Friday the 13th: The Pros and Cons of ‘Jason Goes to Hell’
By Jeremy Dick
via New Line
Con: Jason shaves a middle-aged man before making out with him
Jason Voorhees first transfers his evil by possessing a mortician to eat his grotesque black heart. From that point on, the spirit is transferred by mouth-to-mouth contact. In other words, Jason “makes out” with people to put the evil into their body. I can just imagine trying to explain all of this to Victor Miller, who created Jason in the original Friday the 13th screenplay.
Perhaps the most bizarre transferral in the film comes from the mortician slipping that Jason spirit into a tied-up cop’s mouth. Oddly, before making out with the policeman, Jason strips him naked and shaves his mustache off with shaving cream. It’s an understatement to say that this is not what one signs up for when buying a ticket for a Friday the 13th film.
Listen, I’m not homophobic in the slightest. Seeing dudes making out doesn’t bother me. HBO’s Oz is one of my all-time favorite TV shows, after all. You gotta love Beecher and Keller. But there’s just something about Jason Voorhees shaving a man and making out with him that just… well, it’s awkward as hell. I don’t know how else to explain it.
via New Line
Just seems a little… uncharacteristic of Jason, that’s all.
Director Adam Marcus has since discussed this controversial scene. He claims that he intentionally made the scene homo-erotic, appreciating even more that he was using a middle-aged man rather than some young underwear model. His reason? He found it amusing that people would “still be talking about it” years later.
Personally, I think that’s a terrible reason to add a scene into a film. It reminds me of the pro wrestling writer, Vince Russo, who scripted actor David Arquette to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for very similar reasons. Yeah, we’re still talking about it all of these years later… but WCW also (not coincidentally) went out of business very soon after.