Jason Voorhees Returns For Bloody Vengeance in FRIDAY THE 13TH Short Film SWEET REVENGE
The wait is over, and the blood has returned to Crystal Lake. Jason Voorhees is back in a brutal new Friday The 13th short film titled Sweet Revenge, now streaming online, and it’s everything fans of the slasher icon might hope for.
In this latest chapter from the Jason Universe, the masked killer wastes no time picking up where he left off, unleashing gory mayhem with a vengeance that’s both nostalgic and fresh.
Actor and stuntman Schuyler White takes on the role of Jason this time around, having previously suited up for director Mike P. Nelson’s (Silent Night, Deadly Night) earlier vignette.
This marks the first official Friday the 13th film project since the 2009 Platinum Dunes reboot, and even though it’s a short, Sweet Revenge doesn’t hold back.
In the story, a group of unfortunate friends wander into Crystal Lake and fall victim to Jason’s creatively violent wrath. The short delivers on bloody kills and even tosses in a twisty spin on the classic “final girl” trope.
There’s been some pushback from fans about Jason’s updated look, particularly the design of his hockey mask and a less-bulky build, but the overall response to the short seems to be pretty positive.
Director Nelson has hinted that Sweet Revenge could just be the beginning. In a previous interview, he teased big ideas for where he’d like the story to go:
“I have an idea of where I’d love for the story to go after this. It’s not really in my hands, whether or not it’s where Horror Inc. and Jason Universe end up going with it. But if I was given the opportunity … Holy crap, dude. I would snatch it up in a heartbeat.
“One of the fun things I often play with is we’ve seen Jason on this revenge spree for so long now. What does it look like when he runs into somebody like him? Not Freddy Krueger, not a girl with psychic powers, but like somebody like him who’s come back.
“What does that look like and what kind of shenanigans and what kind of story unfolds because of that, between the both of them?”
That’s not the only Friday the 13th project in the works. The upcoming prequel series Crystal Lake is also moving forward with showrunner Brad Caleb Kane (Welcome to Derry), and the show is already in production and will star Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks, Scooby-Doo) as Pamela Voorhees.
This version of Jason’s mother is described as “a mother who had given up a singing career to raise a special needs child and takes a dark turn when she loses her son.”
Initial reports had fans worried that the series couldn’t feature an adult Jason or his iconic hockey mask, but that info turned out to be incorrect. In a 2023 Fangoria interview, original showrunner Brad Fuller cleared things up:
“A24 and Marc Toberoff, who is Victor Miller’s lawyer, have beautifully and excruciatingly assembled all of the Friday the 13th rights. As a streaming series, we have the rights to do everything underneath the Friday the 13th umbrella.”
He went on to add:
“The movie rights are a completely different thing. They are tied up at New Line and are super, super messy and probably won’t be untangled anytime soon, but as far as us chickens in the television industry, uh, roost, we have access to anything and everything that Friday the 13th has done up until this point.”
Between Sweet Revenge and Crystal Lake, it looks like Jason is slowly but surely slashing his way back into the spotlight. If you're craving that old-school campfire terror, Sweet Revenge delivers the goods.