I believe, in the depths of my soul, Friday the 13th‘s Jason Voorhees is the greatest slasher killer of all-time. He’s the total killer package. No other members in the Pantheon of seminal cinematic sociopaths can match his combination of power, presence, ruthlessness, aura, size, and efficiency. But Camp Crystal Lake’s legendary murderer started with an advantage none of his peers had. He stands above the rest because he stands on the shoulders of a true giant, his mother. And Betsy Palmer’s vengeful, sympathetic, unhinged, talented, captivating, terrifying Pamela Voorhees also deserves a place in the upper echelon of horror’s greats.
I’ve always wondered if Stu and Billy would have actually spared Steve in Scream if Casey got their final question right. Would they have let her win if she correctly named the killer from the original Friday the 13th? Or were they always going to execute them both? I suppose we can never know. But there is one thing I am sure about: Casey should have gotten it right.* There’s simply no excuse for forgetting Pamela Voorhees. Everything about her was unforgettable.
Think about what Pamela Voorhees accomplished despite just being a normal person and not a supernatural being like the son who took up her slasher mantle. She killed nine people younger than herself, with most of them at their physical peak. In her mid-50s, she killed seven of them in one weekend without anyone discovering her! When she wasn’t luring them in with the warm lying smile of a nice lady, she was stalking them with stealth capabilities akin to the Predator with his cloaking device on. I just turned 42 and couldn’t sneak up on a single counselor in the woods without my creaky back giving me away. If I tried to even scare someone, let alone stab them, I’d end up in the camp nurse’s cabin. She’d likely have to call an ambulance for me.
Just as impressive as Pamela’s prolific kill numbers was the varied ways she offed her victims. She was versatile. She was a wizard with a knife, just as likely to gut someone’s belly as she was to slit their throat. But she also killed Kevin Bacon with an arrow she shoved through his throat from under his bed. Amazing. Pam then followed that up by putting an axe in someone’s head. And she made it look easy, which it is not! And as if all that wasn’t enough, she ended her spree by accurately shooting bows into an adult man with enough force and accuracy they pinned him to a front door. She was also fond of leaving her victims’ bodies hanging around like decorative reminders of the horror she was unleashing.
That’s an outstanding skillset for any serial killer, let alone a mom with an AARP membership. It’s like if a basketball player could dunk like Michael Jordan, shoot 3s like Larry Bird, and play defense like Dikembe Mutombo. And was also 55-years-old.
That’s far from the end of her Pantheon case, though. Pamela Voorhees also had style. Nobody in the history of mankind rocked a blue knit sweater better. She owns that and always will. It’s impossible for anyone else to wear one without looking like they’re doing Pamela Voorhees cosplay.
She also understood the value of showmanship in a great movie slasher. That loving mother didn’t just excel at the actual act of killing. Pamela also knew how to deliver a classic monologue. Her speech to Alice about the counselors who let her only child drown is an all-time great horror scene. It’s absolutely twisted and captivating, a master putting on a clinic in psychological warfare all for our amusement. She starts by believably pretending she’s devastated by the latest rounds of death at Camp Crystal Lake before the memory of her dead son leads he to admitting to everything she’s done and why.
“Why.” That’s the final key to understanding what Pamela Voorhees is a top-tier slasher legend. She first killed in 1958. That was just one year after the tragic death of her son. The reckless summer camp with its immature, irresponsible young counselors was going to reopen as if nothing had happened. Pamela couldn’t let that happen again. She’d been a cook there and knew as well as anyone the dangers that place posed.
By killing those two employees in 1958 she very well might have saved the lives of countless kids who also would have drowned while horny teens shacked up instead of doing their jobs. Thats why she has to return in 1979 to ensure the camp didn’t reopen again. Others might have forgetten what happened all those years earlier, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. So she showed up to keep those kids safe when others wouldn’t.
Rather then let her unimaginable grief paralyze her, Pamela turned her pain into action. She became a watchdog for kids because she knew teenagers full of raging hormones wouldn’t watch them. In some ways, the sympathetic Pamela Voorhees was a hero. She was the greatest kind of hero, too. A hero to children.
In, uh, you know, most ways though she was a vengeful killer who brutally murdered innocent people who had nothing to do with her son’s death. She lost her conscience when she lost her son. Then she replaced it with anger and evil, all of which she unleashed on Camp Crystal Lake. That place had made her suffer. So, driven by the calls of her dead son, she made sure it would become a place of suffering for all.
Jason honored his mother’s memory by honoring her dream. He committed his supernatural existence to her dream of killing lots of people in the woods. In doing so, he became the greatest slasher villain in history. But while her guidance and inspiration gave him an advantage over other horror icons, she will forever have one over him. Like the greatest villains in all of movie history, we don’t condone what she did, but we can understand why she did it. Pamela Voorhees is memorable and compelling because she’s empathetic. She was a loving mom who lost her special child. She entrusted those counselors to keep an extra watchful eye over the most precious person in her life.
They should have. When they didn’t she lost the person she loved most. That loss drove her to do truly horrible, unspeakable crimes against people who never harmed her. How and why she did—along with an all-time great performance from Betsy Palmer— makes her one of the greatest to ever slash up the silver screen.
*For the record, I’m not saying Casey deserved to die because she forget about Pamela Voorhees. C’mon. That’s obviously absurd. I’m just saying I understand why it made horror movie fans Stu and Billy so angry.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He swears he doesn’t condone the actions of Pamela Voorhees. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post An Ode to FRIDAY THE 13th’s Pamela Voorhees, an All-Time Great Slasher Villain appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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