Much like the moniker locals give it, Camp Crystal “Blood” Lake usually delivers on its name.
As the setting for many Friday the 13th films, the infamous campsite is the home and hunting ground of mass murderer Jason Voorhees. The madman has spent years rampaging through the world — and even outer space — to exact revenge for the time he (almost) drowned in the lake as a child. Decades on, the horror-movie franchise has spawned nine installments, a crossover spinoff (Freddy vs. Jason), and even a 2009 reboot.
In that time, Jason — plus his dear mother and some imitators — has amassed a shocking amount of blood in punishing horny camp counselors who dare not pay attention. There have been crazed stabbings with machetes, head-crushing endings (that’ll make your eyes pop), and even a beheading or two (or ten). Any which way someone can die, Jason has no doubt tried it — including freezing someone’s head in liquid nitrogen so he can smash the frozen skull to smithereens.
With an endless list of creative killings, and in honor of the pseudo-holiday that gave the franchise its name, we’ve squared up the top 13 from the franchise. Our rankings are based less on brutality and gore than on cleverness, camp, and cultural shock. Each is sure to sit with you long after your time camping by the lake has ended.
Still, some qualifiers before we size up each slaying: We must acknowledge some franchise purism here. We have included killings from only the original movie and its various sequels, not from the reboot. And though Jason is not the murderer of the O.G. (that carnage is ultimately his mother’s legacy), we have included these victims in the ranking.
13.
Kelly Rowland is not a survivor — Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
The abysmal crossover of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street may best be remembered as Kelly Rowland’s unfortunate acting debut. It makes this list mostly on the back of one scene: Rowland as the irritable Kia uttering the homophobic “F” slur to Freddy Krueger. Adding insult to injury, she then teases him over his “Christmas sweater” and asks why Jason always has a bigger weapon in the movies and Freddy has only those lousy bladed hands. Hearing his name (and maybe missing the compliment), Jason comes up from behind and guts her with his machete. Kia indeed gets what she deserves — both for the slur and for calling into question a villain’s weapon of choice. Forgive the double entendre, but Jason, as the kids say, slays.
12.
Jason catches Rick’s eye — Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Jason has a real thing for eyes when we reunite with him in Part III, perhaps owing to director Steve Miner’s need to find ever more physical and outrageous murders to maximize the 3-D effects he was experimenting with. Or maybe the maimed eyes are all metaphors for Jason’s own warped vision inflicting unkind violence? Either way, there’s plenty of Oedipal eye gouging. First comes poor Vera, who gets shot in the eye with a speargun. Then there’s Rick — rocking a sweater Mrs. Voorhees would probably wear proudly — whose skull Jason crushes with his bare hands, sending one eye popping playfully out. While there are gimmicks and gags with this kill, it stands out as one of the few special moments when Jason murders without the aid of a weapon. For that alone, his man crush(ed) deserves a mention for its originality and simplicity. It’s a shame Vera couldn’t have kept an eye out for Rick.
11.
Adrienne helps breaks the ice — Jason X (2001)
The franchise’s sci-fi-inspired tenth installment, Jason X, has very few redeeming qualities, but it does feature a kill so outrageous it might only make you laugh. The film sees Jason resurrected in the year 2455, so naturally, he goes on a killing rampage on an intergalactic spaceship. As the movies increasingly pursued more experimental and extreme kills, so too does Jason X seek to diversify our favorite serial killer’s weapon of choice. Here we see Jason plunge scientist Adrienne’s head into a vat of liquid nitrogen to freeze it up instantly. But he’s not done yet — he smashes the frozen skull onto the metal countertop, watching icy shards of head fly into the air. It might be overkill for a brave new world, but it’s total gory camp goodness for viewers.
10.
Julius gets in way over his head — Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
There have been some iconic takedowns — read: beheadings — in the Friday the 13th franchise but few as spectacular as a rooftop effort with a boxer in Jason Takes Manhattan. Jason meets Julius, a sprightly young champion who does some light sparring with Jason before he realizes he has met a formidable contender. Soon enough, Jason grabs Julius in his ’80s power tracksuit and, with a king hit, knocks his head clean off. Heads may often roll at Camp Crystal Lake, yet they had never popped off so quickly — or done so against the New York City skyline. The killing isn’t a gory or gruesome act but more a reminder of the daring (desperate?) ingenuity of the filmmakers as the franchise hit its eighth entry. Again, without a machete handy, Jason proves quite the enterprising mass murderer.
9.
Andy is half the man he used to be — Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
After doing the deed with his girlfriend, Debbie, in Part III, acrobatic Andy walks into the bathroom on his hands while she’s showering to ask if she’d like a beer. Our hunk then toddles off down the hall to collect the brewski, persisting with his stupid handstand walk. Thankfully, waiting in the shadows is Jason, who is none too impressed and uses a machete to slice Andy clean in half. It’s a gratuitously odd way to die (especially since it would be simpler to cut him laterally instead of horizontally), but it does make for one memorable kill. Part of the reason, again, might have been due to Part III being filmed in 3-D and the writers’ need to find more inventive death scenarios. Either way, Debbie is soon clued in: Andy’s bloody sliced body hangs in the rafters above her hammock, and we shriek in terror along with her.
8.
Jeff and Sandra get stabbed in the back — Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Use protection, kids. No, not that kind (though that is important too). We mean protection from spears! In Part II, Jason makes the rounds of the campsite before encountering one happy couple hidden away. Jeff and Sandra, who sneaked off for a moment of intimacy, are suddenly impaled by a lethal spear. Poor Sandra faces her own death as Jeff lies on top of her. It’s ultimately a sweet two-for-one deal for Jason. Indeed, it does remind us that he has a particularly weird penchant for murdering kids when they’re at their most vulnerable, i.e., usually after sex. (Let’s not forget the stabbing of Kevin Bacon’s character after he just finished having sex.) This one takes the idea of la petite mort to a whole new level.
7.
Annie makes a run for it — Friday the 13th (1980)
Unlike the other counselors, Annie never even makes it to Camp Crystal Lake. On her way there, she hitches a ride from a passing Jeep helmed by the unseen Mrs. Voorhees driving stick. As the conversation falters, Annie quickly realizes this sweet old woman isn’t taking her to any campsite. Panic sets in, and Annie jumps from the moving car and rolls into the forest. As screeching violins swell, Annie is stalked by Jason’s bloodthirsty mother (we’re fed camera shots of a pair of workman’s boots to throw us off the scent) before a knife slits her throat and the screen turns white. The slaying is one stressful episode of unnerving cat and mouse that only muddies our suspicions about who the mad campsite killer may be. This frightening red herring heightens the tension and tries to keep us guessing.
6.
Axel learns video did kill the radio star — Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
In the fourth installment, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Coroner Axel may think Jason Voorhees is gone — but he’s dead wrong. After taking custody of the “deceased” body, Axel and an amorous nurse try to get it on next to the corpse before a slipping hand freaks them out. Soon enough, Jason is alive again and takes a hacksaw to slice Axel from ear to ear, spinning the head around to finish the job. Meanwhile, ladies thrust and gyrate in an ’80s aerobics video playing on a nearby TV. Read as a bloody, elevated metaphor, this scene reminds us how sex and mass media can really make our heads spin.
4.
Doug circles the drain — Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Many a horror film has paid homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho, and this fourth installment of the Friday the 13th franchise takes a stab at it by re-creating the famous shower scene. Like other ways the series has played off the original horror film — such as Mommie Dearest killing for her son — The Final Chapter has Doug happily showering away when a sinister figure enters the bathroom. In one of several displays of this series’ homophobia, Doug antagonizes the intruder (about dropping the soap) before it is revealed to be Jason. As he smashes through the glass door and crushes Doug’s face, blood pools and drips down the drain. This killing isn’t often cited or celebrated among fans, but for its quietly subversive take on Psycho, it’s a thrilling exercise in violence and terror, drawing on the handbook of movie horror to get there.
3.
Barry and Claudette get an unwelcome visitor — Friday the 13th (1980)
The one that started it all: Cavorting camp counselors Barry and Claudette are looking for some privacy upstairs but are rudely interrupted by the faceless, knife-wielding Mrs. Voorhees, who guts the pair before their carnal deed can begin. Overlaid with the film’s iconic Psycho-inspired score, the scene ends on a nauseating close-up of Claudette screaming as she is fatally stabbed. We later learn that these two particular teens were the ones who didn’t look out for young Jason when he drowned in the lake a year earlier. Mrs. Voorhees — who was then a cook in the camp kitchen — has returned to even the score with these sex-crazed teens and send a message that Mother knows best. Taking place only minutes into the film, this kill proves to be an abrupt, jarring viewing experience that elicits plenty of angst and dread about even the thought of going to summer camp.
2.
Alice gets served a head on a platter — Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
The sight of Mrs. Voorhees’s decayed severed head would give anyone a fatal heart attack. After the trauma of Camp Crystal Lake, it’s what greets Alice, the first Friday the 13th final girl, in her own fridge. A houseguest is roaming around, and it’s the real Jason this time, come to square things with Alice for killing his mother; always an opportunist, he wields an ice pick from the kitchen. Being violated in the sanctity of her own home — away from that awful summer camp — is evidently the ultimate punishment. While the real reason for a kill this early in the film is largely due to actress Adrienne King’s not wanting to participate much in the sequel, it’s also a grisly and sobering reminder of how few ever escape the lake and the wrath of Jason. It’s a show for one, with Mother in view.
1.
Meeting Mommie Dearest — Friday the 13th (1980)
Mother has arrived, and she is MOTHERING. Nothing can truly top the final battle between lone survivor Alice and the crazed Mrs. Voorhees in this first film. After running into her arms for salvation, Alice soon learns this mother isn’t all that she seems. The pair face off in the empty campground as Mrs. Voorhees intones, in a child’s voice, “Kill her! Mommy! Kill her!” after trying to right the wrong against her son on many horny camp counselors. Vain attempts at throwing objects to subdue her — including a frying pan and the butt of a gun — fail before Alice wields a machete to behead the enraged mother. Delivered in slow motion with crescendoing, screeching music, the destruction of the destroying mother never felt better in the history of horror cinema. A mother’s love may know no bounds, but Alice shows she wants out of this nightmare Wonderland.
