50 Fun Facts About Jason Voorhees

Who is the killer in the original 1980 Friday the 13th?

Pamela Voorhees. Betsy Palmer said she took the part only because her car had broken down on the way home from Broadway and the fee would buy her a new one.

Who played the young Jason in the original 1980 Friday the 13th?

Ari Lehman. He had sneaked into an audition for Sean Cunningham's soccer comedy Manny's Orphans, and months later the director rang to offer him the boy in the lake.

Who is credited with creating the character of Jason Voorhees?

Victor Miller. He blended the names of his sons, Josh and Ian, to make Jason, and borrowed Voorhees from a girl at his school because he thought the name sounded creepy.

Which future Hollywood star dies with an arrow through his throat in the original Friday the 13th?

Kevin Bacon. He was really crouched under the bed with only his head poking up through the mattress, joined to a fake neck and chest that the arrow could be pushed through.

Which future Goonies star played Tommy Jarvis, the boy who kills Jason in The Final Chapter?

Corey Feldman. His Tommy shaves his head to pass for the young Jason, which stalls the killer long enough for the machete blow; filming The Goonies then kept him to a cameo in the next film.

Which makeup artist designed Jason's original deformed look?

Tom Savini. He came back for The Final Chapter because, having brought Jason to life, he wanted to be the one who killed him off.

In which film did Jason first wear his trademark hockey mask?

Friday the 13th Part III. The script gave the mask to Shelly, a prankster who uses it to scare his friends; Jason takes it from him and has worn one ever since.

Jason's original hockey mask was a goalie mask of which NHL team?

Detroit Red Wings. A hockey-mad crew member pulled the white mask with a red stripe from his own kit bag; the effects team then enlarged it, punched holes in it and changed the markings.

Jason first wore a hockey mask because nobody would apply his full makeup for what?

A camera test. Told to check how Jason would look on film, the crew skipped his long makeup job and put a goalie mask on him instead; director Steve Miner liked it so much that it stayed.

Which horror director has a cameo as a doctor Jason kills near the start of Jason X?

David Cronenberg. He took the cameo for the director, Jim Isaac, a friend who had worked on his films The Fly, Naked Lunch and eXistenZ.

In a 1988 Friday the 13th sequel, Jason meets his match in Tina, a teenager with which power?

Telekinesis. Writer Daryl Haney noticed that a lone teenage girl always faced Jason at the end, and pitched one with powers of her own.

In a famous Friday the 13th kill, Jason swings a camper against a tree while she is still inside what?

A sleeping bag. Censors cut the scene from a string of blows down to one, and Kane Hodder, the Jason who swung it, thinks the single hit plays better.

Which film was Kane Hodder's first as Jason?

Part VII: The New Blood. Its director had watched Hodder on the film Prison, where he volunteered to rise from a grave with live worms spilling out of his mouth, and wanted that commitment for Jason.

After Jason, Kane Hodder played the swamp killer Victor Crowley in which slasher series?

Hatchet. Hodder plays two parts in the first film: the deformed Victor Crowley and, without the makeup, the father whose blow with a hatchet accidentally killed him.

In the final shot of 1993's The Final Friday, Kane Hodder also plays which part of Freddy Krueger?

His clawed glove hand. It bursts from the ground to drag Jason's mask under, a tease for a crossover that then took another ten years to reach cinemas.

Who was the first actor to wear Jason's hockey mask on screen?

Richard Brooker. The British former trapeze artist answered a casting advert, and director Steve Miner hired him after a single chat.

Which Jason actor had his name kept off the credits of The Final Chapter?

Ted White. He asked for his name to be left off, and by his account had threatened to walk off the shoot unless a freezing co-star was let out of the lake.

Which stuntman played Jason in Freddy vs. Jason?

Ken Kirzinger. The Canadian stuntman had worn the mask before, briefly doubling for Jason in Jason Takes Manhattan, and said that experience helped him land the part.

Who played Jason in the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot?

Derek Mears. The producers feared he was too pleasant to be frightening; he told them he cage-fought and had a lot of dad issues, so yes, he could switch it on.

A lightning bolt first makes Jason an undead, near-unstoppable killer in which film?

Part VI: Jason Lives. Director Tom McLoughlin borrowed the lightning from Frankenstein, reasoning that once audiences accepted Jason as the walking dead, nothing would need to stop him.

Which 1985 film features Jason only as a psychological threat, with a copycat killer?

A New Beginning. The man behind the mask turns out to be Roy Burns, a paramedic who snaps after collecting the body of his own murdered son and starts killing in Jason's image.

Where does most of Jason Takes Manhattan take place?

On a cruise ship. The budget allowed only a short shoot in New York, so the story stays at sea and Vancouver doubles for the city; even its director says it is really Jason Takes a Cruise Ship.

In 1992, Jason received a Lifetime Achievement Award from which network?

MTV. At its first Movie Awards Jason collected the prize in a tuxedo and gave a speech through the mask, which was then pulled off to reveal comedian Jon Lovitz.

Which rock star recorded 'He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)' for a 1986 Friday the 13th sequel?

Alice Cooper. The studio recruited him to give the series a lighter, more mainstream push, and the single's video became the first music video Jason ever appeared in.

The child actor from the original Friday the 13th later founded which horror punk band?

First Jason. He formed the band for horror fans after they sought him out and drew him onto the convention circuit.

Which rapper took the stage in a Jason-style hockey mask, carrying a chainsaw, on his early-2000s tours?

Eminem. The entrance was his tribute to the horror films he loved, and his song 'Criminal' mentions Jason by name.

Friday the 13th's famous 'ki ki ki, ma ma ma' sound is taken from which two words?

Kill and mommy. The composer barked the two syllables into a microphone himself and ran them through an echo unit.

Who composed the score for the original Friday the 13th?

Harry Manfredini. Because the killer stays unseen for most of the film, he gave the stalker a musical signature, as Jaws did its shark, and played music only when the killer was near.

In which US state was the original Friday the 13th filmed?

New Jersey. The crew took over a lakeside summer camp there once the season's campers had gone home, and in 2011 former campers began running tours of it for the film's fans.

Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, where the original Friday the 13th was shot, belongs to which organization?

The Boy Scouts. The odd name is short for North Bergen Boy Scouts, and because the camp was full of scouts all summer, the film crew could move in only once that year's campers had left.

Which horror hit was Sean Cunningham openly trying to copy with Friday the 13th?

Halloween. He advertised Friday the 13th in Variety when all he had was a title and a logo, before any script was finished.

The 1980 Friday the 13th's final lake scare echoes the ending of which Brian De Palma film?

Carrie. Three of the film-makers each claim the idea; one said he had just seen Carrie and wanted a chair jumper like the hand that bursts from the grave.

The third Friday the 13th film was shot and released in which cinema gimmick?

3-D. The effect ruled the set: actors recall that hitting the camera with whatever they threw mattered more than how they said their lines.

Jason X (2001) sends Jason into what setting?

Outer space. Its makers also tried him in the Arctic, underwater and fighting gangs in Los Angeles before writer Todd Farmer said, in effect, let's put him in space.

In Jason X, how does Jason last into the 25th century?

Deep-frozen. After execution after execution fails, a research lab decides to put him on ice; he breaks loose, floods the chamber with coolant and is found in the year 2455.

In Jason X, nanotechnology rebuilds Jason as a metal-plated cyborg known by what nickname?

Über-Jason. The director wanted the heroes to blow the old Jason to pieces so that future technology could rebuild him as something new, and the name began as the crew's own nickname.

The first poster for Jason Takes Manhattan showed Jason slashing through which famous slogan?

I Love New York. New York officials complained that the studio had no permission to use the famous heart logo, and the poster was withdrawn and replaced with a new one.

Who directed Freddy vs. Jason?

Ronny Yu. The Hong Kong director of Bride of Chucky turned the film down at first; the studio coaxed him into a meeting, where he ended up acting out a scene from the script.

Which production company, co-founded by Michael Bay, made the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot?

Platinum Dunes. Its remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been a hit, so the studio asked it to do the same for Jason, and it brought back the same director, Marcus Nispel.

Which Supernatural star plays the hero searching for his missing sister in the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot?

Jared Padalecki. His Clay rides to Crystal Lake on a motorbike to find his sister, whom Jason has kept alive because she resembles his mother as a young woman.

Jason's first video game ran on which of these 1980s computers?

Commodore 64. Domark's British-made game also came out for the Spectrum and the Amstrad, and its makers turned up at a games magazine's office with the fake blood capsules that went into every box.

Jason was a downloadable guest fighter in which fighting game?

Mortal Kombat X. Its makers picked a Friday the 13th, in March 2015, to reveal him as part of a paid pack of extra fighters that also included the Predator.

In Friday the 13th: The Game, players hunted by Jason were cast as what?

Counselors. Kane Hodder came back to act out Jason's moves for the 2017 game in a motion-capture studio, almost thirty years after he first wore the mask.

Which studio made Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th prequel series for Peacock?

A24. It announced the series in 2022 under Bryan Fuller, then parted with him over its direction and started again with a new showrunner, Brad Caleb Kane.

Who plays Jason's mother in the Crystal Lake prequel series?

Linda Cardellini. For once the story belongs to the mother rather than the masked son: she leads all eight episodes, while the young Jason is only a recurring guest part.

Which slasher film opens with a phone caller quizzing his victim about the killer in Friday the 13th?

Scream. Casey gets the question wrong and it costs her boyfriend his life; the film's knowing humour had been tried ten years earlier in the series' own self-mocking sixth entry.

Which toy company's 1998 Movie Maniacs line included a blood-spattered Jason?

McFarlane Toys. Spawn creator Todd McFarlane started the company after a deal for Mattel to make his comic's figures fell through, so he took on the job himself.

Which Friday the 13th film hides the Evil Dead's Necronomicon in the Voorhees house?

Jason Goes to Hell. Its director planted the book to suggest that Jason's mother once read from it to bring her drowned son back, which would make him one of the Evil Dead's Deadites.

The boy cast as Jason in 1980 says Sean Cunningham asked him what?

Can you swim? He said he could and, as he tells it, had the part on the spot: the role came down to a single leap out of the lake at the film's last survivor.

Which studio released the original Friday the 13th in US cinemas in 1980?

Paramount. It won a bidding war that broke out after preview audiences jumped at the final scare, taking the American release while Warner Bros. handled the film abroad.