The Friday The 13th Legacy Character The Next Movie Must Finally Introduce
When the Friday The 13th movie franchise finally returns, it must finally introduce this unseen legacy character. The original Friday The 13th was shot with no consideration of sequels, and the character of Jason Voorhees is very dead during the movie. When Friday The 13th was a shock success, the studio opted to make a follow-up but needed a new killer after the death of Pamela Voorhees, Jason's vengeful mother. It was soon decided the grown-up Jason should be the new slasher, and the series was very profitable for Paramount throughout the '80s.
The Friday The 13th movies never really offered any explanation for what made Jason an unkillable monster. Friday The 13th Part 2 didn't explain how Jason was suddenly alive or how he saw his mother die, and Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives explained his resurrection via a bolt of lightning, like he was Frankenstein's Monster. This lack of explanation never hurt the series, however, and it could be argued the mystery only made the character more intriguing.
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday was the ninth entry, which attempted to tie everything together. Director Adam Marcus intended that Jason was a deadite like those seen in the Evil Dead movie franchise and that Pamela had resurrected him via the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. It also revealed he had a previously unseen sister, but oddly, it never explored what happened to Jason's father Elias Voorhees. This character is a big mystery within the Friday The 13th canon, and while spinoff comics and fan films like Friday The 13th: Vengeance have explored Elias, he's never appeared onscreen in the franchise. The Friday The 13th series is currently on hold penning rights issues, but when it returns, Elias Voorhees is the one legacy character it must finally introduce.
While Elias has yet to turn up in a main entry, he was supposed to appear in the final scene of Jason Lives (which parodies Bond in the opening). He was to appear at Jason's grave and it would be revealed he was the one who paid for his burial and it also hinted he knew his son wasn't dead. Producers opted not to use this concept as it would tie them to explore this story for the next sequel, but since the next Friday The 13th will be the actual thirteenth entry in the series, introducing Elias Voorhees feels like the right move.
Elias Voorhees is the one key part of the Friday The 13th franchise that has been left unexplored, and it's time to explore that. This could answer some unexplained elements of Jason's past too, including whether Elias left the Voorhees family because he knew what his son would become. Of course, if the movie is set in the modern-day, Elias would likely be in his late 80s at the very least, making an Elias vs Jason battle unlikely. After such a long wait, Friday The 13th devotees could use a special event for the next entry, and introducing a famous legacy character like Elias Voorhees could be the way to do it.