If you’re keeping track of your horror calendars, and, really, you should, we’re about six months away from the next Friday the 13th, but only a week from the official start of Halloween season. Which, naturally, feels like the right time to celebrate the thirteenth installment of Best Cinematic Moments by diving into the world’s most enduring lake-adjacent slasher franchise: Friday the 13th.
But where does one begin when picking a scene from twelve films’ worth of machete-swinging, scream-queen-shrieking, and yes, unapologetically gratuitous nudity? There are so many glorious options, so many heads rolling, machetes swinging, and teenagers making deeply questionable life choices in the woods that part of me wants to just assemble a chaotic, blood-soaked supercut of everything I adore about this franchise. Sadly, I lack both the time and the energy (and possibly the federal permits required) to make that happen.
Complicating things further, the films themselves are increasingly hard to find in one place these days. A few years back, Scream Factory released a big, glorious Blu-ray box set with all twelve films plus a mountain of bonus features neatly packed together. It’s still available to purchase, but these days, getting these films in 4K is harder to score than a summer camp cabin with working plumbing.
And yet, Jason refuses to die. Not just in the movies, but in pop culture. Case in point: director Mike P. Nelson recently unleashed a short film set squarely in the Friday the 13th universe, created, naturally, as part of a cider-company branding deal. (Because nothing says “refreshing autumn beverage” quite like a seven-foot undead maniac emerging from a lake to bisect a coed.) The short has reignited fans’ dormant obsession with Camp Crystal Lake and its hockey-masked boogeyman, and it got me thinking about my favorite moment.
I landed on a scene from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, known as Part IV, released in 1984, which, in classic horror-movie fashion, was not even remotely the final chapter. Paramount wanted it to be the end. The producer, not exactly thrilled to be professionally associated with machete-fueled teen massacres, demanded Jason’s permanent retirement. (Spoiler: capitalism disagreed.) Enter Tom Savini, the special-effects wizard, tasked with giving Jason Voorhees a send-off so brutal, so operatic, that there’d be no way to bring him back.
But of course, they brought him back. Eight more times.
But before the inevitable sequels, we get the glorious moment itself: a very young Corey Feldman, playing Tommy Jarvis. The prepubescent monster-mask prodigy and future Jason nemesis shaves his head bald to resemble our undead antihero. Why? To distract Jason long enough for his sister Trish to bury a machete in his face. It works. Kind of.
Here’s where Savini earns his paycheck: Jason falls forward, impaling himself on the blade, and his face slides, in agonizing slow motion, down the steel blade. Skin tears. Bone cracks. Grey matter introduces itself to daylight. It’s disgusting, audacious, and, in its own way, beautiful. And just when you think it’s over, Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis, barely a teenager, now looking like a pint-sized assassin, completely snaps, and grabs the machete and goes full berserker on Jason’s corpse.
The film made $33 million on a $2.5 million budget and spawned eight more sequels, plus remakes, crossovers, and enough fan theories to fill Camp Crystal Lake twice over. But what makes this scene special is its original intent: at the time, this was supposed to be the final image of Jason Voorhees. Dead. Unmasked. Slain by a kid who thought shaving his head was a reasonable strategy for survival. And not just any kid. Corey Fuckin’ Feldman.
Because in the end, that’s what the Friday the 13th franchise has always been about. It’s the absurdity wrapped in brutality, teenagers making inexplicably bad decisions, and the irresistible promise that Jason will always be back. Even when the movie literally calls itself The Final Chapter.
So, here’s to machetes, mayhem, and the most gruesomely cheerful send-off (kind of) in slasher history. Enjoy.
