Jason Voorhees is a Dead-ite
The “Under the Mask” Blog is an online outlet for the “Dont Go Out There” podcast hosts to further add creative content into the horror community.
by: Bryan Hathaway
Firstly, let me just say I’m not an Evil Dead fan. I’ve tried to be. I really have. I watched the original and hated it. I watched the sequel and hated it. I even tried to watch Army of Darkness because I heard how “different it was…” I hated it even more.
I didn’t even stop there!
When the remake came out in 2013 I even took my now wife, then girlfriend, to see it! She fell asleep and I would have honestly left had she not been asleep.. I hated it THAT much and I’m surprised she even married me after that pile of shit.
So, now that we have that out of the way, let me just say that I absolutely subscribe to the idea that Jason Voorhees is a Deadite.
And yes, as much as some of you don’t want it to be… it’s canon.
Since I’m sure some of you have more sense than me and skipped the Evil Dead franchise, let me fill you in on what a “dead-ite” is. … clears throat….Radio Voice: “Deadites are undead spirits that seek to possess a body and feast on the souls of living creatures. They are undead zombies that are controlled by the powers from both the Necronomican (also referred to as the Book of the Dead) Ex-Mortis and the Kandarian Demon.”
Basically the Necronimican in the Evil Dead franchise has the power to harness the Kandarian Demon’s ability to control both the dead and deadites as well as summon the demon himself.
So we have all that now, right?
Secondly, My love for the character of Jason Voorhees has been well documented. This, however, is very much so conflicted when it comes to my equal, sometimes greater love for continuity inside of a franchise… Something we all know Friday the 13th is NOT known for. From mask cuts that are supposed to be from previous movies, to masks suddenly being repaired from one movie to the next as well as mask damage accidentally being on the wrong side of the mask. Just one thing after another.
Enter Jason Goes to Hell director, Adam Marcus. If you haven’t listened to our interview of his, please stop right now and go check it out. We owe so much of our success to him for being the first big name guest on our show. Here’s the link: https://www.dontgooutthere.com/episodes/episode16 . But during that interview he talked about how he didn’t love the continuity at all in the franchise, much like myself, and setout to fix it in the ninth film of the franchise… Jason Goes to Hell.
How did he do that? By placing the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead franchise in Pamela Voorhees’ house therefore not only placing it in the same franchise as Evil Dead but also creating the mythology of how Pamela Voorhees brought her son back from the dead and therefore fixing the continuity errors throughout the storied franchise. Here it is in his own words in an excerpt from Bloody Disgusting:
“[I] wanted to create a mythology for Jason in this movie, because it had driven me nuts as a viewer,” Marcus explained, speaking specifically about Jason magically growing from a small boy to a full-grown, unstoppable monster in such a short period of time. “She [Pamela Voorhees] makes a deal with the devil by reading from the Necronomicon to bring back her son. This is why Jason isn’t Jason. He’s Jason plus The Evil Dead, and now I can believe that he can go from a little boy that lives in a lake, to a full grown man in a couple of months, to Zombie Jason, to never being able to kill this guy. That, to me, is way more interesting as a mashup, and [Sam] Raimi loved it!”
Marcus continued, “It’s not like I could tell New Line my plan to include The Evil Dead, because they don’t own The Evil Dead. So it had to be an Easter egg, and I did focus on it…there’s a whole scene that includes the book, and I hoped people would get it and could figure out that’s what I’m up to. So yes, in my opinion, Jason Voorhees is a Deadite. He’s one of The Evil Dead.”
“It absolutely is canon.”
So there you have it. Now, you can take or leave Jason Goes to Hell. You can also hear about the behind the scenes troubles that plagued that production in my last blog entry as well as in that interview- but you’ve gotta respect the man for trying to fix the franchise as well as wrap it up in a bow. Does it fix Jason’s mask that was torn in half in part VII and him finding a new one in Part 8 that conveniently had the axe cut in it from part 4? No. Does it fix the fact that he wanted Tommy Jarvis to be the one to “send Jason to Hell” but the studio and Cunningham nixed those plans? No.
…But it does help explain some really unexplainable problems with things throughout the franchise that can now easily be explained supernaturally.
So like it or not, Jason Voorhees and Evil Dead’s Ash are connected by more than just a genre and your boy,Jason… is a deadite.