Jason Voorhees Confirmed to Be a Deadite From THE EVIL DEAD?!
Ever wonder why Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th films can keep coming back from the dead to kill teenagers in the woods? Well, according to Jason Goes to Hell director Adam Marcus, that's because Jason is a deadite from the franchise, The Evil Dead. No joke! He's 100% convinced of this.
You may or may not remember that in Jason Goes to Hell there's a character that comes across a large ornate knife and a very familiar looking book. Fans of Evil Dead will recognize that that book is the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and the dagger is the Kandarian Dagger. I thought it was just a cool tribute, but it's so much more than that.
According to Marcus, he wanted to “create a mythology for Jason in this movie, because it had driven me nuts as a viewer.” So, he just decided to give him an Evil Dead mythology, because that's what fans do. During an interview with HorrorGeekLife, he explained the mythology he created for Jason saying:
“[Pamela Voorhees] makes a deal with the devil by reading from the Necronomicon to bring back her son. This is why Jason isn’t Jason. He’s Jason plus The Evil Dead, and now I can believe that he can go from a little boy that lives in a lake, to a full grown man in a couple of months, to Zombie Jason, to never being able to kill this guy. That, to me, is way more interesting as a mashup, and Raimi loved it!”
So I guess even Sam Raimi also approved of this Evil Dead connection with Jason. The Necronomicon doesn't really have anything to do with the devil, but when he says devil, I assume he's talking about the ancient demonic spirit of Kandarian Demon, who gave the book the ability to control both the dead and deadites.
In regards to the rights of these properties, Marcus said:
“It’s not like I could tell New Line my plan to include The Evil Dead, because they don’t own The Evil Dead. So it had to be an Easter egg, and I did focus on it…there’s a whole scene that includes the book, and I hoped people would get it and could figure out that’s what I’m up to. So yes, in my opinion, Jason Voorhees is a Deadite. He’s one of The Evil Dead.”
This would make sense, especially because at one point there was a Freddy vs. Jason, vs. Ash film in development at New Line Cinema after Freddy Vs. Jason was released. The treatment for that film, written by Jeff Katz, ended up being adapted into a comic book mini-series that was released in 2017. So, I guess it's not too far-fetched to think that Jason is a deadlite. By the way, it's a shame that movie never happened! In case you're wondering why it never happened, click here.
Of course, you don't have to believe the connection if you don't want to. I think it's kind of cool, though, to think that the lore of Jason connects to the Evil Dead.
Source: ScreenRant