By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
On a cold night, nothing is warmer than the blanket of nostalgia, which is why the wife and I have been rewatching all of the Friday the 13th movies. The franchise goes more off the rails with each new film, introducing inexplicably supernatural elements like revived corpses, telekinetic gals, and a main character who can magically resurrect. All of this led me to my own fan theory about the franchise: namely, that Crystal Lake really does have a “death curse” and that previous witchcraft by the deceased Pamela Voorhees may explain most of the otherwise unexplainable events of these films.
Now, before any horror fiends take out their machetes, I’ll be the first to admit that my “new” theory is more like a strange stew of previous theories. For example, countless fans have speculated that Crazy Ralph was on the money about Crystal Lake being cursed, and Jason Goes To Hell director Adam Marcus introduced the idea of Pamela Voorhees using dark magic to resurrect her son. Of course, Marcus believed that resurrection was accomplished via the Necronomicon from Evil Dead.
My theory is that Mama Voorhees was trying to do a different spell altogether, and her untimely death set off a chain of ghoulish events.
How The Death Of Pamela Voorhees Explains The Friday The 13th Franchise
While I completely reject the Necromonicon stuff (sorry, Jason as a Deadite is deeply stupid), I do believe that Pamela Voorhees became a witchy woman shortly before the first film took place. This would give her the power to resurrect her son, making them a family again. However, we all know that black magic requires sacrifices, and it’s my theory that her murder spree in the first film was an attempt to complete a magic spell and bring Jason back to life.
As every good Friday the 13th fan knows, though, her head gets lopped off at the end of that first movie before she can kill her final victim (and, in my theory, complete the spell). Given the innate magic abilities inside of her at this point (at least, according to my theory), the dark energies in her body would have seeped into Crystal Lake itself and the surrounding area. At the bare minimum, this explains the otherwise inexplicable resurrection of Jason Voorhees: he was reanimated by the chaotic magic rather than a focused spell, bringing him back as a monster man and not a little boy.
However, the intention of Pamela Voorhees’ spell would seep into the campground, which might explain why the final girls of the first three films all had dream visions of being attacked by someone who was supposed to be dead (kid Jason, adult Jason, and Pam Voorhees, respectively). Speaking of resurrection, I believe that Pam’s botched spell is why Jason was unkillable (he keeps coming back to life, after all) even when he was just a guy with a bag on his head. That same magic might explain why he was inexplicably resurrected in Jason Lives, becoming the completely unstoppable zombie we all know and love.
He’s not necessarily the only one affected, as the restorative powers of the spell would explain how the father of The New Blood’s final girl was still alive in Crystal Lake after definitively drowning years before. Speaking of that final girl (Tina Shepard), my theory might explain why she inexplicably developed telekinetic powers while experiencing trauma in Jason’s old stomping grounds. The movie makes it clear that her powers are at their peak in this area, which would make sense if those powers came from Pam Voorhees’ old curse, making them stronger where her body still resides.
No One Can Explain Everything That Happens In This Horror Franchise
This isn’t a perfect Friday the 13th theory, of course. For example, it doesn’t explain how Jason alternates between having the intelligence of a dumb animal to knowing how to do things like disable radio antennae on yachts. However, it builds off Adam Marcus’ fun-but-flawed Deadite theory while explaining much of the unexplainable in this venerable franchise. Hopefully, that curse still has some energy because I’d love nothing more than to see this franchise take after its main character and lurch back to life when we’re least expecting it.