Helm’s character was an honest portrayal on an 80′s punk chick: Violet was so selfish and liked to project that she didn’t give a crap what anyone thought, but you knew damn well she put more time into her make-up and fashion than every other girl in the movie combined.

If the Friday the 13th franchise is to be remembered for anything, other than the iconic hockey mask, then it will be the elaborate and graphic special effects, which were created by various different artists and workshops, from the legendary Tom Savini and Stan Winston to the likes of Martin Becker and Greg Nicotero. Twelve movies, hundreds of victims – it would be impossible to narrow their gory highlights down to just a few but here’s thirteen of Jason’s most memorable kills.

I couldn’t decide which one should claim the top spot so instead these are listed in chronological order. No doubt you’ll have your own favourites so tell us which you would have included.

Enjoy!

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) – Jack (Kevin Bacon)
Long before the awards and critical acclaim, Kevin Bacon’s claim to fame was his iconic death in the original Friday the 13th. Storyboarded by associate producer Steve Miner (who would later direct the first two sequels) and executed by special make-up effects artist Tom Savini, the sequence saw an arrow being driven through Bacon’s throat from underneath the bed. This relatively complex gag would be created by designing a cast of the actor’s torso, whilst his real body was hidden underneath the bed. With a neck cast attached to Bacon, a hand belonging to stills photographer Richard Feury (who would later be credited as second assistant director on Part 2) reached up from under the bed to pull Bacon’s head down whilst the arrow was pushed through the neck cast. But when the tube that ran the blood from a bag to the neck cast came loose Taso N. Stavrakis, Savini’s assistant, improvised and blew hard down the tube, causing the blood to spray out from the open wound. Although not a Jason kill, this is still a favourite amongst fans.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981) – Mark (Tom McBride)
To prove that Jason Voorhees was an equal rights serial killer, Part 2 saw him dispatch of the franchise’s sole wheelchair-bound victim. Having seemingly scored with pretty-yet-naïve Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), Mark (Tom McBride) waits patiently before heading outside the house, where he is suddenly struck in the face by a machete and sent hurtling backwards down a set of steps. For this highly effective sequence, special make-up effects artist Carl Fullerton designed a mask for McBride to wear, which the balsa wood machete was then attached to. Pulling the blade away from the actor’s face, the footage was then played back in reverse to create the illusion that Mark had been hit in the face by the machete. McBride was then replaced by stuntman Tony Farentino (who would later work on the underrated slasher Alone in the Dark the following year), who was sent backwards down the stairs using a rig to avoid the wheelchair losing control.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (1982) – Vera (Catherine Parks)
Having rebuffed the advances of shy practical joker Shelly (Larry Zerner), Vera (Catherine Parks) finds his wallet in the water and looks through the contents, before realising that a masked figure has appeared from behind the house. Believing it to be Shelly, who had previously scared her whilst wearing his hockey mask, Jason (Richard Brooker) raises a speargun towards her and fires a shot directly into her eye. Yet another gag played back in reverse, the sequence began with Parks reacting to the arrow being pressed against her eye, before the arrow was retracted via a wire and rod. Cutting away, the next shot saw Parks with an arrow attached to her eye as she fell backwards into the water, although this could only be shot once as the prosthetics that the make-up crew had created would fall to pieces when wet. This scene has an important place in the history of the franchise as it would be the first on-screen kill committed by Jason after obtaining his infamous mask.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 (1982) – Rick (Paul Kratka)
Accommodating for the 3-D effects that would be the selling point for Friday the 13th Part 3, director Steve Miner took every opportunity he could to have objects jumping or reaching out at the camera; from yo-yos and joints to spears and even eyeballs. The latter would be used for the death scene of Rick (Paul Kratka), the lumberjack boyfriend of heroine Chris (Dana Kimmell). Having returned to find the house deserted, Chris searches for her friends whilst Rick heads outside, only to be accosted by Jason. Grabbing his head from behind and crushing his skull, Rick’s eyeballs burst literally from their sockets under the pressure and leap out at the audience. Weeks before principal photography had begun, Kratka was brought to the FX workshop to have his upper torso and head cast in plaster to create a life-size dummy that would be used for the majority of the sequence. With a mark having been set between the two lenses that were used to capture the images in 3-D, the eyeballs were sent out of the fake skull using wires after several attempts using compressed air had failed to achieve the desired result.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984) – Axel (Bruce Mahler)
Despite having launched his career on the back of his work on the first Friday the 13th movie, Savini had declined the chance to return for the subsequent two sequels, instead choosing to work on other splatter flicks like The Burning and Creepshow. Yet when the possibility to end what he had helped create by killing off Jason once and for all for 1984′s The Final Chapter arose he found the offer too tempting. After two relatively tame sequels, Savini was determined to outdo his own work on the original by creating some of his most brutal set pieces since The Prowler in 1981 (which, coincidentally, was also directed by Joseph Zito). Aside from Jason’s own demise, the stand out death scene was awarded to Axel (Police Academy‘s Bruce Mahler), an obnoxious orderly whose failed seduction attempts with a nurse (Lisa Freeman) results in him watching aerobics on television. Jason (Ted White), having awoken from the slab after believing to have died from his wounds endured at the end of Part 3, sneaks up behind Axel and grabs him by his head, before taking a surgical hacksaw used for cutting through bone and slices deep into his throat. A dummy was created using a cast of Mahler and a saw, whose blade was filled with blood, was placed against the throat, which also allowed for the head to be violently turned as Jason sunk deep into his neck.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING (1985) – Joey (Dominick Brascia)
Sweet-yet-simple loner Joey (Dominick Brascia) is often dismissed by his fellow patients at the relatively laxed Pinehurst mental institution and, after an attempt at helping two of the girls with the laundry results in the clean clothes being covered in chocolate, tries to make friends with resident psychotic Victor (Mark Venturini, also known to splatter fans for his turn in Return of the Living Dead, released the same year). Angered by his persistence, Victor swings his axe down on Joey’s back and begins to hack him to pieces as the other patients watch in horror. Some time later, an ambulance arrives on the scene and one of the paramedics (Caskey Swaim) pulls back the sheet that is covering his corpse to reveal hacked-up body parts. Whilst the murder itself is shown off screen (with only a brief reaction shot from Brascia at the point of impact), it is the following scene when the state of the body is revealed that showed the gruesome handiwork of the special effects team. Not technically a Jason kill, but the murder would become the catalyst for the Jason copycat murders that followed.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6: JASON LIVES (1986) – Sheriff Garris (David Kagan)
Sheriff Garris (David Kagan) would prove to be the archetypal authority figure of the slasher film. Much like A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Lt. Donald Thompson (John Saxon), who would also refuse to believe the fact that a seemingly dead killer was responsible for a recent series of grizzly murders, Garris’ ignorance and refusal to accept the warning from former mental patient Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews, Venturini’s Return of the Living Dead co-star) would eventually cost him his life. Having made his way with his deputies to Camp Forest Green – formerly Camp Crystal Lake, the scene of countless murders at the hands of Jason (C.J. Graham) – Garris soon finds himself alone and takes shelter in the bushes as he watches Jason from afar. But when his daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke), arrives at the camp with Tommy, Jason heads back out of the woods to kill them both, forcing the sheriff to finally face the truth and fight back, resulting in him being literally broken in two. Although heavily censored by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) prior to release, the sequence was achieved by fake legs being bent back over Kagan’s shoulders as Jason breaks his back. In an effort to avoid the same kind of problems with the censors that the previous movies had encountered, director Tom McLoughlin would shoot several versions of the scene, including one which would be relatively gruesome, although sadly this would not be used in the finished print.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 7: THE NEW BLOOD (1988) – Judy (Debora Kessler)
Unlike his contemporaries, namely A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Leatherface, Jason Voorhees has never taken much pleasure in torturing his victims, instead opting for the fastest way to dispatch them. Kane Hodder, who would be cast in the role at the insistence of director John Carl Buechler, would take the character of Jason to new heights by creating a unique body language that he would use through the subsequent three sequels. With Buechler also being a renowned special effects artist, many of the set pieces in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood would be extremely elaborate and graphic, this was until the MPAA ordered drastic cuts to many of the film’s highlights. One sequence would see one of the young vacationers, Judy (Debora Kessler), dragged across the ground by Jason in her sleeping bag and swung against a tree, killing her instantly. Originally, Jason was to have thrown her against the trunk several times but the MPAA ordered the filmmakers to reduce the number of hits, resulting in Jason simply swinging her against the tree once and then tossing her body aside. Ironically, this would make the sequence all the more effective.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989) – Jules (V.C. Dupree)
Although ultimately defeated at the end of each movie, Jason rarely faced a character who was able to match him physically, with his victims often resorting to weapons, water or even telekinesis. In 1989′s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, the latest graduating class embark on a cruise from Crystal Lake to New York City, which soon turns into a fight for survival as Jason (Kane Hodder) makes his way onboard and begins to dispatch each of the teens one-by-one. Although the majority of the deaths would be relatively blood-free (again, due to strict regulations from the MPAA), one that would stand out would be that of Julius (V.C. Dupree), undefeated high school boxing champion who, tired of running, faces off against Jason on top of a building in a rough neighbourhood of New York. With bloody knuckles and gasping for breath, Julius in unable to fight Jason any longer and challenges him to punch him back. In one swing, Jason sends Julius’ head from his shoulders, down the side of the building and into a dumpster in the street below. Showcasing his sick sense of humour, Jason later left Julius’ head on the dashboard of a police car as the other students attempt to escape.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993) – Deborah (Michelle Clunie)
With Paramount having eventually sold the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise to rival studio New Line Cinema (the home of A Nightmare on Elm Street), the series received a makeover in 1993 with Adam Marcus’ Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Ostensibly a rip-off of Jack Sholder’s 1987 science fiction thriller The Hidden (also distributed by New Line), the movie boasted impressive special effects by the always reliable KNB EFX, although predictably these would be heavily censored for the theatrical print. Thankfully, Marcus’ original cut was later released on video and featured in all its glory the murders of horny young campers Deborah (Michelle Clunie) and Luke (Michael B. Silver). With their friend Alexis (Kathryn Atwood) having allowed them to keep the tent for the night whilst she sleeps outside, the couple had begun to make out before moving onto sex, whilst a coroner (Richard Gant) from a hospital who has been possessed by the spirit of Jason appears at the tent, thrusting his weapon through the material and into Deborah’s stomach, before violently thrusting it upwards, tearing her torso in two.

JASON X (2001) – Adrienne (Kristi Angus)
With the regular setting of Camp Crystal Lake having grown stale over several installments, filmmakers had been forced to try new locations in which Jason could continue his bloodbath. New York had failed to impress the fans and so the makers of Jason X, in a last attempt to rejuvenate the formula, sent their antagonist into twenty-fifth century deep space. This new science fiction location would allow for an array of possibilities; some of which would be exploited, whilst others were sadly neglected. The film’s best death would go to scientist Adrienne (Kristi Angus), who is given the responsibility of performing an autopsy on the recently thawed out Jason (Kane Hodder), whose body was found in an abandoned space station. Whilst distracted, Adrienne is unaware that Jason has awoken behind her and grabs her by her hair, forcing her face-first into a sink filled with liquid nitrogen, causing her head to immediately freeze. Removing her and looking at his handiwork, Jason would smash her head against the work surface, shattering her face, before tossing her corpse aside.

FREDDY VS. JASON (2003) – Trey (Jesse Hutch)
Freddy vs. Jason had been fifteen years in the making, pitching the villains from the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises against each other in a fight to the death. Having gone through numerous writers and directors, the task of bringing the concept to the big screen fell to Ronny Yu, who had previously given the Child’s Play series a postmodern makeover with 1998′s Bride of Chucky. The story that was eventually selected saw both antagonists trapped in the bowels of Hell, with Freddy desperate to escape so he can continue his killing spree at his old stomping ground, Elm Street. Allowing Jason (Ken Kirzinger) to escape Hell, he lures him to Elm Street in an effort to evoke enough fear in the town’s teenagers so that he will be able to break free from his restraints and control the dream world once again. Jason makes his way to the former home of Lt. Donald Thompson and his daughter, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), a house which Freddy is strangely drawn to time and time again. Finding a group of teens partying without the supervision of parents, Jason appears over the bed of obnoxious jock Trey (Jesse Hutch) and begins to butcher him with his machete to the point that the bed breaks in half, crushing Trey’s lifeless body.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) – Nolan (Ryan Hansen)
Having made a suitable impression on the executives at New Line with their script for Freddy vs. Jason, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift were given the task of resurrecting the Friday the 13th franchise for Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes (previously responsible for the all-style-no-substance remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher). Taking elements from the first four movies, arguably favourites among fans, the reboot saw Jason (Derek Mears) reinvented as a hunter, who kidnaps a young woman (Amanda Righetti) who resembles his dead mother, prompting the girl’s brother (Jared Padalecki) to head out to Crystal Lake in search of her. Whilst the characterisation would be lacking, even for a slasher film, and the acting would be subpar (with the exception of Mears and Danielle Panabaker, the film’s only truly sympathetic character), some of the murders would be gruesome enough to delight fans of the series. The most memorable of which was the death of Nolan (Ryan Hansen) who, whilst out on the lake with his girlfriend (Willa Ford), is suddenly shot in the head by an arrow.

Director: Danny Steinmann
Writers: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen, Danny Steinmann
Starring: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Richard Young, Marco St. John, Juliette Cummins, Carol Locatell
Producer: Timothy Silver
Music: Harry Manfredini
Special Makeup Effects: Martin Becker

Despite Paramount’s best attempts to bring the Friday the 13th franchise to a successful conclusion in 1984 with Joseph Zito’s The Final Chapter, once the studio had seen how the movie had conquered the box office they began devising a way in which the series and, more importantly, Jason Voorhees could make a return to the big screen. Zito had ended his film with Jason receiving a machete blow to the face, before child protagonist Tommy Jarvis hacked him to pieces in self defense. Although the producers had instructed Zito to kill off Jason once and for all, the final shot of the movie had seen Tommy staring into the camera, indicating that he may one day continue Jason’s bloody work. Frank Mancuso Jr., who had joined the franchise in 1981 with Part 2 and had been elevated to producer for the third movie, had since lost interest in the recycled plots and generic slasher conventions and decided to produce the fifth installment at arm’s length, allowing the filmmakers the creative freedom to make the Friday the 13th sequel they felt would draw audiences back to theatres, as the studio were at a loss on how to convincingly bring Jason back from the dead.

In late 1981, as discussions had begun on Friday the 13th Part 3, Martin Kitrosser (who had worked as script supervisor on the first two entries) had written a script in which the character of Ginny had survived the ordeal of Part 2 and had been committed to a mental institution. The producers were concerned that the story would divert too far from the standard Friday the 13th formula and had jettisoned the idea, instead insisting on recycled ideas from the first two films. Kitrosser was once again brought onboard by Phil Scuderi, one of the investors from Boston who had financed the original movie and had retained a degree of creative control over the franchise ever since, to help resurrect Jason in a new and exciting way. Returning to his original concept for Part 3, Kitrosser adapted the script so that it would be Tommy that would be placed in an institution after the death of his mother and his brutal retaliation against Jason. Mancuso Jr., who had agreed to allow the filmmakers space to create the sequel, felt that the violence in the script would most likely cause issues with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and decided that a rewrite was in order.

Another talent that Scuderi would bring to the project was Danny Steinmann, an independent filmmaker who had first cut his teeth in the mid-1970s with the X-rated movie High Rise. Following a disappointing experience on the horror flick The Unseen, which would prompt the director to remove his name from the picture and instead be credited as Peter Foleg, Steinmann was brought onboard the exploitation flick Savage Streets after its original director, Tom DeSimone, had walked from the project after one of the investors had taken it upon himself to perform constant rewrites. DeSimone’s influence remained on the movie, however, as the cast would include his younger brother, Bob DeSimone, and actress Linda Blair, whom he had previously worked with on the 1981 slasher Hell Night. Having viewed an early cut of Savage Streets with business partner Steve Minasian, Scuderi contacted Steinmann and offered him the chance to direct Friday the 13th Part V. With issues surrounding Kitrosser’s script, Steinmann hired his friend, David Cohen, to rewrite the entire screenplay with Steinmann consulting. Whilst the mental institution aspect would remain, Steinmann would add an introduction which would see Tommy suffering from nightmares in which Jason rises from his grave, as well as Tommy suffering from hallucinations where he is constantly haunted by visions of Jason.

Another decision that Steinmann would make during the rewrites with Cohen was to reduce Tommy’s dialogue, making him more reclusive and thus sinister. With the story working as a whodunnit, several scenes throughout the movie would hint that perhaps Tommy had become so disturbed by his experience with Jason that he had turned psychotic himself (something that the writers of The Final Chapter had hinted with the climax of their movie). Despite attempting to make the screenplay more commercial and appealing to the studio after Kitrosser’s attempt, Steinmann’s background was in exploitation and Savage Streets had boasted several sequences which featured gratuitous violence or nudity; such as a fight between Blair and a co-star in the girls’ shower room and Blair lying naked in the bath smoking a cigarette. Thus, Friday the 13th Part V would include various scenes of explicit sex and violence, something that would later cause issues with the censors.

With the character of Tommy returning to the franchise, producers immediately contacted young star Corey Feldman, who had previously portrayed the role in The Final Chapter. But in just one short year Feldman’s career had begun to take off, with his supporting turn in the 1984 blockbuster Gremlins followed by another Steven Spielberg-produced genre picture, The Goonies. With Feldman busy working on the latter as Friday the 13th Part V rolled into production, Steinmann was forced to recast the role, although Feldman would agree to make an appearance in the opening sequence (which would be shot at the end of principal photography). Having initially settled on an actor that Steinmann felt was unsuited to the role, just days before principal photography was to commence a UCLA graduate called John Shepherd read for the part and, despite his reservations about starring in a horror movie (Shepherd was religious and worked as a counsellor for a Los Angeles church), made a suitable impression on the director. In fact, none of the actors who auditioned for roles in the picture were aware that it was a Friday the 13th movie, as when the casting call had been placed the project had been referred to merely as Repetition.

One of Shepherd’s co-stars was fourteen-year old Shavar Ross, who had become a household name due to his role in the hit show Diff’rent Strokes. The role of the obligatory ‘final girl’ would go to thirty-year old Melanie Kinnaman who, in a departure from the previous installments, would not be a teenage character but instead an assistant at the institution. The main requirement for Kinnaman’s role would be to run through the rain in a thin, white shirt, thus providing some eye candy for the film’s target audience. The supporting cast would include Tiffany Helm, who had first turned to acting after following in her mother’s footsteps. Despite failing to launch a successful career post-Friday the 13th, Helm would make an appearance in Tom DeSimone’s women-in-prison classic Reform School Girls the following year, as well as in an episode of the small screen spinoff of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy’s Nightmares. For the role of Violet, one of the young patients who resembled a cross between a punk and New Wave chick, Helm would choose to wear many of her own clothes as at the time she was a huge fan of Siouxsie Sioux. Incidentally, for her death scene – which would be heavily censored by the MPAA due to the actress receiving a machete to the groin – Helm would suggest the piece of music that her character was dancing to, a New Romantic tune by a group called Pseudo Echo called His Eyes (which was first released on their debut album, Autumnal Park, in 1984).

Having worked with Steinmann on Savage Streets, Bob DeSimone was contacted by his brother and advised that Steinmann had been hired to direct the latest Friday the 13th movie. Although all of the principal roles had been cast, DeSimone would receive a small-yet-memorable part. Having first started out as a drummer, DeSimone had gained acclaim for his work as a stand up comedian before eventually turning to acting with appearances in various television shows and commercials. His first movie role was in Tom DeSimone’s 1977 sex comedy Chatterbox, in which a young woman developed a talking vagina that longs to be a successful singer. Following a successful career as an Olympic Gymnast, twenty-year old Juliette Cummins would be cast in Friday the 13th Part V as Robin, a role that would require the actress to appear topless. Cummins would become a regular staple of the slasher genre throughout the 1980s, later appearing in the likes of Psycho III and Slumber Party Massacre II.

Filming commenced in September 1984 and would last for a total of thirty-three days, taking place around Thousand Oaks, California. The set would be riddled with cocaine abuse, although most of the young cast would chose to remain distant from drug use. During the sequence in which DeSimone was snorting cocaine, the actor was given laxatives for babies, whilst the majority of his dialogue in both scenes would be improvised at the suggestion of the director. As with Part 2, there would be two actors who would portray Jason throughout the movie, in one form or another. The climax would reveal that the killings were in fact committed by a paramedic called Roy, whose son had been butchered by one of the mental patients, thus driving him to murder. The part of Roy was played by Dick Wieand, although those sequences in which Roy carries out the murders dressed as Jason would be performed by stuntman Tom Morga, who had previously worked on the first two Star Trek sequels and would later perform similar duties on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

The special effects on Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning would be supervised by Martin Becker, who had worked on the previous two sequels and would remain with the franchise until 1989′s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (sadly, Becker would pass away in 2026 at the age of forty-nine). Due to the explicit nature of the violence, A New Beginning would be submitted to the MPAA a total of nine times before eventually being granted an R rating, with many of the film’s more graphic sequences being severely cut. Released on March 22nd 1985, just eleven months after the supposed ‘final chapter,’ Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning would earn just $21.9m at the US box office, approximately $11m less than its predecessor. In their review of the movie, The New York Times stated, “This one, set in a bucolic halfway house for disturbed children, is not entirely without Grand Guignol humor, but almost. It appears to have been paced by a metronome – a joke followed by a murder followed by a joke followed by a murder… It’s worth recognizing only as an artifact of our culture.”

Further reading -
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.1 – Friday the 13th (1980)
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.2 – Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.3 – Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)
- CRYSTAL LAKE’S BLOODY LEGACY pt.4 – Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Throughout its thirty year legacy, the Friday the 13th franchise has boasted some truly memorable moments. But there were several scenes that were cut, either from the script or the finished film, for a variety of reasons. Here’s a few that, in a perfect world, would have made their way into the series…

JASON X:
One scene to have made its way into Todd Farmer’s script but not the movie was a sequence in which an explosion on board the Grendel resulted in a temporary loss of gravity. With both cargo and crew floating aimlessly, ship android Kay-Em manages to grab hold of the wall using her magnetics and attempts to rescue her friends, who desperately try to escape from Jason. This scene would involve several characters who were eventually omitted from the movie (Thorgan, Rizzo, Boeman, DeLongpre) forming a ‘human chain’ as Kay-Em tries to stop them from drifting towards Jason. Sadly, despite a few promising moments, the scene would not result in any zero gravity bloodshed but could still have made an interesting sequence.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES:
Having been rescued from the depths of Crystal Lake by Megan, Tommy Jarvis looks out at the water and declares ‘It’s over, it’s finally over. Jason is home.’ The next scene to have originally been included in writer/director Tom McLoughlin’s tongue-in-cheek script would have been the introduction of Jason’s as-then-unmentioned father, Elias Voorhees. Martin, the cemetery caretaker (who had not been killed in the original script), is knelt down pulling weeds from off of a tombstone when a large shadow is cast over him. Quickly turning around, he nervously says ‘Nice to see you again, Mr. Voorhees…Haven’t seen you in Crystal…er, Forest Green, in quite some time.’ Martin insists to the imposing figure that he has been taking care of both his wife and son’s graves as he is passed his regular payment. Left alone to inspect the resting place of his family, McLoughlin describes that ‘These eyes are truly evil. Cold. Dark. Demonic.’ Elias Voorhees was once again set to appear in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday but was eventually cut from the story.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3:
Instead of the generic retread of the first film’s infamous climax, in which this time the rotten corpse of Pamela Voorhees would jump out of the lake and pull heroine Chris under the water, only for the event to be revealed as just a dream, a planned alternative ending for Steve Miner’s 3D spectacle Friday the 13th Part 3 would have been far more shocking. Having seemingly defeated Jason and survived until dawn, Chris opens the door to discover that Jason is still very much alive and, with a swift blow of his machete, slices her head clean off. Again, this was to have been a dream and the character would have been shown to still be alive at the end, but the sequence would have packed more of a punch. Another effect which the filmmakers attempted saw Jason having his stomach hacked open, causing his guts to spill out at the camera in 3D. Sadly, nervous executives at Paramount chose to ignore both endings and eventually went with the one used in the theatrical cut.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKEN MANHATTAN:
Avoiding the usual criticism of very little of the film actually being set in New York (due to budgetary issues), one minor incident to have been removed from the script was on the characters’ first arrival in the Big Apple. Having made their way to shore after the massacre that took place on board the S.S Lazarus, the kids head off into the city whilst Jason climbs out of the water. His first evil deed would have been to brutally kick a dog, presumably just for the sake of it (Hodder’s performance in the movie was at Jason’s most angry). But, surprisingly, the actor refused to do the scene, stating that the one thing Jason would never do is hurt a dog. A somewhat redundant argument as he succeeded in doing just that in the second film, but perhaps the way that writer/director Rob Hedden had scripted it was a little too savage.

FRIDAY THE 13TH:
The original opening for Sean S. Cunningham’s movie would have been a more dramatic and action packed sequence than the one eventually used in the finished release. Having left the campfire to be alone, young lovers Barry and Claudette were to have taken a walk around the lake as the unseen killer slowly followed them out-of-sight. A chase would have then ensued around the boathouse, instead of them simply being stabbed in the barn. This drastic re-write was necessary as, on the first night when the sequence was due to be filmed, snow would caused various technical problems and a more simplistic scene was required.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD:
Whilst it would hardly have made a drastic change including the brief scene, The New Blood would have originally featured an epilogue after the action packed finale in which a fisherman is seen out on the lake enjoying a leisurely morning, when suddenly Jason jumps out from under the water and drags him down below. Perhaps, with similar sequences having already been used in both the first and third film, director John Carl Buechler decided against using the shot.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING:
Probably the most uninspired killing in Danny Steinmann’s otherwise ultra-sleazy Friday the 13th movie A New Beginning was the death of punk chick Violet. Whereas her friends had been dispatched in a variety of brutal and inventive ways, Violet’s demise came with a simple stab to the gut. But that was not how Steinmann had originally envisioned it. Whilst performing her bizarre-yet-awesome robot dance to the tune of Pseudo Echo’s ‘His Eyes’, Jason would slowly sneak into the room and make his way towards her. Sensing a presence, she turns around as a machete is thrust violently up between her legs, the blade digging deep into her crotch. Realising that the movie would fall foul of the censors (it would eventually take nine attempts to get the film past the MPAA), Steinmann panicked and re-shot the sequence.

Anyway, when the Deluxe Editions started trickling out last year (I’m not talking parts 1-3, I’m talking the real Deluxe Editions – 4-8 produced by Dan Farrands of His Name Is Jason) I noticed the early films getting re-releases on my end of the globe. Different cover art, but also different extras – Friday The 13th part 3 lacked 3D, however did have the missing chapter of Lost Tales From Camp Blood so I made the decision to follow the train of local releases. I waited and waited. Eventually we got shitty bare-bones editions of part 4 onward instead. Mind-boggling. So I slapped the USA Super Deluxo’s in my digital cart and… timejump to today.

Friday The 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter – $11.99 – bingo! Not so fast, bucko. A New Beginning, Jason Lives, The New Blood and Jason Takes Manhattan all ranging from – $24.50 to $26.99 or completely unavailable at all. Sure, Amazon Marketplace can help, but individual postage from each buyer is going to make a buy there a no-go. Alright, back-up plan: screw the certificate and take my moolah to DVD Empire – but the truth doesn’t get much better over there when they confirm those four sequels are Out Of Print.

Ouch, man. That hit me right here in my hellbaby heart.

I figure it’s an elaborate conspiracy to teach me a very large lesson to strike while the iron’s hot, haste wakes waste, he who hesitates is lost, etc. etc. etc. But listen, I’m seeking a solution. I’ve relied on Amazon for a decade (and Ebay for single purchases) so haven’t stepped foot outside their perimeter into the online DVD retailer market much. Perhaps someone out there can recommend a reputable place I can get all four for decent prices?

This week we thought we would showcase Junior’s head from Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Yes, we know Junior “ain’t so pretty myself, I know.” However, his edited death scene is still a hilarious and pretty entertaining part of the film to watch. Below are a few images of Ron Sloan’s head appearing in various places.

The head sculpts featured below are at 1/6 scale. If you’re interested in finding out more about these sculpts and how much it would cost to get one for yourself, send One’s Customs a message at his Youtube channel and get yourself a great custom Jason or Roy today!

The photos are courtesy of David Miller, who worked on the makeup effects and also helped create the normal sized hockey masks for the film. David Miller also worked on a few of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies and a number of cult horror movies from the 1980′s. Check out his website for more information on his work. 

For the death, you see the machete swing around from behind Pete and placed on his neck. The camera then zooms in on Pete’s face and then the fans hear the sound that the machete has cut the throat. No visuals were aloud of the cutting action of the machete. Well, now we can provide you some behind the scenes image of that scene, unedited, so the fans can get an idea of what the filmmakers were intending for the scene. Enjoy and discuss if you think this scene would have been more effective if these shots were in the final film.

ADMIN NOTE: Look closely in the back seat of the car. You can see Jason/Roy actor Tom Morga’s face as the wielder of the machete.