Cinematical Seven: Jason's Greatest Hits

Our pal Jason is having one hell of a big DVD day, with no less than six different releases dedicated to the masked masher. With that in mind, we dig up a piece from last February and reminisce over our favorite slasher's greatest hits.

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?