​No Malice, No Mercy: Why Jason Is Still the King of Slashers

 

Photo: The Creature Beat

by Tara Adams
The Creature Beat

Jason Voorhees doesn’t care about your excuses. 

Or your feelings. 

It doesn't matter whether you're an obnoxious teen neglecting your camp counselor responsibilities, in a wheelchair, or a hitchhiker eating a banana on the side of a road. 

If he sees you, you're in his way. And his only solution is your annihilation in any way that gets the job done. 

His background, silent ruthlessness and lack of emotion and empathy make him the best slasher in horror history. 

To understand Jason’s brand of savagery, you have to look at what isn't there. He completely lacks malice, sadism, or ego. 

A villain like Freddy Krueger enjoys the psychological torture. He wants you to know he’s hurting you and he wants to laugh while he does it. 

Jason doesn't care about your fear, and he doesn't get a thrill from your tears. To him, taking a life is treated with the same cold, mechanical efficiency as a lumberjack chopping down a tree. There is no cruelty for the sake of cruelty, just an absolute, unblinking absence of mercy.

​That lack of human emotion is what makes his violence so devastating. He doesn't pause when victims beg for their lives, because the concepts of pity or bargaining do not register in his mind. Whether someone is hiding under a bed, screaming in a corner, or trying to fight back, Jason’s approach remains unchanged. He doesn’t run, get angry, or hesitate. He moves from one target to the next, turning anyone in his path into a minor obstacle to be cleared away.

​Even his environment reflects this total lack of empathy. He takes objects meant for normal, everyday life, like sleeping bags, tools, and standard camping gear, and instantly repurposes them into instruments of death without a second thought. He doesn't need a specialized weapon, because everything is a weapon when you possess that level of single-minded focus. 

C.J. Graham as Jason in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Jason is ruthless because you cannot appeal to a conscience that doesn't exist. He is a walking void where human compassion might have been at some point in his childhood. 

It's his tragic childhood that gives fans a strange, emphatic connection to Jason, despite his direct kill count of more than 150 people. (If you count the space station he blew up in Jason X, then, technically, he's killed thousands.)

Jason was a vulnerable, deformed kid who drowned because the people tasked with watching him were negligent. When he returns, he's the definition of "the bullied striking back." To horror fans, there is a weird interest in watching an unstoppable powerhouse demolish arrogant, entitled characters who disregard everyone else. He becomes a twisted form of a blue-collar working man's monster. Who can honestly say they haven't rooted for Jason at some point in their horror fandom?

Jason is just an incredibly well-designed character. And he's been to hell, space, Manhattan, and even Elm St. and kicked ass everywhere.

​From the murkiness of Crystal Lake to the vacuum of space, Jason has proven that he doesn't need to change his formula to stay on top. No matter how absurd the sequels got, whether he was riding the subway or stalking astronauts, the core of the character never wavered. 

He doesn't need to talk, he doesn't need to gloat, and he certainly doesn't need your approval. He just keeps walking. And as long as there are arrogant characters making terrible life choices in the woods, horror fans will be right there, cheering him on from the edge of their seats.