Happy birthday Kane Hodder!

Today we celebrate a legend! Depending on where you live in the world, you might have marked today for the solar eclipse, but no matter where you are, you can enjoy the work of horror icon Kane Hodder on his 69th birthday!

Hodder started out in Hollywood in the late 1970s as a stunt performer. The California native parlayed his size into a variety of stunt gigs before becoming an actor as well. While he's most closely associated with horror now, he started working on all kinds of films like the Chuck Norris flick Lone Wolf McQuaid and the volleyball comedy Hardbodies. He also worked on Alligator and the first two House films before scoring the role that rocketed him to horror superstardom.

In 1988 he donned the infamous hockey mask for the first time in Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood. The franchise had wrapped up the three film Tommy Jarvis arc with the previous entry, Part VI: Jason Lives and needed a new direction. So, in addition to introducing a telekinetic hero in Tina (Lar Park Lincoln), the filmmakers also brought in Hodder as the new Jason.

The following year, Hodder returned as the masked killer in Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, though he mostly menaced the kids on a boat. Still, those few scenes in Times Square are worth the price of admission. Even after taking over as one of slasherdom's biggest stars, he carried on as a stuntman for films like Waxworks, House III: The Horror Show and Ghoulies Go To College. He even added another icon to his resume by playing the title character in some Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III scenes. He worked as the stunt coordinator on that film, but also doubled Leatherface actor R.A. Mihailoff.

The 1990s were a weird decade for horror as slashers were said to die out and get resurrected within just a few years. 1993 saw the release of the oddball Friday The 13th entry Jason Goes To Hell. Hodder played the less-present Jason, but also coordinated the stunt team and appeared as an FBI agent. By the way, at the end of that film, when Freddy's gloved hand reaches up and drags the hockey mask down to Hell, that was Hodder too, so that's another iconic slasher on his resume.

Throughout the decade, he worked on even more franchises with Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Scanner Cop II, Wishmaster, the fifth Children Of The Corn film and then in 2001 he played Voorhees once more in Jason X. In that film, the slasher sliced and diced his way through a bunch of people on a spaceship and faced off against a killer robot.

Later in that same decade, Hodder worked with Rob Zombie on The Devil's Rejects and became the killer Victor Crowley in Adam Green's Hatchet films, starting with the first one in 2006. That series has given slasher fans a lot of joy thanks to the fact that it fully embraced the classic 1980s conventions of the genre.

And Hodder hasn't slowed down much. He's still appearing in a ton of films and shows. Just in 2023, he had four acting credits, including the Leatherface motion capture for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game. He had done similar work a few years before for the Friday The 13th game which marked his last official appearance as Jason for now.

After years in the spotlight, Hodder opened up about his life starting with the 2011 autobiography co-written by Mike Aloisi called Unmasked. In 2018, he was the focus of the documentary To Hell And Back: The Kane Hodder Story. Both chronicle his path from a troubled childhood through some harrowing experiences and on through his adult life.

We hope Kane has a great birthday and that you have time to celebrate. Maybe throw on your favorite latter day Jason movie, get into the Hatchet series or check out something newer like Hayride To Hell or The Activated Man.