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‘Friday the 13th’ Script Leak Makes Me Glad Film Wasn’t Made

By Jeremy Dick

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After some initial heartbreak over Paramount killing the Friday the 13th reboot, a script leak proves that perhaps they made the right decision.

I’ll be honest. I’m still pretty sad that I won’t be seeing Jason Voorhees on the big screen later this year. In many ways, it feels like a rug was pulled out from under me. But after reading details about the supposed script the thirteenth Friday the 13th film would use, I’m feeling a bit better about the cancellation.

Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting to getting ahold of these details. For the full scoop, you can head on over to their website. But I’ll summarize everything below for you here.

This movie would begin in 1977 at Camp Crystal Lake. A killer wearing a sack mask murders two counselors named Jeff and Sandra (their names being homages). He murders them by tossing them from a lookout tower, after first cutting Jeff’s Achilles tendon. One would think this is Jason Voorhees, as this is how he appears in Part 2. But it’s actually Elias Voorhees, Jason’s father, a local park ranger who murders teenagers.

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Roughly the first 40 minutes of the film then goes into the Voorhees family backstory. Elias is actually the first killer in the family, butchering five characters during this time. He is finally stopped when his wife Pamela learns he’s been cheating on her, and she kills him in a violent rage.

As for Jason, in the first half of the film, he’s presented as a deformed 16 year old. He wears a white surgical mask to hide his face, and the other kids at the camp ruthlessly bully him. Things culminate when a group of counselors, tripping on LSD, take Jason to the middle of the lake in a boat. Upon trying to unmask him, they knock Jason into the lake, where he attempts to swim to the shore, only to sink and presumably drown. The group all decide to cover up the evidence and keep the incident a secret.

Fast forward three years to 1980. After finding a video tape of the counselors’ cruel prank on Jason, Mrs. Voorhees goes ballistic. She murders nearly everyone involved, only to be beheaded by one of them in a clear homage to the first movie.

You know, this sweet beheading right here.

Jason, who apparently hadn’t drowned after all, witnesses the killing and then he goes on a rampage, as well. Wearing a “yellowed hockey mask”, he goes on his own murder spree for the remaining 25-30 minutes of the flick. Seven counselors are violently murdered in this short timespan with a variety of weapons.

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In the climax of the movie, a character dresses up like Jason’s father Elias to confuse him. It doesn’t work, and she and another girl are trapped in a lookout tower. They find Elias’s writings, which say to kill Jason before he’s born “before it’s too late”, implying a supernatural explanation. Jason manages to chop the tower down, killing one of them with the other escaping as the “final girl”.Meanwhile, Jason disappears into the woods, taking his mother’s severed head with him.

My opinion is that there is just far too much going on here for this film to have worked. Having two killers in the film, between Jason and his mother, would have been interesting. Having his dad as the killer for the first two-thirds of the film, however? Talk about overkill.

Leatherface – Photo courtesy of Bryanston Pictures

“Jason, that’s my territory.”

Friday the 13th isn’t about there being a killer family — that’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s gimmick. Jason and his mother have a very unique mother-son relationship, which has always been compelling. Shoehorning his father in, however, just seems ham-fisted.

I realize the series started without Jason as the killer at all. But at this point, Jason in the hockey mask is definitely who people associate with Friday the 13th. Given such a quick mass murder spree at the end of the film isn’t how I want Jason. The bottom line is, there’s just not enough hockey mask in the movie for me.

Next: 'The Purge 4' Is Officially A Go!

It’ll be a while before we see another Friday the 13th film, if ever again. But not all is lost — the upcoming video game looks incredible. So it looks like you’re gonna have to pick up a controller to get your only Jason fix for this year.