Cinematical Seven: Jason's Greatest Kills
Filed under: Horror, Cinematical Seven, Remakes and Sequels
To commemorate the re-re-reawakening of good ol' Jason Voorhees, I thought it'd be fun to toss out seven of my favorite kills from the hulking lunatic. And so I did. To find out if the new Friday the 13th has any kills worth considering, well, I guess you'll have to buy a ticket. Or wait for the DVD. Or cable.
Mark (Friday the 13th Part 2) -- This is where we learned that all bets were off: Not only would Jason gladly kill a good-looking handicapped guy who was about to get sexed up ... but he'd also give the wheelchair-bound lothario one of the series' most diabolical demises! Yep, poor Mark got a machete in the face before his wheelchair bounced (backwards!) down a giant staircase. Simple, creepy, effective.
Andy (Friday the 13th Part 3) -- Why would a guy spend his after-sex time walking around on his hands? So that Jason can chop him (downward!) from the groin to the ... I dunno really, but in a movie filled with cheesy FX and unconvincing kills, this one still comes off as impressively nasty. I was gonna go with "Jeff & Sandra's post-coital dual-skewer" scene, but the MPAA gutted most of that creativity.
Jack (Friday the 13th) -- Most hardcore fans would probably pick Annie (nasty throat slice) or Marcie (axe to the face!), but there's something about that hand popping up from beneath Kevin Bacon that always freaked me out. Plus the "arrow throat" gag works exceedingly well, whether you're watching the American version or the slightly messier UK edition.
Jimmy (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) -- Love him or hate him, it's always fun to see Crispin Glover get a corkscrew to the hand and a meat cleaver in the face. Especially because his F13 character is such a whiny little emo weirdo. Also awesome from Part 4: That icky sliiiiiiding motion that occurs when Tommy Jarvis whacks Jason in the head with a machete. Oh, and the doctor who gets his throat wrecked with a hacksaw. (That doctor was in Police Academy!)
Adrienne (Jason X) -- Easily one of the most creative kills you'll ever find in a horror movie ... but unfortunately it exists only because of the "slasher in space!" concept. And after seeing what it did to Pinhead and Leprechaun, I just hate the "slasher in space!" concept. And yet I don't hate Jason X. Anyway, this is the one where Jason freezes the pretty girl's head with liquid nitrogen and then smashes it into so many shards of brain-glass. Pretty neat. Also cool: The in-jokey "virtual reality" sequence that was included only for the hardcore fans.
Julius (Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan) -- When your invincible slasher maniac has become so powerful that he can simply PUNCH a man's head off during an impromptu rooftop boxing match ... it's time to reboot your horror series. This kill is included mainly because it's so darn stupid, but it also has a very nifty "decap-o-cam" moment that makes you feel like you've just been beheaded.
Freddy (Freddy vs. Jason) -- Technically, Jason won, y'know.
Obviously I'm keeping the new Friday the 13th exempt, just to avoid spoilers, but there definitely are some nifty kills in the new-fangled version. My favorite dispatch combines the rusty reliability of an old bear trap with the overt warmth of a well-positioned campfire. Ouch.
And I had a few leftovers, but it only made sense to omit those and leave some choice cuts for the commenters. So which are your favorites, what did I miss, and how sick is it that we enjoy talking about fictional murder so dang much?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-12-2009 @ 11:16PM
moviechump said...
WOW!!! I understand you wanna leave a couple off for the commenters but you left off the single best inovative kill, maybe in all of glam horror. O course, I am speaking of the sleeping bag kill from part 7. Sure no gore except a little blood from the nose, but easily his best kill of the series. The lovely young lady says "Ok you big hunk of a man, come and get me." And then he does just that. He could've just chopped in the head with his machete but nooooo! As a child you would cover your face with blanket for safety and this young lady tries to do just that and Mr. Voorhees uses it to his advantage to turn her sleeping bag into a future body bag. To see Mr. Voorhees just pick the sleeping bag up and toss it as hard as he could into a tree, WOW! Simply beautiful. I was camping last year and my first thought when I went to snuggle up in my sleeping bag was that of Mr. Voorhees. A little upset it was left off the list.
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2-13-2009 @ 12:12AM
steveo said...
YES! The VR sequence in Jason X was easily the best 'kill' in the enitre franchise. It had all the requisite elements: female nudity and invitations to teen sex, a sleeping bag, and drugs all set in the woods. Jason smashing the bag into the trees was just so hilarious I could not stop laughing for 5 minutes - the people near me in the theater were kinda pissed...
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2-13-2009 @ 12:20AM
jabber said...
In the original friday the 13th Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) is the killer not Jason. Jason is only revealed at the very end of the film, and doesn't actually kill anyone until the 2nd film. So Jack's (Kevin Bacon) death shouldn't be on this list.
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2-13-2009 @ 12:54AM
Scott Weinberg said...
Damn dude, good call! I'd LIKE to say I did this on purpose, just to see if someone would catch it, but it was a simple brainfart on my part. You are, of course, correct, but I still want the kill in there.
OK, fine. Replace it with one of Jason's kills from Part 5. ;-)
2-13-2009 @ 2:45AM
Monika said...
Scott,
You're lucky you weren't being quizzed by serial killers! ;)
2-13-2009 @ 9:16AM
J. Bryant said...
My biggest gripe with the "sleeping bag" kill is that it was cribbed from another movie, 1980's Bigfoot-as-a-slasher epic NIGHT OF THE DEMON. In that flick, Bigfoot scoops up an unlucky camper in his sleeping bag, beats him against a tree for a bit, then tosses the bag against a nearby tree branch, impaling the camper. So, yeah, F13 kinda stole that one, regardless of how awesome it was in 7.
This list is pretty good, however, being that all of the kills on it were pretty original.
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2-13-2009 @ 9:29AM
Will B said...
Woah Woah Woah...
I don't recall which one it was, but wasn't there a kill where a couple campers where in a tent in a 'girl on top' situation and a pole ripped through the ten, through the girl, then Jason SPLIT her by ripping the pole UP?
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2-13-2009 @ 9:31AM
J. Bryant said...
JASON GOES TO HELL had that one.
Of course, Jason had body-hopped into some doctor at that point, so maybe it's left off because it's not a true Jason kill?
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2-13-2009 @ 12:20PM
Keith said...
I don't know but I kinda like the folding of the bed in Freddy VS. Jason. Just 'cause of how cheesey it was. That's just me. That, the guy who got killed was such a mega-douche, he deserved to be offed like that.
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2-13-2009 @ 12:46PM
The Colonel said...
Maybe this is just too obvious... (and kind of doesn't count, since it's not really Jason) but I have to point out that no one has mentioned the infamous belt-around-the-tree kill from Part 5. Purely for the originality and difficulty factor, I was like, "Jesus... THAT just happened!"
It was one of those wonderful why-bother-going-to-all-that-trouble? moments in these movies, and it made me wonder (in an absurd sort of way), was the killer just sitting around thinking, "Man, wouldn't it be cool to crush someones head against a tree with a belt... I am SO trying that next time..."?
And then he does it.
Part 5 is worth watching entirely for that scene.
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2-13-2009 @ 4:15PM
bbrinX said...
If you aren't counting the first one because of Jason's mother then technically you can't be counting part 5 either.
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2-13-2009 @ 7:35PM
wings said...
All very good, even with the mistake of Jack.
I always get creeped out by Rob in the basement in Part IV:
Oh god... He's killing me!
eep
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