The Friday the 13th franchise didn’t become an A-list horror property via the creativity of its kills alone but, at the end of the day, they really are its primary appeal. More often than not, Michael Myers of Halloween uses his butcher knife just as Leatherface uses his chainsaw, and Freddy Krueger uses his bladed glove. Jason Voorhees, however, uses whatever is available to him. He sticks with his precious machete as often as not, and it’s the weapon with which he’s most associated, but it’s far from the only jagged option he employs. What follows are the weapons he’s used over the course of the long-running franchise that goes against the grain, that falls outside his usual playbook.
But the options here are relegated just to what Jason has used. That means the original Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning won’t be found here. As for the latter film it was a shame, too, because A New Beginning had Roy Burns use a road flare, garden shears, a railroad spike, and a leather strap.
1) An Icepick in Friday the 13th Part 2
Jason’s first movie as antagonist features pretty typical tools for him. For instance, the machete, a spear (which would pop up fairly frequently throughout the franchise), and a knife.
The real outliers were the claw of a hammer, barbed wire, and an icepick. Icepick gets the win here, but it’s as weird that he used it once as it is that he’s only used it once. Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct has used an icepick more than Jason, even though it really seems like it would be right up his bloody alley. But the one time he’s used it was undoubtedly on an iconic character: the original film’s final girl, Alice Hardy.
2) A Knitting Needle in Friday the 13th Part III
Friday the 13th Part III is the scariest film of the franchise, mostly due to its grimy visuals and extra-dark tone. But its need to be a 3D film can also make it silly. For instance, the yo-yo dropping down to camera, or the knitting needle poking out at it.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world to see, even in 3D (take it from someone who spent a lot of cash on a 3D TV and a 3D Blu-ray player just to watch Friday the 13th Part III in 3D), but that’s what happens. Edna gets a knitting needle to the back of the head.
3) A Fuse Box in Friday the 13th Part III
Of all of Jason’s physical appearances, the one in Friday the 13th Part III is without a doubt the scariest and without a doubt the most iconic. As played by Richard Brooker, he’s an intimidating force.
For instance, when pothead hippy Chuck goes down to the basement of Higgins Haven to switch on the power. He finds the fuse box and does what he went down there to do, but as soon as the lights are on, we see Jason is now down there with him. Chuck then gets pushed into the fuse box, which for some reason electrocutes him. It’s not the only time someone would get fried just by hitting some sort of an electrical panel (e.g. in the eighth film), but it was the first time.
4) A Corkscrew in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
One of several big stars who were in a Friday the 13th movie just before making it big, Crispin Glover gets a fair amount to do in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. He’s essentially the less confident version of Kevin Bacon’s Jack in the original film. In other words, he gets busy and is swiftly killed afterwards. In the case of Glover’s Jimmy, by a corkscrew to the hand (which looks awfully painful) and a cleaver to the face.
As a whole, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is one of 1984’s best horror movies. In fact, it’s many fans’ choice for the best of the franchise. That’s slighlty more due to the slight extra detail paid to character development as it is to the diversity of the kills, but the latter element is still rock-solid, and Jimmy’s offing is the best of the bunch.
5) A Tree in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Jason has used the assistance of a tree in his kills more than once in the franchise. For instance, in combination with a sleeping bag in the next film, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. It stands as one of the most iconic sequences of the franchise, but Jason Lives did it first. Not to mention, as a film, Jason Lives is far better, perhaps even one of the best slasher sequels ever made.
The reason for this? It was the first major slasher film to go meta, eight years before Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and a full decade before Scream. This kill alone, while quite silly, is proof enough. Early on, Jason Lives takes a detour from the teens opening Camp Forest Green and focuses on a quintet of adults on some sort of bizarre company retreat. We follow Burt alone for a bit, and it’s immediately clear he’s an unpleasant, blatantly sexist individual. As he angrily swings a machete into some shrubs, Jason grabs his arm and jerks him hard, sending Burt up against a tree, leaving Jason with a machete (and, for a second, Burt’s arm) and the tree with a big bloody smiley face engraved in it.
6) A Party Horn in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Jason racks up a pretty substantial body count in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood before the telepathic Tina Shepard (the late Lar Park Lincoln) puts him in his place. For instance, young couple Ben and Kate who, like most of the film’s other characters that aren’t Tina, her mom, and her doctor, are there to celebrate the birthday of Michael (who unbeknownst to them is quite dead).
And, like with every other kill in the film, their deaths were butchered more by the MPAA than they were by Jason. Ben gets a head squeeze, which is pretty much standard Jason stuff. But then Jason takes the party horn Ben was blowing into and puts it right into Kate’s eye.
7) A Tree-trimming Saw in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
As mentioned, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood primarily focuses on two groups of people. There are all the teens who have come to a house on Crystal Lake to celebrate a birthday and Tina Shepard and crew, who are there at the house next door, AKA the Shepard family home (which they’ve moved from but apparently still own).
Tina survives, and even whoops Jason in the process, but her mom, Amanda, and not-so-good doctor do not. Amanda’s death is sad, but Doctor “Bad News” Crews earns it. We don’t really see him get disemboweled by the tree-trimming saw Jason just kind of found somewhere, but we get the gist.
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8) An Electric Guitar in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
J.J. Jarrett seems like a nice young woman. She’s a good friend to Wayne Webber, at the very least. But that’s all we get to know about her. Well, that and that she enjoys playing her electric guitar.
J.J. is the first to get it on the SS Lazarus which, spoiler alert, is where Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan spends most of its time. Jason sneaks up behind her, she panics and runs, and he swings her own guitar into her face.
9) A Sauna Rock in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
Jason goes through the recent graduates of Lakeview High School in Jason Takes Manhattan like a red-hot machete through butter. We don’t get to know very many of them.
For instance, the boxer who takes on Julius Gaw and is then swiftly offed in his next scene. But the way the unnamed boxer goes is flat-out great. Specifically, the ship, for whatever reason, has a sauna on it, and Jason plants a sauna rock in the unnamed boxer’s sternum.
10) A Deep Fryer in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday‘s Shelby B., AKA “Pookie,” AKA the husband of diner owner Joey B., is quite possibly the most likable character in the Friday the 13th franchise, and he gets offed in a truly agonizing way. Specifically, Jason, in the form of Robert Campbell, deep fries him in the diner’s deep frier. It doesn’t look pleasant. Rest in peace, Pookie.
11) Liquid Nitrogen and a Countertop in Jason X
The liquid nitrogen face bash isn’t just the best part of Jason X (one of its very few good parts), it’s one of the best kills of the entire franchise. Unfortunately, it happens fairly early in the film, so it’s all downhill from there.
Medical student Adrienne Hart, who is performing an autopsy on the recently unfrozen Jason Voorhees, finds that an autopsy is no longer needed in the most brutal way possible. Jason grabs Heart by the head, forces her over to a sink full of liquid nitrogen, shoves her head in it until its frozen, and smashes it down to a countertop.
12) A Massive Drill in Jason X
As mentioned, there aren’t many highpoints in Jason X. It wasn’t wise to make an ambitious film with a threadbare budget. But it does come equipped with two fantastic kills.
One is, of course, the liquid nitrogen head bash. The second belongs to Condor, one of the many space marines we follow for about 20 minutes in the film, who finds Jason inside the belly of the ship and is throw onto a giant drill sticking out of the floor.
13) Deer Antlers in Friday the 13th (2009)
Many of the kills in Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th feel like tunes on a greatest hits track. A sleeping bag is involved in one, an axe in another, and so on.
But deer antlers were new. It’s a dark scene, so we don’t see much, but Bree is impaled and mounted to the wall on top of a mounted deer’s head. She’s then thrown out a window, scaring the franchise’s most insufferable douchebag, Trent Sutton.
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