Friday Conversation: Why Didn’t Jason Leave The Barn?
Friday the 13th Part 3 is at the top of most all fans lists as the best of the series. Not only does Jason receive his trademark hockey mask, he also receives the axe cut in the mask as well. The axe cut in the mask has also become a trademark of Jason. Until the Freddy vs Jason and the reboot films were released, the axe mark was apart of every mask shown in every movie that was produced after Part 3. However, Jason receiving the axe mark on the mask is the basis of our conversation today.
After Jason seemingly had Chris cornered in the barn and ready to strike at the end of Part 3, Ali pops out of nowhere to distract Jason. Chris grabs an axe and slams it into Jason’s head. The question is, after Jason received that blow to the head and Chris left the barn, why didn’t he get up and get out of the area before the police arrived? Jason was able to escape his shack after taking a machete to the shoulder. Granted, an axe to the head would definitely be more fatal. However, it is quite curious that Jason would stay laying on the ground in the barn for a whole day before finally reviving in the hospital morgue.
Do you think that Jason should have been able to escape the barn and Higgens Haven before the police arrived in the beginning of The Final Chapter?
i would say no, based on what they’ve told us in later films, that he has some kind of regeneration ability like (i can’t believe I’m making this connection) wolverine. It takes time to regenerate tissue esp, a fatal blow to the head. So, no he should not immediately get up and leave….oh btw… first!
Well I personally don’t buy into that regeneration nonsense. I think that was just a lazy plot device in a later sequel and should be considered a throwaway line in a bad movie. But for Part 3 I think they nailed it. When Chris sinks that axe in, J is toast. Listen to the sound effects. See also the look J gives her just before she swings, like “oh shit”. He knew the hit was comin and that he was done. Like not dead but fully knocked out cold. He must have lay there for 12-24 hours before waking up in hospital. Maybe he knew well enough to “play dead” until he was away from the police. He is smarter than we give him credit for in those older movies. Just like he lured the cop in Part 2, showing the ability to make a plan and execute it. He could have been awake the whole time, surrounded by paramedics and waited for a safe chance to escape, knowing he was outnumbered and wounded. Like why didnt he kill Chuck and Chili when he had the chance?, he just let them walk away. I dunno, just my 2 cents, beside the opening of TFC is so perfect I cannot imagine how else it would have started. What do you think TFC would be like if the cops got there and J was gone?
No, and the fact he was still laying there, it is believable. Remember this is all before the zombie era, so a struck to the head more then likely knocked him out for sometime. Personnelly, I think he should have been in a coma state a little longer. But how they did TFC works for me. Part 3 and 4 make good on connection. That just me though.
That Wolverine reference makes a lot of sense actually. When Wolverine would take a blow to the head, he’d be knocked out for a while. Then again, Jason didn’t regenerate when we was still human.
I always thought that he just didn’t want the cops to get him, so he stayed in a comatose stage. The hospital was a much easier escape than jail
The axe to the head I believe really hurt Jason. Chris made Him grunt in pain 3 times. She stabs Him in the hand, stabs Him in the leg, and of course the axe. Something Jason didnt really do in part 2, well except when Ginny kicked Him in the nuts. But the axe blow was like His first death since the drowning when He was a kid. I mean the guy doesnt even move between 3 and 4. I think he came to once the paramedics put Him on the gourney. Notice how His hand slips out? Or when Axel puts Jason in the freezer, You can see His breath. Or maybe ol Jason needed some rest after the events in parts 2 and 3. You got to remember Jason still was kind of human in 2 and 3. Deformed but human. Once The Final Chapter came around, that began one of many Jason ressurections. He was stronger and more pissed off, probably due to the axe in the head. I want to close with something off subject. I was watching Jason Goes To Hell last night (god knows why) and I noticed when Steven Freeman kicked Jason in the nuts, He grunted much like He did in part 2 when Ginny did the same thing. Another series similarity.
To actually answer the question, I would say No, Jason should not have left the barn. I feel that they went that way already in the transition of 2 /3. An injured jason cautiously hides and stalks until getting the mask and coming out for the movie climax. I think Part 4 would have been to similar if Jason had left the barn and came across the Part 4 characters while heading home to the shack. That is essentially the plot of Part 3. The coma and hospital bit showed a vunerability that set up Jasons ultimate and IMO first true death. “If it bleeds we can kill it…” Also the paramedics and cops added an element of reality to the scene, rather than just another cut scene of Jason standing up and brushing himself off. Badass opening and wouldnt want it any other way. Viva la Mask.
He was still human and knocked out cold, IMO. I can remember people complaining back then that Jason had too many injuries to still be alive. Today no one blinks an eye at the idea of an indestructible killer.
No, it makes more sense that he doesn’t get up right away just being that it was an axe to the head. As JB Demted said, I think he came back around about the time they were putting him on the gourney or when they removed the axe from him head.
i have a question…what if the writers made most of this film based in the hospital!and he is looking for Chris!!!like they did for the original Halloween 2!
maybe he was in a dream state like we see in Jason Vs Freddy.
this is my favorite as well.good chase at the end.
i think the writers need to watch this movie a few times to get the next Friday the 13th movie right!!!
thats my 2 cents.LOL
It’s not like the axe caved in his head. It hardly went in. Probably didn’t pierce the brain, just the skull. Totally survivable. Jason was just stunned. (Why the the noose didn’t snap his neck after dropping from the hayloft is another thing?) The machete to the head in TFC was the fatal blow. Then Jason turned into Frankenstein’s monster after being struck by lightning.
Not in the third film, i believe if it were later in the series yes but here no.
I’m guessing the blow to the head knocked him out for a while.
Truth be told Jason was ashamed that he just got his a** handed to him by a girl (again!) and out of sheer embaressment he felt it was easier on the self-esteem to just play dead. Remember he was picked on as a kid and had emotional problems lol.
It was because the writers of the movie wanted the scene at the morgue!! But in all seriousness, I really did like that opening scene and am really glad that it was apart of one of the best films in the series!!
Junior Wadd said it best, not every head injury is a killer head injury. for example in real life, when that guy had an 8 inch knife sticking outta his head and lived, or the guy who shot a nail gun up his nose and didn’t realize it. like really, how do you not realize a nail being shot up your nasal passage and lodging into your brain. he just thought he was getting a headache.
anyway, i think the mask too much of the blow, as Chris never really hit him that hard with it, and the fact that it seemed wedged in his head, well it was probably just stuck in the fiberglass of the mask
but the neck hanging thing mighta/shoulda killed him, but when it didn’t, it set up one of the greatest scenes in Friday history, when he grabs the rope and starts pulling himself up. classic!
also, Jasonsfury states that Jason was able to escape his shack after the events of part 2, but his shack, technically was not at the scene of the crime. the police were probably all over the campground searching for bodies, and probably didn’t get to Jason’s shack till later that day or even the next day, being the shack was deep into the woods, and thus giving him more than enough time to escape to the other side of town and get a fresh change of clothes and probably apply some hillbilly redneck first aid on himself.
at end of part 3, the cops are on the scene fairly quick, probably cause they were searching the area for the killer from the day or two before, since by the time they got to his shack, they realized that the killer was gone. i highly doubt that they were listening to Ginny very much in her crazy just had a date with a serial killer and all my friends are dead state, telling them that there was a shack out in the woods.
so its easy, at the end of part 3, its obvious that this is when the cops finally caught up to Jason, and when he awoke from being knocked out, and realized that there was cops everywhere, well, he just can’t get up and slip outta here when all the cops are all in this barn and around this house. the area for the cops to search in part 3 is alot smaller than part 2, so there would be a higher concentration of cops at Higgin’s Haven. so Jason has to pick his spot and time his escape. which he does at the morgue.
but my question is, how come, with all this murders and shit going on, the hospital is not a bustle of media and cops and doctors and what-not. cause it looks like only one morgue worker and one nurse are working that night. and, when they wheel Jason by on the stretcher in the hospital, who is that supposed to be crying and being held in the room they go by, and who is doing the hold and comforting? if this is supposed to be Chris, don’t you think she would be in a hospital bed?
one word: Coma
I wondered that myself, i guess it’s because they wanted to make you think that he WAS dead!!
Well the first thing that should be stated that hanging someone in real life is a science, granted a macabre scinece but a sceine none the less. If the rope is to long or short you either choke them death or pop their head right off. Plus, the knot needs to be placed behind the left ear just so to snap the spine. Of course Crissy probably not knowing this just threw the rope around old Jason’s neck and hoped for the best. So, there is a very slight chance that Jason could have lived through his hanging.
As for the ax to the head, again it really depends on where he is hit as stated by Bytor2112. Plus, the hockey mask, which is built to take hits from hockey pucks going over 100+ mph, more then likely took the brunt of Crissy’s hit not allowing the ax to go far into Jason’s head, and from the pictures we’ve seen of Jason’s head he seems to have a large amount of bone built up in the front portion of he is head. So why didn’t he leave if Crissy didn’t kill him? While she might not have killed him it was a shock to the system, as alot of others have stated, and thats what dropped him. He probably finally came to when they finally got him to the hospital. Thats probably why he didn’t kill the ambulance crew when they were taking him to the morgue.
I believe Jason was dead,even in a coma he’d have a pulse..Im sure the coroner would have determined a time of death,why else was he taken to the morgue in part 4…i’d like to think that his Mother has a deal with the underworld to keep bringing him back from death….
yeah, but you might have some dumbass medics and coroners, that see an axe sticking out of his head, and say “he’s dead” without actually checking him out. i would think that they are a little more concerned with the actual victims then the killer.
I don’t think the regeneration idea comes into play here. He took an axe to the head, seemingly deep enough to penetrate his brain. I agree with one of the ideas posted that he went into a comatose state after the wound was afflicted. I think I heard or read somewhere that this is a way for the body to help itself deal with the pain.
Now in part 4 when he got back up that could be the beginning of the regenerative process as the wound to the head could have begun releasing a pheromone or something that would start the healing process. That’s a pertty outrageous idea but this is an outrageous scenario.
Interesting observation. Perhaps they had all spent so much time at Higgens Haven covering the scene that they all just went back to the tv stations for the night and felt the vitims at the morgue were not as important as the story of the killer and killings themselves.
Classic Jason is not unkillable (a decap there would be enough, if Chris would have known that
). There are hurts he takes with much ease, while there are some serious injures that could coma him for some time. It’s in [art 2 and the shoulder hurt, when Jason came in sense i believe VERY fast (he raids General Store that SAME night and maybe even kills Paul beforehand).
Head injure (=brain damage) is something more serious.
I will agree with someone here who said Jason was alredy ‘alive’ when the cops came in. When we see the opening scene in pt.4, it’s the next night after Jason was killed. Look, Jason could run even when the cops came in the morning (he didn’t do that), but the real crowd (media, paramedics etc.) gathered not untill the late night (we see that, because they only started packing the bodies). So Jason would run away every time since he catched the axe in the head, but NOT in 24 hours later.
I say it takes 1 day for Jason to recover from ‘axe-in-the-head wound’.
Reason #1: Well if he really does have the heling factor Jason X claims he has and if it’s anything like most stories healing factors, then the head wound left him in a comatose state so he could heal faster.
Reason#2: He was probably in shock, leading to a comatose state.