MovieChat Forums > Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) Discussion > Jason was always a "Zombie" *spoilers*

Jason was always a "Zombie" spoilers

posted 10 years ago by TonyC4444
35 replies | jump to latest

I've read in numerous places and seen other people talk about this and I wanted to put this out there because it annoys me. Whether you want to use the term Zombie or whatever, the movie makes it pretty clear that Jason was always dead. He died when he drowned in the lake, and I'll use NUMEROUS examples from the first four films to illustrate my point. Obviously NUMEROUS spoilers ahead for the first 4 movies.

Number 1) The mother went completely BAT *beep* crazy because her son died. The whole "chi chi chi ka ka ka" thing is ACTUALLY "ki ki ki ma ma ma" and represents Jason telling her to kill people in her mind. She also a few times speaks as if he were inside of her telling her to kill the counselors. I'm not suggesting there is anything supernatural about this (though who knows, maybe there is), she's just completely crazy. People DO tend to go crazy when their kid dies, ESPECIALLY if they believe that death was due to negligence, this is normal I think (though the killing probably isn't normal, but not outside the realm of belief either). Wouldn't make any sense at all for her to go THAT crazy if her kid didn't actually die.

Number 2) Jason comes plying out of the water at the end of number 1, and he's severely decomposed. People like to make the argument that this was all a dream which is completely absurd. They showed the ripples in the water at the very end of the SUGGESTING that Jason was still there AND we had 11 movies after this one showing he's still around. The SIMPLE answer is he came out of the water after her because he saw her kill his mother. Otherwise what we are talking about is one hell of a monumental coincidence that she just HAPPENED to imagine Jason coming out of the water 2 years (I think) before he would later appear and start killing people.

Number 3) People don't catch a machete to the clavicle and then get up and start running around and killing people again. You know who does that? The undead.

Number 4) People don't get hung, hang there for a minute (and probably snapped their neck on the way down) and then all of a sudden wake up and pull themselves off the rope. You know who does that? The undead.

Number 5). People don't catch an ax to the forehead and take a nap for a few hours, only to wake up later and start walking around like nothing happened. You know who does that? The undead.

Number 6). People don't catch a machete clear through their head and are still alive on there way down to the ground like he did at the end of 4, and they certainly don't continue moving around afterwards like their thinking about getting back up. You know who does that? The...hell the undead don't even do that, that's all Jason.

I also want to point out the absurdity of believing he didn't drown. I can't think of a plausible scenario where a mentally retarded child goes under the water and nobody ever sees him come back up and he doesn't drown. You what, want us to believe that this mentally retarded child who couldn't swim "very well" (according to his mother) some how managed to get out of the water without anyone's knowledge and then go on to survive in the woods all alone with out anyone's help? I mean we're talking about a mentally retarded little boy hunting, fishing, foraging for food that isn't poisonous. Doesn't make any sense at all. It's actually more believable that he died and came back from the dead, I would probably believe that in real life before I would believe that he managed to survive on his own in the wilderness.

I know there are probably NUMEROUS other examples in the first 4 films but I think I've made my point. The guy was always dead, he died in the lake and then came back. I'm assuming after his mother died but who knows maybe not, maybe before.

By the way, I am right behind you.

[–] fyfytj 9 years ago

Jason's attack at the end of the first movie was undoubtedly a dream. As far as the first movie is concerned, Jason is dead and died as a boy in 1957. The rippling in the lake as the very end could be Alice picturing the lake in her mind. The cop said "Maam, we didn't find any boy", and besides, why is he still a kid when he pops out of the water when he drowned over 20 years prior? Because that's the way Alice imagines him based on Mrs. Voorhees' story. Granted, she wouldn't have known that Jason was deformed, but I think the evidence for it being a dream outweighs that of it being a real event.

Aside from that, the evidence of Jason's supernatural resistance to injury and death is indeed present before he's officially a zombie in Part 6. But it's all based on the completely nonsensical idea that Jason somehow survived drowning as a boy and just decided to live in the woods without even going back to camp to find his mother, so if I can brush that off, I can brush off Jason's superhuman durability before his death in Part 4.

[–] luig29 9 years ago

I think that Jason at birth was a mongoloid mutant freak with crazy retard strength but not supernatural which is how he survived drowning and was able to survive other injuries he sustained until Tommy was able drive a machete straight through his skull into his brain causing catastrophic injury those injuries before that were not catastrophic.

[–] TonyC4444 9 years ago

You don't walk away from having your neck broken and then hung like that, as well as a lot of the other injuries he got in 3. He absolutely should have died.

By the way, I am right behind you.

[–] luig29 9 years ago

Well all I can say is Jason always still being alive is canon and all other therioes of him always being undead is only speculation Paul's campfire story in part 2 corroborates the still being alive part.

[–] rikajessie 9 years ago

It was originally intended that Jason did drown, but when they wanted to make a sequel and wanted to use Jason as the villain, they came up with the plot that Jason didn't really drown and lived in the woods all those years, as explained in part 2, and as Ginny says about Mrs. Voorhees, "what she thought happened", meaning that she thought he was dead when he wasn't, at least that's how I took it.

The actress that played Chris said that Jason was supposed to be dead after she struck him with the axe, but I guess they wanted another movie obviously, so they had to make it that he survived that wound. Yes, it's a stretch, but maybe we are supposed to think the wound didn't go deep enough because of the axe, or Jason had a very thick skull? lol

And Final Chapter was meant to be the last, and the writers of New Beginning didn't bring Jason back. Then Jason is shown in Part VI in his grave, and only because he got struck by lightning did he come back. After that, though, he's never shown to be dead, just trapped. So I do think the intention was that Jason died in Part 4 and the lightning turned him into an immortal.

But yes, it was always a big stretch to believe that Jason survived the drowning and raised himself. I like to think he was found by some weirdo who lived in the woods and taken care of by them, at least for a time. That would make more sense as to how he survived, and why he wouldn't return to Pamela or be seen, if he was sort of being held captive by someone.

As for Pamela's behavior in Part 1, I think this is all supposed to be her insanity. If we take it that Jason did survive, obviously Pamela just doesn't know it. She thinks he died because she has not seen him since he escaped the lake.

But I don't think these movies were ever all that realistic, and certainly not good with continuity after a while.

Some people thought it was unrealistic that Pamela could kill all those people being just a regular woman, I thought it wasn't unrealistic because she took them by surprise. But thinking more about it, I thought it was strange she could have the strength to pick up some of the characters, like how did she get Bill up on the door, how did she get Steve up in the tree, how did she get Ned up in the bunk (unless he had laid down on it and then she killed him)?

She's not a huge woman, it just seems strange to me that she could lift up these guys, lol.

Anyway, I think in the end it's up to the viewer to decide. I just don't like the idea of Jason being always supernatural in parts 2-4 because they didn't give an explanation for why he would be. For as lame as the explanation of him surviving the drowning might be, at least it is an explanation. And I don't like the explanation in Part 9 about Pamela using the necrinomicon or whatever, because if she'd resurrected him, I don't see why she'd be so angry still in Part 1. Some said it's because he didn't come back right, but still, if she had resurrected him, she'd have been so busy raising him that I don't think she'd have had time to obsess about the camp being reopened and doing all those things to keep it from being, and wouldn't be as obsessed with revenge. And since she was pouring out her soul to Alice, basically, about Jason, wouldn't she have mentioned that she resurrected him and he was evil? Since she planned to kill Alice and was telling her everything else, why not that?

Obviously that didn't happen because it wasn't intended for Jason to return when that movie was made, but yeah, I just don't like 9's explanation, or anything about it for that matter.

[–] Horror_Metal 9 years ago

I agree that Jason was always an undead and also believe that he was resurrected as soon as his mother was killed in the first movie. Then his body aged over the next five years to catch up to how old he would have been had he not drowned in the lake. That's why he's much bigger in part 3 than he is in part 2, he's still growing.

Maybe a far fetched theory, but it sure beats the one in which he was alive and living in the woods for 20+ years without ever encountering anyone, including his own obsessed mother.

Horror_Metal

[–] rikajessie 9 years ago

Well that would explain how Jason can take wounds that would kill anyone else in parts 2 and 3. :D

Like I said, I think it can be left up to the viewer. My sister thought he was always a zombie, but I like the idea that he wasn't up until part 6, just because I like a more reality based story.

[–] BigDDD 8 years ago

Don't forget Kid Jason also attacked that girl in part 8 during her flashback, he died when he drowned apparently lived under there for awhile, attacked the main character in part 8 in the water during a flashback, saw his mom die, got out and went living in the woods

[–] MaximRecoil (4846) 7 years ago

Yes, Jason was clearly supernatural in every movie. As for the ending of Part 1 being a dream, even though that's what was intended by Cunningham and Miller, there's no onscreen evidence of it being a dream. First of all, Alice believed it was real, even after being told by the cop that they didn't find any boy (she replied, "Then he's still there."), and she was the one person who was in a position to definitely know. The idea that Alice can't tell the difference between when she's dreaming and when she's awake is just silly. I can tell the difference between my dreams and reality, and so can everyone else, including Alice. Also, she really did fall into the water, as pointed out by Ted in Part 2:

"This whole thing's ridiculous, really. You know, two of our kids got hauled in today because five years ago some girl, I don't know, panics and falls out of a canoe."

The cops were quite a distance away, the Jason event happened very quickly (we saw it mostly in slow-motion), and they weren't necessarily at the right angle to have seen it, and/or they weren't necessarily paying attention during that particular second. So the cop saying that they didn't find any boy in no way proves that it was a dream.

The only onscreen "evidence" we have that Jason didn't drown as a kid comes from camp councilors presenting their pure speculation. Speculation presented by people at a bar or around a campfire, who weren't even alive in 1957 (or were toddlers) doesn't hold any water, while people who were adults in 1957, including Jason's own mother, said he drowned. Deaths aren't taken lightly by society; a whole town doesn't come to the conclusion that a local boy drowned if there was no proof. If there was no body found, there would have been a manhunt, with dogs, and they would have found him had he been in the surrounding woods.

[–] AdamWaldron96-2 (178) 7 years ago

Look, I hate the cliched answer that horror movies have villains who for some reason are unstoppable, and unable to be killed but c'mon man. Let's look at a few examples from other movies if you don't believe me.

Michael Myers is unstoppable, taking 11 bullets to the chest, 2 bullets to the eyes, a knitting needle to the neck, a coat hanger to the eye, a knife to the chest, fell two stories off a balcony, caught in an ether explosion and manages to walk around for a little before collapsing. Guess what? Not a zombie, or undead. Why? Because of one of two things. A) he gets put into a COMA, grows his eyes back, and manages to slightly heal from his burn wounds, and wakes up 10 years later. Zombies or undead people don't get put into comas. People with a pulse do. B) He manages to get away from the fire, hides out in the hidden basement area of his house for 20 years, heals from the wounds and again grows back his eyes.

Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. Leatherface is human throughout this entire series. Took a goddamn chainsaw to the gut from Dennis Hopper, through stomach and out the back, and continued to fight Dennis Hopper, and gets knocked out by a hammer when he would've collapsed already from blood loss or very much be dead, considering the chainsaw in his gut still had blades running and active. A chainsaw to the cut, and a hammer to the head...only unconscious. Grenade supposedly blows him up off-screen. Next film acts like that film didn't happen. There's a character in that movie who gets hit in the head with a hammer graphically probably two dozen times, probably more, gets his face cut off, and gets the flesh on his arms and chest skinned off...yet still alive to cut out main heroine free before collapsing dead afterwards. Leatherface in TCM III gets hit over the head with a heavy rock probably a dozen times, and falls into a swamp to drown, only to pop up alive and well the next morning right before the credits roll.