of Pamela Voorhees) spells it out for him, so Jason returns in Freddy vs. Jason more powerful than he's ever been, knowing that whatever happens to him, he can and will recover. The final battle with Freddy leads into Jason X, where Jason, knowing he can keep coming back as long as he wants to, is completely indestructible and the authorities have no choice to cryogenically freeze him to stop him.
- It's reasonable to posit Freddy's Dead as a sequel to Freddy vs Jason. If you want to divert Freddy vs Jason out of their own timelines, perhaps the damage down during Freddy vs Jason is what caused Freddy to turn Springwood into the post apocalyptic world of Freddy's Dead. As mentioned above fitting Jason Goes To Hell there is also easy. Jason X can be pretty much attached to any timeline as a distant future just fine.
- Our only problem with that is the person who got the rights is someone who disliked that the series ever made Jason the killer in the first place. It's not unreasonable to think he'd pitch a direct sequel with no Jason period.
- Now while horror sequels pretending sequels they don't like never happened or retconning events willy nilly are pretty much bread and butter. But if that were to happen anybody with a brain should know there would be heavy backlash to doing so. Some franchises like Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre already have heavy Broken Base divisions due to multiple continuities. Friday the 13th is far less broken over sequels counting.
- The bigger difference is that unlike with Halloween if you've been a fan you'd know John Carpenter wanted the series to be more than Michael Myers and regretted the plot twist of making Michael and Laurie siblings. It shouldn't have been a surprise with Carpenter helping produce the trilogy this would ignore anything but the first film and probably write an ending for Michael. You can argue whether that was ever the best idea for the franchise or not but it's not been an un-thought-about option. Comparably how many people involved in the franchise or as fans of the franchise of Friday the 13th, don't want Jason as the killer?
- There's also probably some commentary from Know-Nothing Know-It-All people who probably just think all unplanned sequels are deserving of Sequelitis who will probably cheer any movie franchise that makes direct sequels to the original. But as mentioned above there been a thought about what Halloween has done now for some time. There's not much of any reason to do that with Friday the 13th, who's original didn't even establish some of the things that made people like the franchise. If we do get another movie making it a sequel to Part 8 or the remake are probably the better options.