When it comes to horror movies, horror movie fans would certainly never forget to list down the “Friday the 13th” franchise as one of their favorite horror movies of all time. “Friday the 13th” is known for its infamous mask serial murderer Jason Vorhees and its graphic, more often sexual scenes.
The American slasher film franchise comprises 12 films, each taking the audience on different adventures from space to hell. Twelve films later, I think it is just right to rank the movies from good to best.
#12 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Take Manhattan (1989)
Director: Rob Hedden
Box Office Gross: $14.3 million
Starring: Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Peter Mark Richman, Martin Cummins, Gordon Currie, Alex Diakun, V.C. Dupree, Saffron Henderson, Kelly Hu, Sharlene Martin, Warren Munson, Kane Hodder
Synopsis:
Seniors from a local high school board a luxury ship called the S.S. Lazarus to celebrate the fact they will be graduating. On the other hand, Jason Vorhees awakened accidentally from his grave after Jim Miller and his girlfriend Suzi damaged some underwater cables that shocked Jason’s remains chained at the bottom of the lake and ended up following the graduating high school students. The main heroine in this film is Rennie Wickham has an aquaphobia or fear of the water after she almost drowned as a child.
Jason sneaks on board and goes on a killing rampage. His first victim was aspiring rockstar J.J. Garrett, and everything went into chaos. Most of the boat’s passengers, graduating students from Lakeview High School, decide to look for Jason but are unsuccessful in their attempts. Four passengers aboard the ship escape into the streets of New York, where Jason continues to follow them. In a harrowing turn of events, Jason gets killed by toxic waste. Thus, the heroine Rennie and her boyfriend Sean barely survives the ordeal.
Death Count: 21
#11 Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
Director: Danny Steinmann
Box Office Gross: $22 million
Starring: John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross, Richard Young, Marco St. John
Synopsis:
Fiver years after the death of masked murderer Jason Vorhees, now teenager Tommy Jarvis is still haunted by the memories of the mass murders committed by the latter. Tommy has been admitted to several mental hospitals and worries about Jason’s impending return. He is transferred to Pinehurst, a rehabilitation facility, where he makes new friends, including Pam Roberts and Reggie Winter.
However, after a lumberjack inadvertently kills a teenager, a new killer appears dressed as Jason and starts murdering the center’s residents. Tommy and his friends must now stop this unknown murderer. But it also makes Tommy wonder if the new murderer might be Jason or a copycat killer.
Death Count: 19
#10 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
Director: Adam Marcus
Box Office Gross: $15.9 million
Starring: John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Allison Smit, Steven Culp, Billy “Green” Bush, Kane Hodder, Erin Gray
Synopsis:
Infamous serial killer Jason Vorhees’ supposed end in Manhattan. He returns to Crytal Lake, where he stalks an undercover FBI Agent, which lures him into an ambush. Jason appears to be killed but ends up possessing the coroner examining his body. Thus escaping the morgue.
Jason takes a route back to Crystal Lake and kills everyone he kills. Bounty hunter Creighton Duke finds out that the only thing that can kill Jason Vorhees for good is if a family member kills him. The only living people from Jason’s bloodline are his half-sister Diana Kimble, her daughter Jessica and granddaughter Stephanie. Now, Jason makes his way to Diana’s house to possess her when Steven, Stephanie’s father, attacks him. Diana gets killed, and Steven is blamed for the murder and locked up.
Determined to save Jessica, Steven breaks out of prison. Jessica was now Jason’s next target in his quest for invincibility. The latter does not believe Steven, and when she finally does, Jessica meets up with Duke, who gives her a magical dagger that she can use to eradicate Jason.
Jason is dragged into hell by demonic hands. In the end, a dog digs up Jason’s mask, and Freddy Krueger’s laugh starts to be heard, signifying the next part of the film franchise.
Death Count: 27
#9 Jason X (2001)
Director: Jim Isaac
Box Office Gross: $17.1 million
Starring: Kane Hodder, David Cronenberg, Lisa Ryder, Lexa Doig, Todd Farmer, Melyssa Ade
Synopsis:
Jason Voorhees was finally apprehended in 2008. Since then, experts at a government research lab have been working to determine why one of the most notorious mass murderers in history is incapable of dying. When Rowan LaFontaine, the project’s leader, has finished preparing the specimen for cryogenic suspension, a shady scientist comes to take Jason away.
Still, the deranged slasher manages to escape and kill him along with his entire group. Rowan tricks Jason into following her so she can enter the cryogenic freezer and start the process. However, a system flaw leads her to freeze with Jason.
The Earth grows less and less habitable over the course of nearly four centuries, and humanity relocates to a planet in a different solar system that they have christened Earth II. A group of young students descends onto the ruined Earth, where they discover the frozen bodies of Jason and Rowan in the abandoned research facility and take them back on board their ship with them.
Rowan is defrosted and brought back to life, but the crew believes Jason is dead because they are unaware of his skills or intentions. Jason soon awakens to the sound of young people having premarital sex once more, and as the ship travels to Earth II, more devastation breaks out. The aging mad slasher demonstrates that he is just as terrible and unstoppable in their time as he was in millennia past as the remaining survivors struggle for their lives.
Death Count: 28
#8 Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Director: Steve Miner
Box Office Gross: $36.7 million
Starring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Richard Brooker, Rachel Howard, Catherine Pars, Jeffrey Rogers
Synopsis:
Chris Higgins tries to confront her fears and returns back to Crystal Lake after being assaulted by a disfigured man, years prior. On the other hand, Jason Vorhees is on a killing spree. His first victims are store owners Harold and Edna.
Chris Higgins and her friends become the slasher’s next target after they come across him in the barn. Her childhood encounter with the crazed Jason becomes more apparent to Chris.
Death Count: 12
#7 Friday the 13th: Final Chapter (1984)
Director: Joseph Zito
Box Office Gross: $33 million
Starring: Kimberly Beck, Peter Barton, Corey Feldman, E. Erich Anderson, Lawrence Monoson, Joan Freeman
Synopsis:
After the events that transpired at Higgins Haven, where Chris Higgins stabbed Jason Vorhees in the head, he is believed to be dead. Jason Vorhees is taken to the morgue when he assumes life and kills coroner Axel Burns via a hacksaw and Nurse Robbie Morgan with a scalpel.
Jason Vorhees returns to Crystal Lake, where he encounters a group of teens. The partying teens became Jason’s target. The first one he kills is Sam, whom he kills with a spear. Then he kills her boyfriend, Paul, by harpooning him in the groin. The third victim is Terri, whom Jason stabs with a spear. The matriarch of the family next door is his next victim. She was killed while looking for her kids, Trish Jarvis and Tommy Jarvis.
Trish and Tommy look for their mother after realizing that she is missing. Trish comes across Sandra Dier’s brother Rob, who went back to Crystal Lake to seek revenge for what had happened to his sister. He tells Trish everything, and the latter worries about her brother, so they return back. On the other hand, Jason Vorhees is out on a killing rampage. He kills Jimmy with a meat cleaver and then Tina. He kills the rest of the group leaving only Trish and Tommy Jarvis.
In the end, Tommy Jarvis can kill Jason. But in the ending scene, he looks disturbed while looking at the camera.
Death Count: 14
#6 Friday the 13th (2009
Director: Marcus Nispel
Box Office Gross: $92.7 million
Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, Derek Mears
Synopsis:
Near the deserted summer camp where several horrible killings where alleged in 1980, a group of young adults pitched a tent. Pamela Voorhees, a distraught mother who was driven insane by the drowning of her son Jason Vorhees, whom she blamed on the camp counselors, was the offender. According to folklore, the woman was beheaded by the final survivor of the assaults. But then Jason returned, and he was now a vengeful and unstoppable murderer, brandishing crossbows, swords, axes, and other pointed weapons.
These campers rapidly learn that the folklore is frighteningly accurate. One of those campers’ brothers distributes posters of his missing sister six weeks later. He knows better than the cops, who think she fled with her boyfriend. An aloof young rich guy hosting his fiancée and friends at his parent’s cabin crosses paths with the brother. Just before his sister’s attacker begins to attack them all, the brother finds himself at the cottage alone.
Death Count: 15
#5 Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Director: Steve Miner
Box Office Gross: $21.7 million
Starring: Adrienne King, Amy Steel, John Furey
Synopsis:
Two months after the gruesome events at Camp Crystal Lake, the murders only survivor Alice Hardy has still not recovered from the traumatic ordeal. She finds the head of Pamela Voorhees in her fridge before getting killed with an ice pick.
Five years later, a school for camp counselors opened right on the shore of Crystal Lake, where the old camp used to stand. Paul Holt, the school owner, tells his students about the legend of Jason Voorhees, a boy who was said to have died in Camp Crystal Lake back in 1957 after he drowned. Around the campfire, he told them how his crazed mother, Pamela Voorhees, went on a killing rampage to avenge the apparent death of his son before getting killed by the lone survivor of the murders.
According to legends, Jason never drowned in 1957 and is currently living in the woods plotting his revenge for killing his mother. As training day came, Paul offered one last night in town. Six of them stay, and with each hour that passes, the number starts to diminish as an unknown assailant kills them one by one.
Death Count: 9
#4 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Director: John Carl Buechler
Box Office Gross: $19.1 million Starring: Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Susan Blu, Terry Kiser
Synopsis:
Tina Shepard’s telekinetic abilities have always brought trouble in her life because she cannot control it. The telekinetic power was awakened when she saw the horrific abuse that her mother had to endure because of her drunkard father. That same telekinetic ability also killed him that very same day.
Because of her uncontrollable abilities, her mother took her to Dr. Crews, who only did experiments on her. The experiments lead to the trigger of her powers which awakens the crazed masked serial killer Jason Voorhees. Their next-door neighbor was having a party. The teenage partygoers become Jason’s targets. Each of them gets killed one by one.
The responsibility of ending Jason was placed into Tina’s hands as she is the only one with special abilities who can challenge Jason. Tina unleashes her superpowers leading to the breakage of Jason’s mask. Thus, exposing his disfigured face. However, Tina’s powers were not enough to kill Jason. Instead, it awakened the spirit of her dead father, who drags Jason back into the depths of Crystal Lake and chains him back again.
Death Count: 17
# 3 Friday the 13th (1980)
Director: Sean S Cunningham
Box Office Gross: $59.8 million
Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon
Synopsis:
Camp counselors from Camp Crystal Lake committed negligence by sneaking into a storage cabin to have sex when an unseen assailant killed both of them. In 1979, Annie Phillips became a counselor at Camp Crystal Lake. At camp, counselors and owner refurbish the cabins and facilities. An unseen killer kills them one by one.
Later, the killer is revealed to be Mrs. Voorhees, an old friend of the owner and his family. Pamela Voorhees was there to avenge the death of her boy, Jason Voorhees. Jason was just a young boy when he apparently drowned in Camp Crystal Lake in 1957 after his camp counselors became negligent. Mrs Voorhees claims that negligent counselors choosing to have sex instead of doing their jobs right is what killed her son.
Pamela Voorhees tries to kill Alice, the last among the counselors, but the latter gains an advantage and can decapitate her. An exhausted Alice rests inside a floating canoe when a decomposing Jason attacks her.
Death Count: 10
#2 Freddy VS Jason (2003)
Director: Ronny Yu
Box Office Gross: $116.6 million
Starring: Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, Chris Marquette, Lochlyn Munro, Robert Englund
Synopsis:
Freddy Krueger is weak and powerless in hell, as the parents of the children in Springwood went all out to make them forget the villain from the nightmare in Elm Street. In desperation, he uses his remaining powers to manipulate another evil being, the star of “Friday the 13th” movie, Jason Voorhees.
Freddy Krueger’s guise as Pamela Voorhees manipulates Jason into a killing spree in Springwood so that the fear of the people would fuel his return. Jason terrorizes Springwood causing Freddy Krueger to regain his strength. Troubled teens devise a plan to get rid of the two villains.
Lori Campbell pulls Freddy Krueger into the real world, where he is placed head to head with Jason. The two villains fight, ending in death of the two villains.
Death Count: 26
#1 Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)
Director: Tom McLoughlin
Box Office Gross: $19.4 million
Starring: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Kerry Noonan, Renée Jones
Synopsis:
Jason Voorhees is now nothing but an urban legend. But the survivors of his gruesome acts are still living with the trauma up until today, including Tommy Jarvis. After killing Jason Voorhees many years ago, Tommy is placed in a mental institution due to the trauma brought to him by the incident. Once released, he returns to Crystal Lake with his friend Allen Hawes to confront his fears. But unbeknownst to them, Jason Voorhees was set to resurrect. After digging Jason’s grave, Tommy experiences a flashback, and lightning bolts start to appear, causing Jason’s body to become resurrected.
Allen Hawes is killed, and Tommy is implicated in the crime because of his record in the institution. Nobody listened to his pleas despite his warnings, and the killing was blamed on him. With the aid of Sheriff Garris’s daughter Megan, Tommy can defeat Jason and place him back into the depth of Crystal Lake, but he is still alive, waiting for the right time to return.
Death Count: 18