Is Jason Voorhees a Super Zombie?
Thumbing through Glenn Kay’s Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, I bumped into a nice tasty entry regarding Friday the 13th . Author Glenn Kay argues that Jason Voorheess isn’t just a regular zombie, but rather he is a super zombie. He goes at length to connect the dots which I have quote beneath the fold.
On a side note, if you are looking for an awesome book about movie zombies, you should really check out this book. It’s just that good.
From the book:
In 1986 the Friday the 13th slasher franchise was in need of rejuvenation, so its caretakers decided to reworks its central character. In Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, they transformed the deformed serial killer Jason Voorhees into an unstoppable zombie. While few fans consider the entertaining sequel to be an official zombie film, it does raise the character from the dead literally. And from that magical moment when Jason rises (thanks to a lightning strike to his grave), the character takes on clear zombie traits.
For his first kill, he punches his fist through a man’s chest cavity, grasps his heart, and yanks it back through his rib cage and out of his torso to display it to his understandably stunned victim (Ron “Arnold Horshack” Palillo from Welcome Back, Kotter). Interestingly, the lead in Jason Lives, Thom Mathews, also starred in the first two Return of the Living Dead features (1985 and 1988), and the film’s director, Tom McLoughilin, also helmed the minor zombie opus One Dark Night (1983).
Jason Lives has fun with the undead concept. Its rotting antihero spews worms and maggots, and he survives a fire, a recreational vehicle accident, a boat propeller goring, and repeated attacks by sex-starved teens – any of which would kill a normal person. Following every beating, after a suspenseful pause, Jason always gets back up and walks purposefully – but, crucially, does not run – toward his target. Jason’s invulnerability also helps to generate suspense, since it seems there is no way to stop a villain who is now already deceased. Add in a series of creatively over-the-top murders (at one point Jason kills a cop by bending him backward), and the movie stands as one of the best films in the long-running franchise
Glenn continues to espouse his thoughts on the rest of the series, but the thought continues to linger … is Jason really a zombie? And was Jason Lives the best in the series? I really can’t speak for the latter question as I’ve only seen parts of each movie, but if I had to pick one, I’m guessing I would go with the first movie since it seemed the most plot centric. The awesome, albeit defunct, website They’re Coming wrote a great review of it over here.
So do I consider Jason to be a zombie? Not really. He has zombie characteristics, but he displays both intelligence and creativity in dispatching his victims. Besides being emotionally vacant, the only difference between Jason and any other movie slasher is probably the funk that proceeds him.
So what do you think? Was Glenn on the mark? Is Jason a zombie and is the sixth Friday movie the best of the series?
Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (amazon.com <- new window)
Hey there, great blog/site, I’ve been reading for months, and haven’t commented yet, but this is great, literally two of my favorites, Jason and Zombies, to be honest, being a ridiculous fan of zombies I don’t really think of or consider Jason a zombie, the only aspect that he could be a zombie is that he rises from the dead now (hmm guess that might make him one though). As for Jason Lives being the best in the series, I’m not sure, however that was the turning point for the franchise that made it really what its been. My personal favorite is Jason takes Manhattan, just for being over the top and campy as hell. The worst in the series was the one that followed, Jason Goes to Hell. Also Glenn Kays’ Ultimate Zombie Movie Guide, is actually sitting on my coffee table, and it is an amazing book. Thanks for the great site, and I hope to be commenting again.
Hi John …. Thanks for the visiting the site for so long and I appreciate the comment. I gotta say, I’ve only seen the part in Jason Goes to Hell where this bounty hunter was like “you gotta to pay for information” and proceeds to break this other dude’s fingers for each nugget of information. I thought it was pretty funny in a bad way.
if Jason is a zombie, then Michael Myers is too–but they’re not zombies, they’re boogeymen!