‘Friday the 13th’ Movies: Pour One Out For Jason Voorhees’ Victims Today, These 9 Gave Him Hell

Disposable. Interchangeable. Deserving. Sex-crazed. Drug-addled. All words used to describe victims of the bloodiest, ongoing massacre in movie history. Jason Voorhees has so far killed over 150 people, plus assorted holograms, boats, beer kegs, boomboxes and space stations. But despite the terror inflicted on dozens of primarily teenaged bodies throughout the 12 Friday the 13th movies, we continue to desecrate their memory, endlessly belittling them with our preening moralizing or sacrificing their bodies to the altar of our titillation.

Instead of celebrating Jason Voorhees this Friday the 13th, pour one out for the lives we’ve lost and the budding men and women who might have given the world so much. And next time you’re tempted to dismiss them as just more disposable bodies for a hockey masked monstrosity, try and remember how they lived: fighting to death with a thing that cannot be killed.

Here are just a few faces, reminders of the human value lost to Jason and his machete. And his spear. And his brute strength. And his surprising archery skills. And his mother. And his immortal worm-soul. And liquid nitrogen. And tree trunk trauma. And catastrophic atmospheric decompression.

Annie Phillips

Friday the 13th

By most reckonings, Annie Phillips is just about the most disposable of all Friday the 13th victims. Not only is she one of Pamela Voorhees first victims, but she doesn’t even make it to Camp Crystal Lake. Still, the young camp cook was a perfect example of everything the Voorhees’ have ripped away from us. Hitchhiking all the way to Crystal Lake, Annie demonstrates the gumption and bubbly optimism that makes teenagers the target of so much of our envy. Plus, she was the first to intuit Pamela Voorhees’ murderous intentions, putting here in the top tier for survival instincts.

Ginnie Field

Friday the 13th Part 2

Donning the sweater of Pamela Voorhees, Ginnie Field is one of the only people to get the upper hand on Jason Voorhees, commanding him with just her eyes and voice. Too bad it drove her mad.

Shelly Finkelstein

Friday the 13th Part 3

A horror film fanatic with the brains and the skills to become the next Tom Savini, Shelly died too young. A lover of jump-scare pranks, Shelly may not have gotten laid, despite an aggressive thirst, but he will be remembered forever as the man who gave Jason Voorhees his hockey mask. You will be missed, Shelly, even if Jason wore it better.

J.J. Jarrett

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

J.J. Jarrett died for rock and roll. Can you say the same?

Adrienne Christina Thomas-Hart

Jason X

Though only an intern at New Harvard University on Earth II, Adrienne was a fully capable lab technician, able to dissect an ancient corpse without any guidance from her professor. Her brilliant mind became her downfall, as there was no one overseeing her work who might have prevented Jason from returning to life and freezing her head in liquid nitrogen. Still, she accomplished more than most when confronted with Voorhees, having successfully removed both his hockey mask and one of his eyes before her death.

Julius Gaw

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

“Take your best shot,” Julius Gaw says, just before Jason punches his head off his shoulders. But while Jason proved the better boxer, Gaw should be remembered as the only person to give Jason a fair fight. He was a promising young athlete, cut down in his prime by a better contender.

Alice L. Hardy

When Pamela Voorhees conducted the murderous ritual that opened Jason Voorhees unprecedented, decades-long slaughter, it was Alice L. Hardy who stood in her way. To her Jason was a legend, no more than a bad dream. Or did the adolescent Jason really leap from the lake and grab her all those long years ago? The Voorhees black magic is too tangled to tell. But we do know this: it was Alice who first subdued the Voorhees monster, decapitating Pamela Voorhees. That Jason followed her away from the lake and into civilization, his mother’s head at his side, proves the depth of agony Alice inflicted on him.

Crazy Ralph

Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part 2

He may not have been a teenager, but when it came to angst and over-dramatics Crazy Ralph was as pubescent as they come. “Doomed. You’re all doomed!” Ralph insisted, even as he bravely entered the lion’s den and paid the ultimate price.

Tommy Jarvis

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

Though Jason never managed to kill Tommy Jarvis, his entire life is twisted by trauma. As a child Tommy put himself in Jason Voorhees’ mind, a dangerous gambit that lead to the death of Jason and of Tommy’s sanity. Bouncing from institution to institution, it was only his confrontation with copycat killer Roy Burns that restored some of Tommy’s confidence, allowing him to reenter society. But it wasn’t enough. Returning to Jason’s grave Tommy hoped to find closure. Instead, he resurrected the monster, damning the world to a supernatural Voorhees. Jarvis cursed us, but is cursed himself.

The list of the dead goes on and on. Stephanie Kimble. Vera Sanchez. Whitney Miller. Rowan LaFontaine. And Friday the 13th is still with us. Jason Voorhees will kill again.