One unexpected side effect of starting a WordPress blog is the many other blogs I’ve started reading. There’s a few oddballs in the mix but they generally fall into three categories –
RPG blogs (mostly D&D since that’s the most popular RPG by a substantial margin these days) that I read to get ideas for RPGs and to shake my head at how the young people play RPGs these days and lament that the world I grew up in in gone.
Movie review blogs that I read because I enjoy how upset everyone gets by each new Marvel movie (and Star Wars to a lesser degree) because it RUINED everything because there was a female character in it.
And horror movie blogs. I enjoy the occasional horror movie but I am by no means a big horror guy. My sister is a huge horror movie fan. She honestly tries to see EVERY horror movie that comes out each year. It’s crazy. I like reading these blogs because I enjoy how into it people are. People who are really into horror movies are REALLY into horror movies. There’s been so much written about Friday the 13th and what’s really going on there and which movies should be “canon” that there should be a Wu-Tang American Tale style documentary about it.
This is how I learned that Friday the 13th Part 9: Jason Goes to Hell is generally reviled by the Jasonheads out there. I get why you wouldn’t like it, if you’re really into the Jasonverse, making Jason a Deadite and the Voorhees family Deadite cultists does pretty much overturn the mythology they had going. It’s not as bad a Midi-chlorians to Star Wars people but its close.
As a casual horror fan though I love Jason 9 the most, and not because of the Deadite thing, even though I am a fan of the Evil Dead. I love it because of the opening scene.
If you’re not familiar the opening scene is a sexy lady (the same actress who did the nude karate fight in Point Break which was the greatest thing I had ever seen when I was a young fella) going up to Camp Crystal Lake alone. She goes into a creepy old cabin and immediately gets naked. Which of course is how you summon Jason. Sidenote, I one time wrote a Friday the 13th script where a lady gets naked and Jason doesn’t show up and it makes her self-conscious that she’s not attractive enough to get the attention of a supernatural killing machine. That’s probably not okay anymore but I think that was in 1998 so I’ll forgive myself on your behalf.
Anyway, Jason shows up and nudity 2-shoes dodges the machete attack and after falling off a balcony onto a coffee table she springs away like a gazelle. At some point she wraps herself in a towel because as we learned from Zombieland no one wants to see a naked woman running full speed.
Jason chases after her and she leads him into a trap where a small army of FBI dudes shoot Jason to pieces with an illogically wide array of firearms. Also they appear to be in each other’s line of fire, but whatever. Dudes even quick-rope down trees with assault rifles to get in on the action. And then the pièce de résistance, after shooting Jason several hundred times the FBI guys all hit the deck and they finish him off with a mortar attack.
This is awesome. But it also does what any great film does, it makes us think. What did the FBI know about Jason? And what does that imply? Some people (you know the type) have tried to say that the FBI was just going after a serial killer, but to them I say – you don’t have small artillery weapons for close fire support at the ready to blow up a serial killer. Even in the 90’s you’d get in a lot of trouble for that. To me this clearly indicates that they knew they were dealing with something supernatural.
I submit that the FBI had collected all the details of the many times Jason has been dealt “fatal” wounds and shook them off, and the times that he had “died” and come back. And based on this they decided to try some good old fashioned heavy firepower. Let’s blow this fucker up with a mortar and see what happens.
So, we have to wonder, is this the first time the FBI acknowledges and deals with a supernatural threat? If not was there a special unit that deals with that kind of thing? This is what I need to know more about. Has there been some FBI agent out there (Mulder?) for 20 years trying to get attention to this Jason Vorhees thing and someone finally paid attention to him?
Or was the FBI supernatural kill unit born after the federal raid on Innsmouth, Massachusetts in 1928? These are the questions I want answered. Were the people that killed Jason (he came back don’t worry) working on a pill to protect teenagers from Freddie Kruger and other dream masters? Were they trying to figure out a way to harness the power of the Hellrasier dimension to create portal that would generate unlimited free clean energy? Did they have a Chucky operation in the works?
The Chucky angle is especially interesting. Eddie Caputo is a serial killer who manages to voodoo throw his soul into a doll. I have to assume the FBI was already on his trail since they deal with serial killers, and the information that voodoo can throw souls around is something that it seems like they would be interested in. Not very PC since voodoo is a real religion, but what can you do? If not Innsmouth maybe the FBI magic division came sprang from the Chucky case and they started recruiting people with knowledge of African diaspora religions to build their new squad.
And what about the army? When they heard about Jason did they want to learn his secrets so they could build an army of nigh-invulnerable Jason-like soldiers to take out the Russians? Did the FBI have to work against them as well to prevent that horrific dabbling? What did POTUS have to say about it? What about the Supreme Court? Does the Bill of Rights extend to supernatural entities? Does Jason have civil rights?
But that’s not even the most interesting question raised by Jason 9. The real story I want to know is what the heck is going on with Creighton Dukes?
So Dukes goes out to Camp Crystal Lake as a teen and Jason murders his girlfriend so he dedicates his life to learning about how to defeat him. Uh, excuse me? How does one study Jason? Where does that information come from? Is there a Jason section in the library I don’t know about?
And why does he break that dorky dude’s fingers as “payment” for telling him what the hell is going on? Is he magic and he draws power from pain? He later produces a magic dagger that is the only way to kill Jason. I submit that he’s a magic man and he made that dagger. His girlfriend was murdered and he traveled the world Dr. Strange style looking for true magic and he found it. And now he lives in an armored compound and has brought in six serial killers as a bounty hunter. I want to know more about this dude.
He tells Jessica Kimble that she’s the only one who can kill Jason because she’s actually Jaon’s niece. How would he know that? Because he’s the one who did the magic on the dagger of course. It all makes sense.
And while we’re on the subject of the Kimbles, Diana Kimble is Jason’s half-sister, the daughter of Elias Voorhees. We don’t know much about Elias Vorhees, but we do know that he’s “far more evil than Jason” and he was killed by Momma Vorhees for beating Jason. Oh, and we know that his great-great-great-grandfather was a warlock who was maybe burned alive when girls started going missing in Salem Massachusetts.
So Diana is the daughter of this dude and whom? And how did it all go down? Does she really not know the deal? She was hanging around Crystal Lake working at a diner, can that be coincidence? Was there waiting for the day the dude with the magic dagger would show up so she could kill Jason? She tells the dorky dude I mentioned before that they need to talk about Jessica. She’s killed before she can give much exposition but that implies that she knew something about what was going on. Is she magic too? Was her mother a witch? Did she specifically seek out Elias to get pregnant because he knew that only a Vorhees could kill Jason and she was getting the bloodline going for that specific purpose? I need to know.