With all the technical challenges of a slasher film it is surprising that more are not directed by special effects artists. John Carl Buechler had been the first to helm a Friday the 13th movie, with 1988′s The New Blood which, whilst suffering from an uneven script and bland characters, boasted perhaps the most action-packed finale of the franchise. A decade later, another veteran of the effects industry would take the reins in an attempt to breathe new life into the series. Prior to entering the world of filmmaking, James Isaac had worked as a theatre producer and director in California and, in an effort to fund his latest production, found work at George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic through the uncle of his business partner. The company at that time were working on the special effects for Return of the Jedi, the second sequel to Lucas’ blockbuster Star Wars, and Isaac was brought onboard to assist in the creature workshop. The production, which would feature several future directors amongst the crew, including Joe (The Wolfman) Johnston and David (Fight Club) Fincher, was only intended as a stopgap for Isaac as he attempted to complete work on his play but he soon became obsessed with the mechanics of special effects.

Having supervised the creature shop on the picture, Chris Walas had formed his own company and brought Isaac onboard. Their first task came with creating the lovable-yet-mischievous creatures in Joe Dante’s 1984 hit Gremlins and soon Isaac became one of the key artists of Walas’ CWI, which would lead to his first collaboration with his close friend and mentor, David Cronenberg. The Fly, a reworking of a Vincent Price b-movie from 1958, would earn Walas an Academy Award for his work and would raise the bar for prosthetic effects. Through his various collaborations, Isaac had developed an interest in directing his own picture and would often question Cronenberg on the art of filmmaking. Soon after completing work on The Fly, Walas was hired to provide the creature effects on the horror comedy House II: The Second Story, which would lead Isaac to forming a friendship with the film’s producer, Sean S. Cunningham. House, released the previous year, had been an attempt by Cunningham to launch a new franchise after the success of Friday the 13th. Whilst working together once again on the low budget production DeepStar Six, Cunningham approached Isaac with the opportunity to make his directorial debut on a slasher-type picture called The Horror Show.

Having replaced the original director, David Blyth (who instead would work on the long-forgotten vampire flick Red Blooded American Girl), Isaac was brought onto the production one week into filmmaking and, working closely with the writer, would attempt to move the tone of the story closer to the earlier drafts. Despite feeling disappointed with the script, Isaac begrudgingly finished the picture and the movie was released as House III in 1989. Following its mediocre performance, Isaac continued to focus on his work with Walas and soon further success began to follow, including the family comedy Look Who’s Talking Too and Cronenberg’s disturbing noir drama Naked Lunch (based on the controversial novel by William S. Burroughs). Following several low key productions, including the Denzel Washington thriller Virtuosity and the straight-to-video horror Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (in which he would direct the second unit for Ethan Wiley, who had also been responsible for House II: The Second Story), Isaac and Cronenberg teamed up once again for eXistenZ, which would update many of the concepts that the filmmaker had previously explored in his surreal 1982 classic Videodrome. Filming took place in Toronto, where Isaac had been based throughout the 1990s, but once production came to an end he returned to California with a proposition for his old friend, Cunningham.

With Isaac desperate to try his hand at directing once again and Cunningham having obtained the right to the Friday the 13th franchise several years earlier, talks of a new sequel began, although Isaac, with his background in effects, was determined to avoid the low budget feel of the earlier films. This would be achieved with the help of Stephen Dupuis and Kelly Lepkowski, both of whom he had worked with several times before through Walas’ company and had also been on the crew of eXistenZ. Filming for Jason X saw Isaac once again return to Toronto, this time with an allocated budget of approximately $14m. Eager to provide support for his friend, Cronenberg agreed to make an appearance in the movie, having previously co-starred as a demented serial killer in Clive Barker’s 1990 monster movie Nightbreed. But when the studio decided to withhold the release of Jason X for two years, both fans and critics feared the worst and the film failed to make back its budget at the US box office. Not wanting to wait another decade before directing his next feature, Isaac soon commenced work on a werewolf picture called Skinwalkers.

At the time, Isaac was working at Gold Circle Films and had struggled to get the production off the ground and, when it seemed like the project was doomed, he turned to one of his friends for assistance. Dennis Berardi was the owner of Mr. X, a Canadian special effects company who had previously worked on Species III and the remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, and was brought onboard as Isaac’s producer. Another important addition to the crew was Stan Winston, arguably the most successful special effects artist in the industry, having gained considerable acclaim with such blockbusters as The Terminator, Predator and Jurassic Park. Forming his own company, Stan Winston Productions, in 1997, Winston had worked closely with Summit Entertainment to produce the creature feature Wrong Turn in 2024, which had become a modest success due to its graphic violence. With a budget of $18m, Isaac returned to shoot his third feature in Toronto, with a talented crew that would include artists from both Berardi and Winston’s studios. Despite being scheduled for a December 2024 release, Skinwalkers would be delayed by almost a year, suffering a similar fate to Jason X.

Following three disappointing experiences as a director, Isaac turned to a screenplay he had received prior to shooting Skinwalkers. A combination of monster movie and Russ Meyer-like sexploitation, Pig Hunt was written by Zack Anderson and Robert Mailer Anderson, the latter having written the novel Boonville, which had served as inspiration for their script. Opting for a reduced budget in order to retain creative control over the project, Pig Hunt was filmed on location in Boonville and San Francisco, California, from April to June 2024. The cast would feature an eclectic selection of performers, such as Travis Aaron Wade (War of the Worlds), Tina Huang (General Hospital) and Primus frontman Les Claypool, whilst the crew would include Academy Award-winning costume designer Aggie Guerard (Children of Men) and special effects workshop Kerner Optical. Pig Hunt made its debut on January 24th 2024 at the Anderson Valley Film Festival and was screened at several other events throughout the year. In their review of the movie the following October, the San Francisco Chronicle stated; “Director James Isaac has visual flair and imagination, and he seems either to be working with a decent budget or to be making a little go a long way. The movie looks good.”

Director: James Isaac
Writers: Todd Farmer
Starring: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, Jonathan Potts, Peter Mensah, Melyssa Ade
Music: Harry Manfredini
Special Makeup Effects: Stephan Dupuis

Despite gaining a cult following on VHS after its mediocre performance at the box office in 1993, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday had only proven what Paramount had feared when they had sold off the franchise to New Line Cinema; that the popularity that Friday the 13th and its iconic antagonist, Jason Voorhees, had had enjoyed throughout the 1980s had come to an end. Whilst A Nightmare on Elm Street creator Wes Craven had attempted to inject some originality into his own series with 1994′s New Nightmare, the slasher boom was a thing of the past. But over the Christmas holidays in 1996 something unexpected happened; the genre would receive a postmodern makeover with Craven’s stylish thriller Scream, which would become a phenomenal success and, much like Friday the 13th sixteen years earlier, would spawn a slew of imitators. With the long-awaited crossover Freddy vs. Jason languishing in development hell, talk eventually turned to creating a new sequel and bringing Jason back from the dead.

Over a decade earlier, as Jason was terrorising New York City, Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham had begun to struggle with his second franchise, House. Following two relatively popular movies, Cunningham had intended to launch a new series with The Horror Show, which had focused on demented serial killer Max Jenke returning from beyond the grave to haunt the cop who arrested him. Echoing Craven’s Shocker, released the same year, the movie’s director, David Blyth, would be fired midway through the shoot and replaced by first-time filmmaker James Isaac, whose previous association with Cunningham had been as a visual effects coordinator on 1987′s House II: The Second Story (which, amusingly, would later be referenced in Scream 2). The Horror Show would fail to meet Cunningham’s expectations and would be rebranded as House III in certain territories, whilst a disappointed Isaac would return to the world of effects with David Cronenberg’s disturbing fantasy Naked Lunch.

Having completed work in Toronto on Cronenberg’s thriller eZistenZ (a loose reworking of his 1982 classic Videodrome), Isaac returned to Los Angeles in early 1999 and contacted Cunningham, who at that time was struggling to bring Freddy vs. Jason to fruition. It would be Isaac who would suggest a new Friday the 13th sequel as it had been ten years since the release of The Horror Show and he had still not directed a second feature. Whilst concerned that a new movie could affect Freddy vs. Jason, Cunningham reluctantly agreed, providing it worked as a stand-alone story and was not based around a summer camp. With the Friday the 13th franchise having laid dormant for almost six years – the longest that time had past without a sequel since the original movie was released two decades earlier – Cunningham wanted to generate some interest in his character in anticipation for Freddy vs. Jason and so turned to a young writer called Todd Farmer, who had made the acquaintance of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday‘s Dean Lorey several years earlier and had found his way into Cunningham’s inner circle.

Along with Cunningham’s son, Noel, who would take over duties as producer, he began discussions with both Isaac and Farmer on a practical way to bring Jason back. After briefly considering relocating him to the Antarctic, Farmer suggested sending Jason into space. This scenario would often prove to be the nail in the coffin for a franchise, with Critters IV, Hellraiser: Bloodline and Leprechaun 4: In Space all failing to impress fans of each respective series. But the concept held potential and Cunningham took their pitch to New Line’s Michael De Luca, who had been a supporter of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and an ally for Cunningham. Although insistent that it not be just another Friday the 13th movie, De Luca was also enthusiastic about the story and so gave his approval. As with the earlier films, Friday the 13th Part X (or Jason X, as it would become known) would be a negative pickup, meaning that the movie would be produced independently and then delivered to New Line for distribution.

Farmer began to develop the space premise into a screenplay, using both Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic Alien and James Cameron’s action-packed sequel Aliens as a template by including a tough heroine, an isolated location and a small army of soldiers. Determined to make amends for what he felt had been a disappointing debut with The Horror Show, Isaac requested a significantly larger budget with which to do the concept justice. Along with Noel Cunningham, Isaac embarked on the long and difficult process of pre-production, using Toronto as his base of operations due to the low production costs. Turning to his fellow FX artists for assistance, the special effects for Jason X would be supervised by fellow Cronenberg veteran Stephan Dupuis (Scanners, eXistenZ), whilst the film’s spacecraft would be created by the Toronto-based workshop Toybox. Jason X would also prove to be the first Friday the 13th movie to boast a significant amount of digital effects, although there would still be an array of prosthetic gore to please the fans.

Casting for Jason X commenced shortly before Christmas 1999, which would include several Canadian actors for practical reasons. Both Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder, who would portray ‘final girl’ Rowan and android Kay-Em 14, respectively, would go on to co-star together in the hit sci-fi show Andromeda. Chuck Russell would also appear in the 2024 slasher sequel Urban Legends: Final Cut and would later play a character called Chuck in Stargate: Atlantis. Other principal roles would be portrayed by Melyssa Ade, Peter Mensah and Melody Johnson, whilst the adult role of class teacher would go to Jonathan Potts, whose prior credits included such shows as The Twilight Zone, Swamp Thing and F/X: The Series. Taking the role of Jason for the fourth and final time was veteran stuntman Kane Hodder, who had also pursued acting roles with appearances in Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Scanner Cop II and Wishmaster.

Filming would take place in Toronto in early 2024, eventually wrapping in April. During the process of pre-production, Farmer had witnessed his script stripped down and as a consequence had lost its darker elements, instead reduced to comedy. Jason X would be notably more action-orientated than its predecessors, with both Doig and Ryder adopting Ripley-like roles in keeping with Farmer’s homage to Aliens. In a nod to the original Alien, Farmer would name one of the characters Dallas (as played by Tom Skerritt in the 1979 movie), which would allow him to make an appearance and be killed on screen by Jason, much to the writer’s delight. An aspect that would ultimately divide the opinion of the fans was the introduction of what would be dubbed Uber Jason; a cyborg killing machine that was a result of Jason receiving a futuristic upgrade. Despite the image of Uber Jason being featured heavily in the film’s promotion, the new character would not be introduced until the final act.

During the making of Jason X there had been some significant developments at New Line; the studio were prepping the release of the first installment in their big budget trilogy The Lord of the Rings and De Luca, who had first approved of a new Friday the 13th movie, had since left the studio. When Cunningham and Isaac submitted Jason X to the executives their response was less than enthusiastic, resulting in the film remaining unreleased in the United States for two years, eventually making its North American debut on April 26th 2024. Due to the lack of studio support and the negative criticism that had dogged the movie on the internet, which had never been a concern for the franchise before, the film failed to find an audience and would eventually gross just $12.6m at the US box office. With an overall budget of $14m, making it the third most expensive film in the series (although, at the time of production, it was over twice the budget of any previous Friday the 13th), Jason X was considered a financial disappointment, despite the occasional positive review. Unknown to either the fans of Cunningham at that time, Jason X would prove to be the final film in the original series, as two years later Freddy vs. Jason would finally make its way to the big screen.

Further reading -
- Crystal Lake’s Bloody Legacy pt.1-11

The slasher movie has repeatedly been accused of misogyny over the years and no franchise has been such a regular target as Friday the 13th. Yet, whilst over a dozen movies several of the victims have been teenage girls in their underwear or killed mid-coitus by a sexless serial killer, it could also be argued that no other genre has celebrated feminism like the slasher. Despite the treatment of the more sexually promiscuous young women, each movie has boasted a headstrong heroine who has shown great strength and intelligence by defeating Jason with whatever resources are at hand. Dubbed the ‘final girl,’ the likes of Alice (from Friday the 13th), Ginny (from Part 2) and Tina (from The New Blood) showed the kind of independence and courage that critics have praised Alien‘s Ripley and The Terminator‘s Sarah Connor for. In keeping with this spirit, Jason X saw twenty-six year old Lexa Doig as Rowan, who awakens in the distant future to find that humanity has abandoned Earth and, far worse, Jason Voorhees is onboard her spaceship. Writer Todd Farmer would base the character loosely on Ripley, a concept that Doig would remain faithful to throughout production.

Alexandra Doig was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on June 8th 1973 to Gloria and David Doig, a Filipino mother and a father of Scottish/Irish descent. Doig first became interested in acting as a child, taking a keen interest in stage productions, whilst also participating in rhythmic gymnastics. Her passion for acting was fuelled after witnessing a production of Porgy and Bess, an opera that first made its debut in the 1930s and has been reproduced countless times over the decades to great acclaim. Doig became obsessed with the character of Porgy, a crippled street beggar in an ethnic region of South Carolina, and began to audition for various plays, landing roles in such productions as Romeo and Juliet. Doig’s screen debut came in 1991 as the co-presenter of Video & Arcade Top 10, a popular game show that revolved around video games. Her first significant acting role came three years later with a made-for TV adaptation of TekWar, a series of science fiction novels by Star Trek‘s William Shatner, who would also direct. The TV movie would later be followed by a series that would run for eighteen episodes, although Doig would appear in only two, reprising her role of Cowgirl.

Throughout the 1990s, Doig would appear in a variety of popular shows, ranging from F/X: The Series (based on the cult thriller F/X: Murder by Illusion) and the British drama CI5: The New Professionals, in which she would co-star alongside Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man, The Equalizer), based loosely on the 1970s hit show The Professionals. In late 1999, Doig auditioned for the role of Rowan in Jason X, the tenth installment of the long-running slasher franchise Friday the 13th, which would see its iconic antagonist, Jason Voorhees, sent into twenty-fifth century deep space. Filming took place in her hometown of Toronto and was budgeted at $14m, more than twice of any other of the movies in the series at that time (with Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s $5m being the closest). Despite a team of talented special effects artists and the presence of acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg (Scanners) in a small cameo, New Line Cinema would shelve the movie for two years before allowing a limited release.

Six months after principal photography on Jason X had come to an end Doig suddenly became a household name with the hit science fiction show Andromeda, based on a concept by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the show would see Doig team up once again with Jason X co-star Lisa Ryder, as well as meeting her husband-to-be, fellow Canadian actor Michael Shanks, during the shooting of the episode Star-Crossed. A veteran of TV, Shanks played the role of Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1, originally portrayed in the movie by James Spader, and would later appear in 24 and Stargate: Atlantis. The two would marry in August 2024 and would work together once again two years later when Doig landed a recurring role in Stargate SG-1. In 2024, Doig appeared in six episodes of the revival of cult science fiction show V (which had originally co-starred Jennifer Cooke from Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) as Dr. Leah Pearlman.

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.

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.

The Formspring account of Jason X screenwriter (and Angry Driver) Todd Farmer has been a virtual wellspring of industry insight. Tonight it got me all fired up to hit that CTRL+C & CTRL+V combo for your benefit…

Ever wondered what the plots for a Jason X trilogy would have been?

“Figured XI would take place on Earth II at the end of which they would send Uber back in time. XII would have been Uber vs Old in the 80s. Let’s thank the gods X tanked. “

You know, I like to trick my friends about Freddy Vs Jason by telling them it was all part of the Jason X Crystal Lake sim.

Check this rockin’ Jason X tat submitted by ‘Greg Voorhees’. No, that isn’t a pseudonym for Todd Farmer, silly – though this fan has just as little hair on the noggin. Do you see the red around the fresh tattoo work? That’s not ink, folks – talk about suffering for your fandom! It’s great to see some more off-kilter Jason inkwork than the standard hock and machete.

An excerpt of the article is below. To read the entire write-up check out Dr. Gore’s Funhouse website and see if the information changes your opinion of the film’s concept.

Farmer’s initial intention for the story was to move the series away from the camp humour of the sequels and instead create an environment that was both claustophobic and scary. Yet during pre-production the script would undergo countless rewrites and Farmer would see his vision dumbed down and his scares replaced with comic relief. In the original draft there was also a scene in which Jason, who has always been something of a mommy’s boy ever since the beginning of the franchise, witnesses his mother drowning during a virtual reality simulation of his old home, Crystal Lake, but instead of saving her he forces her face down under the water. Concerned that the formula should not be tampered with too much, Farmer was instructed to remove the sequence from the script, whilst also more emphasis was placed on the younger characters, keeping in tone with the expectations of a typical slasher film.

After the film was released, two years or so after principal photography wrapped, there was a general feeling of emptiness from the film. Set pieces and characters seemed rushed, but we would later find out that was due to financial constraints. In the years after the release of the film, Jason Voorhees die-hards have come to appreciate the film for the ambitious approach that was taken to the film for it being the tenth in the franchise.

Todd Farmers’ script was actually a very immerse story and is illustrated as such by the concept art that was featured exclusively on this website a decade ago. If Sean Cunningham and crew had more finances, there would have been a much bigger Jason X film to enjoy. Below are some of the concept art that visitors may or may not have seen already. For more concept art, visit the original, archived page created over 10 years ago!

If you received the Newsletter from Creepy Tees, then this is old news, but for everyone else, here is what was announced:

Congratulations to J. Bender (#51) from California! He was the lucky winner of the screen-used shirt from Jason X.

The screen used shirt that was won is to the right. The close-up image of the shirt is an image I got from www.fridaythe13thprops.de and may not be the actual shirt that was won. However, considering there were only two shirts worn in the film, it’s a fifty-fifty chance that it is the shirt.