The stories behind all 12 Friday the 13th films

Since it made its way into the hearts of horror film lovers in the 1980s Friday the 13thJason Voorhees has killed between 163 and 20,000 people in his 12 big screen adventures.

It’s a journey in which the hockey-masked machete enthusiast mows down van after van full of horny, drunken teenagers, crosses swords with Freddy Krueger, and travels to New York City, outer space, and Hell itself. Here are the best, scariest or funniest stories behind all 12 Friday the 13th Films.

Friday the 13th (1980)

Published on May 9, 1980, the first Friday the 13th was a blatant attempt to copy the holiday horror success of the 1978s Halloween. The film was a huge success, grossing almost $60 million on a budget of less than $600,000, but critics hated it. Gene Siskel, in particular, actively tried to sabotage the film’s success by blatantly violating the generally accepted rules of newspaper reviews in astonishing ways:

Read more: How Gene Siskel tried to sabotage the original Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Of course the big box office success of Friday the 13th guaranteed that a sequel will be made as soon as possible Part 2 Arriving less than a year later. You may remember that Jason Voorhees wasn’t the murderer in the first film and he almost wasn’t in the second film either. Sean S. Cunningham, the producer and director of the first film, intended to tell a completely different story with different characters the second time around. But the studio intervened:

Read more: How Jason almost wasn’t the villain in Friday the 13th Part 2

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1981)

Although Part 2 only produced about a third of what its predecessor did, which was still about twenty times what it cost to make, so definitely the 3D sequel Part 3 arrived the following year. Even with the arrival of Jason’s iconic hockey mask (he carried a burlap sack in it). Part 2), the formula began to dissolve. Moving the filming location to an artificial lake created in the studio and favoring 3D effects over the actual performance also took their toll:

Read more: How Jason made a huge mistake with Friday the 13th Part 3

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Jason Voorhees had already established himself as an absolute movie villain by the time the fourth (and supposedly final, ha!) entry in the film was released Friday the 13th The series came onto the market in 1984. But the actor behind the hockey mask proved to be a noble hero when one of his co-stars was allegedly put in a dangerous situation by the filmmakers:

Read more: How Jason saved the girl in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Although the Friday the 13th The films remained highly profitable, and some of the actors were hired for the 1985s A new beginning They said they were surprised – and even disappointed – when they learned that the film they had successfully auditioned for had no title Repetitionbut was instead the fifth film in the horror series:

Read more: How actors were tricked into starring in a Friday the 13th movie

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Fans didn’t react particularly well to the twist that a “fake” Jason was responsible for all the murders A new beginningso 1986 Jason is alive Not only did he bring back the lead actor in a glorious Lightning meets Grave sequence, he continued to hit all the right notes and delivered a classic monster movie that could very well be the best of the series:

Read more: Why Friday the 13th Part VI is the best Jason movie of all time

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

The seventh Friday the 13th Film – in just eight years! – tried to spice up the formula by giving one of Jason’s usually helpless victims the power to fight back. Enter Tina, a young woman with initially unrealized telekinetic powers very similar to those of Stephen King Carrie:

Read more: When Jason met Carrie in Friday the 13th Part VII

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason conquers Manhattan (1989)

OK, this is where things really get out of hand. For the first of three ill-fated trips away from his usual killing zone in Crystal Lake, Jason boards a cruise ship bound for New York City. Unfortunately, budget cuts derailed director Rob Hedden’s grandiose plans before filming even began, and Jason only spends about a third of the film in the Big Apple. “It’s not ‘Jason Takes Manhattan,’ it’s ‘Jason Takes a Cruise Ship,'” he later admitted:

Read more: How ‘Friday the 13th’ Wasted Jason’s Trip to New York City

Jason Goes to Hell: The Last Friday (1993)

When is there a Jason movie? not a Jason movie? When the main attraction is torn to pieces after seven minutes and only reappears five minutes before the credits roll. Jason Goes to Hell: The Last Friday Instead, the evil spirit of Jason jumps from one civilian body to the next in one of the most disjointed and unsatisfying entries in the series. But the final scene offers a hint of a legendary horror crossover:

Read more: Why ‘Jason Goes to Hell’ was a ‘disaster’

Jason X (2001)

Where else can a mass murderer go after his trips to hell and New York City? Into space and the far future, if Jason X is to be believed. Our villain gets an extremely cheesy-looking cybernetic upgrade in a movie so great that the studio left it on the shelf for two years before releasing it:

Read more: How Jason got stranded in space

Freddy vs Jason (2003)

Sixteen years after the idea was first put into action, and after writing 18 drafts of the script, which reportedly cost $6 million, Jason went against it A Nightmare on Elm Street Star Freddy Krueger in one of the most anticipated horror film crossovers in recent history. Luckily, it was worth both the time and money:

Read more: Why “Freddy vs. “Jason” was worth the 16-year wait

Friday the 13th (2009)

Almost thirty years after his debut, Jason’s story has been republished for the first time. 2009s Friday the 13th Works a bit like a re-recorded greatest hits album played in fast forward. The film combines elements from the first three series of the franchise and shows, for example, how Jason develops in one fell swoop from an innocent child to a killer with a sackcloth and an icon with a hockey mask. He’s also now much smarter, faster and apparently even more sadistic:

Read more: The Friday the 13th reboot speeds up both Jason and his story