A pitch for a new Friday the 13th
To fill up space until I have anything worth showing off...
What's unique about Jason? What would you miss if you took a Friday the 13th script and threw in any other slasher?
Jason comes down to a few things to me:
His fucked up relationship with his mom
A face shamefully hidden behind a mask (In the original this is some problematic portrayal of people with birth defects. So we're changing that up)
So backstory time:
A young Jason Voorhees is sent to a bad kids wilderness camp at Crystal Lake at an early age by his hardcore anti-debauchery mom . (Sin is ugly Jason, you don't want to be ugly would you?). It was terrible on him. The program was cruel and the teachers were awful but what enraged him most was the hypocrisy. He discovered the counselors fucking and doing drugs whenever the camp leaders weren't paying attention. All of Jason's complaints home are replied to with a statement about all of this being a lesson that he should learn. Mrs. Voorhees keeps delaying taking him back. He's been through like 4 sets of "classmates". He knows the area around the camp better than anyone. He's the best at all of the camping and outdoors activities.
But he’s a snitch so he’s ostracized. On a long hike there is an accident involving the counselors goofing off and being high leading to Jason's fall to his presumed death.
They returned to camp without going to look for him. No one except mama Voorhees cares much about a missing "bad kid". Jason injured and disfigured but alive managed to limp his way back to the camp. He sees his mother looking for him but not before he sees his own face in a reflection, brutalized, “ugly as sin”. (As hilarious as it is to ask for nuance from a Friday the 13th movie, it should be clear that it’s not that the injuries make him a monster but that his mother’s preaching that beauty and goodness are the opposite of sin makes these injuries to his face shatter his mind.)
He doesn't want her to see him like this so he hides and watches.
Eventually he sees her grief over take her as she attacks and kills the counselors one by one pronouncing their sins as she goes. And then she’s killed by the final girl.
The camp is closed after that. Jason, with his Mom's head and sweater hides. Jason hunts and camps and fishes around the lake, having a place free of sin and free of hypocrites. He expands the forts during his time at camp until there are unstable tunnels crisscrossing the whole of the camp grounds.
A decade later, a new owner thinks that enough time has passed for the land’s bad history to have been forgotten. They decide to reinvest in the Crystal Lake property.
Jason does not want to let anyone to bring their sins into his home and he's been doing nothing but practice his axe throwing, archery and navigating these woods in the dark. He wants his mother to be proud of him. He doesn't want to see anyone but he will see defending his home from sinners as another lesson he needs to learn.
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So that's the backstory, who knows how much should be spelled out in the movie.
The main action of the movie would be more focused on wilderness survival. Jason isn't just a big guy with a knife, he's someone who has prepared and explored every inch of these woods. Yes he'll use the machete but he'll use the whole boy scout arsenal. He'll use a fishing spear, a bow and arrow, hatchets and animal traps.
He doesn't expect people to behave any differently than animals so changing up from basic fight or flight responses will screw him up and allow you to lose him for a while but his knowledge of the area and simple traps mean that he could always just be a few steps away
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