Friday the 13th (2017) is the thirteenth film in the famous franchise, written by Aaron Guzikowski and directed by Breck Eisner. It acts as both a reboot and an origin story of sorts.
Plot
Takes place in four parts, or segments.
The first chapter takes place in 1982, and focuses on Pamela Voorhees, a waitress, and her troubled marriage with Elias Voorhees, a former soldier who served in Vietnam and has a fake leg. Elias is abusive towards her, both physically and mentally. Elias is also a cheater and gambler while Pamela is addicted to painkillers and has obvious mental problems. Pamela has just given birth to her son, Jason, although he was born deformed and mentally retarded, something Elias blames Pamela for. After discovering Elias' infidelities she begins a relationship with a 17-year old boy in the neighborhood and regularly has sex with him when Elias isn't around. One day, however, Elias arrives home early after gambling their saving fund away and catches the two of them in the act. He nearly beats the boy to death but is stopped when Pamela hits him with a hammer and he falls down a flight of stairs to his apparent death. She tricks the teenager into helping her bury him in the back garden and slips away in the night after having a 'conversation' with Jason, who she believes can talk to her despite only being months old.
Eight years later Pamela returns to Crystal Lake, on the run from a criminal, and former lover, who she stole from. Very few people remember her, except for a man (Stuart) she used to work with who always had a crush on her. She decides to change her ways and adopts a new identity and persona, that of a mature religious mother raising a handicapped son on her own. She begins to believe in this persona, her mental health clearly becoming worse and worse. She keeps Jason locked away from the other children, intent on raising him separately. Stuart, becoming more persistent, invites himself over and attempts to blackmail her for sex, ending with him trying to rape her. While attacking her Jason stabs him with a corkscrew in the neck, killing him. Pamela praises Jason and then buries Stuart in her back garden as Jason looks on. She tells him that they have to look out for each other as that's all they have in this world. After the Summer Camp opens up in 1991 she takes the job as a cook for money. She continues to try and shelter Jason but this becomes more difficult. One night he wanders outside after having been locked away and swims in the lake. He drowns and this leaves Pamela devastated. She curses the camp and the counselors, Debra and David, blaming them for his death as they were having sex. She vows vengeance on them all as she has a complete mental breakdown. She is later sectioned for several months but escapes from the institute.
The following year, 1992, the camp has opened again despite the drowning and is doing better than ever. Debra and David have both returned to work as counselors although their relationship is on/off. One night while singing tunes around the campfire David gets jealous of Debra flirting with another counselor and storms off. Debra goes after him and they end up in an old barn where Debra seduces him, telling him that she only has feelings for him and that she wants to go 'all the way' this time. They begin to have sex but are interrupted by Pamela, now completely insane, who chastises them, saying they haven't changed at all. She tries to get them to apologize for Jason's death but they refuse. She kills David with a rake claw to the head when he walks towards her and attacks Debra, who flees the barn into the woods. Debra tries to escape back to the campfire but falls down into a pitfall trap made by Pamela, breaking her leg. Pamela continues to berate and insult her and other counselors for Jason's death. Eventually Debra begins apologizing for being negligent and letting Jason die. Pamela tells her that he's not dead, that he just needs a 'sacrifice' to wake him up from his sleep, before accepting Debra's apology, dousing her in petrol, and setting her on fire. At the same time she recites passages to try and resurrect Jason. It works as, the following morning, Jason emerges from the water on the other side of the lake. Pamela cradles his naked body and cries but it's clear something isn't right with him. He's came back wrong. She gives him some clothes and they head back to the house together.
Twenty years later Pete Sullivan, estranged son of the original owners, decides to get the camp up and running again after finally returning home. He is warned that the camp is cursed by the town's crazy but continues anyway. The following Summer he recruits six teens (Teddy, Dean, Jake, Marie, Rachel and Mickey) as counselors to help him finish fixing the place up before the kids arrive in a few days. Pamela, who has stopped the camp from re-opening numerous times before, realizes that she must take drastic measures this time to 'save' any more kids from being hurt. With the help of Jason, now an adult showing clear signs of psychopathy and wearing a hockey mask to hide his deformities, she heads for the camp to punish the counselors. The morning of Friday the 13th, late counselor Mickey is forced to hitchhike for a ride and is eventually picked up by Pamela. Along the way she makes crude and strange statements about him and Crystal Lake. He notices that she carries a knife and she stares blankly at him. He asks her to stop the car, telling her he can walk the rest of the way. She speeds the car up while staring at him and is about to stab him but he jumps out, injuring his head and leg in the process. He limps away into the woods where he is chased by Pamela. He ends up running straight into Jason who grabs him by the throat and slams his head against a tree until he's finally dead. Pamela compliments Jason on his skills, telling him he has gotten better.
Meanwhile, teenager Alicia and her family (father Ron, mother Susan and brother Eric) arrive at their Summer house situated near Crystal Lake. She reluctantly decides to go explore the abandoned Crystal Lake with her younger brother and is surprised to find it full of teenagers. She meets Marie, Rachel and Dean before being introduced to Teddy, who she clearly fancies. She decides to help them out with some of the finishing touches while Pete shows Eric around the camp and talks about his memories of the camp and his parents. Pamela watches from the distance, looking surprised. Alicia gets to know the others as some of them begin to smoke marijuana and drink beer. She decides to smoke a joint too, out of peer pressure, but is caught by her father who has came to check on them. She is forced to go home while he gets Eric. He recognizes Pete and it's revealed Pete is the 17-year old Pamela once had an affair with.
The counselors, except Dean, go skinny dipping in the lake and Dean runs off when Jake and Marie tease him. Rachel goes after him and they chat in one of the cabins. He reveals he has burn marks on his back from a fire in his childhood, caused by his drunken father, that he's insecure about. Rachel consoles him by showing him a large scar she got from a hockey injury and they almost kiss. Jason secretly watches them from the other room.
Deputy Carla Buchanan arrives at the camp to check everything is fine and to meet Pete again, her former boyfriend. They chat and Buchanan questions him over why he left all those years ago. He tells he can't say anything, that it's out of his control. She reveals that she was pregnant for him and was forced to have an abortion after he ran away. Pete apologizes but she says its not enough and leaves. Alicia remains grounded as her parents, mainly her father, give her a lecture about drug use. After her father has left to go to town she manages to convince her mother to let her go for a run. While jogging through the woods she thinks she hears someone following her but can't see anyone and heads for the camp.
Back at the camp the group of teens play drinking games to pass some time, including spin the bottle. Marie makes out with Teddy just as Alicia arrives. She tells them that one of the boats has drifted away into the lake. Teddy goes with her to bring the boat back, to Marie's annoyance. Teddy is forced to go out into the lake to bring the boat back and pranks Alicia by pretending to be dragged under the water. Jason watches from the other side of the lake, unable to enter water because of his fears. Alicia glimpses him for a few seconds but then he's gone. She chats with Teddy who tells her, despite coming from a rich family, he likes helping people and that's why he's a counselor at the camp.
Pamela and Jason arrive at an old shack in the woods where Pamela discusses what to do next and Jason just nods at the plan. Marie heads to Pete's office and drunkenly attempts to seduce him. When he rejects her she breaks down crying and accidentally reveals she's a virgin and insecure about this. He consoles her and tells her she has years left, she's only young, and that she doesn't want to get involved with him. She leaves and is stalked by Jason through the camp. She sees him watching her and tries to talk to him but he reveals an ax and chases her. She runs through some woods and eventually into the outside shower rooms. She tries to hide in a cubicle as Jason stalks through the room. Eventually he begins to break the door down and she tries to escape through a small window and grab the attention of Alicia and Teddy who are walking nearby. This fails and Jason pulls her back inside. He grabs her and slams her face against the mirror several times. She manages to stab him in the arm with a shard of glass but is then thrown to the ground and axed to death as the light goes back and forth above.
The teens, now mostly drunk, sing around the campfire before Alicia and Teddy arrive back and they begin to tell ghost stories including the 'hook' story. Jake tells the tale of 'Jason', a boy who drowned in Crystal Lake. And how he came back a year later and murdered the two counselors who weren't paying attention, before he tries and fails to scare Alicia. Rachel points out that they never found who did it, so it could have been anyone. Jake leaves to go get more beer from the cabin while Rachel and Dean decide to head down to the lake together, leaving Teddy and Alicia alone.
Jake makes it to the cabin and finds signs someone has been in there already. While searching for beer he finds a blood trail leading under a bunk bed. He looks under and finds Marie's corpse. Jason suddenly appears above and almost kills him with the ax. He throws things at Jason before trying to flee the cabin but is grabbed and pulled back inside. He hits Jason with various different items before being grabbed and thrown out the window of the cabin leaving his upper body embedded in glass shards. He tries to crawl away but is decapitated with the ax after four hits.
Pete interrupts Alicia and Teddy about to kiss and tells his own version of the Jason story, the real one. Alicia realizes how late it is and runs home. Along the way she is stalked by Pamela who suddenly appears, pretending to be asking for directions. Pamela attacks her, punching and kicking her before trying to stab her with a knife while on the ground. Alicia hits her with a rock across the head and runs away.
Dean and Rachel walk around the lake while sharing stories from their past. They share a kiss sitting out on the jetty and head back to a cabin to have sex. After having sex in one of the bunk beds Rachel stays in bed listening to music on her earphones while Dean goes outside to the outside shower rooms to use the toilet. He slips on a massive pool of blood inside and finds the mirror broken. He goes back outside and finds the lights at the archery range still on. Thinking someone is in danger, having heard a 'scream' (Pamela), he heads there. While being blinded with the lights by Pamela Jason sneaks up on him and stabs him up through the chin/mouth with a knife when he turns around. Dean collapses to the ground, coughing blood, but tries to get away. He is shot twice with two arrows to his back by Pamela and falls again. He tries to stumble towards the cabin Rachel is in to warn her but is stabbed by Jason again, and this time he is gutted while Pamela watches in admiration. She tells him to 'finish the girl' before heading towards Pete's office.
Alicia makes it back to her house where she tries to tell her parents what happened. Her father doesn't believe her at first, thinking she's making an excuse, but then she shows the marks on her neck and wrists. He gets in the car with her and they head back to the camp to find out what's going on while Susan and Eric stay at the house.
Rachel, still listening to earphones, is unaware when Jason enters the cabin. She notices the time and realizes Dean has been gone for a while now. She gets dressed, takes a torch, and decides to go outside and look despite the storm and heavy rain which has started. She gets soaked in water while looking for him in another cabin when she finds the shower room locked. She heads for the main cabin, being stalked by Jason from a distance.
Pete begins drinking alcohol while reminiscing over his and Carla's relationship and his life before it got turned upside down. Pamela stalks from a distance, getting ready to strike. She can't as Buchanan arrives moments before she's about to. Carla and Pete chat and eventually end up having a few drinks together while Pete reveals his affair with Pamela.
Rachel makes it to the main cabin where she finds Teddy. She asks him if he's seen Dean and he replies he hasn't, and that he hasn't seen anybody for hours. Alicia and her father arrive and her father becomes infuriated, wanting to know who attacked his daughter. He almost fights with Teddy. Rachel notes how quiet the camp has gone and tells them something feels wrong. Just then Marie's body is thrown through the window of the cabin. Jason climbs through the window afterwards and they all flee in different directions. Rachel runs and hides in the bathroom while Teddy and Alicia hide in the kitchen's storage room as Ron attempts to fight Jason. He stabs him twice with a fire poker and hits him several times but is eventually beaten to the ground. As Jason heads towards where Alicia and Teddy are he tackles Jason and tries to strangle him. This fails when Jason stabs him in the stomach with the hot fire poker before lifting him up in the air while strangling him and snapping his neck.
Jason goes into the bathroom as Rachel hides in the bathtub. She spots Pamela standing near a tree in the distance outside the window. Pamela seems to 'communicate' to Jason that the girl is in the bathtub. Jason wraps her in the shower curtain and drags her out of the room while she kicks and screams. She grabs a baseball bat on the ground from earlier and hits him in the head, temporarily knocking him back. She tries to crawl away but is thrown over Jason's shoulder and taken outside. Teddy decides to leave the room and help her but she's already gone. He gets angry that he didn't help sooner but Alicia tells him that it's not his fault. Alicia breaks down in tears over her father's body and her sadness soon turns to anger. She takes a knife from the kitchen and they go and look for Rachel, and Jason.
Pete and Carla hear the noises coming from the main cabin along with the screams and Pete goes to check it out. Carla gets her gun and goes with him. They arrive at the main cabin and find the bodies of Ron and Marie. Pete decides to look around the cabin for the others while Carla runs back to her car to radio for back-up. Carla makes it to her car and begins to radio for back-up when Pamela appears with a torch. She holds the torch up, blinding Carla's slight, as she walks towards her while asking strange questions. Carla is distracted when another officer replies to her pleas for back-up and Pamela uses this time to hit Carla over the head with the torch repeatedly, seemingly killing her.
Alicia and Teddy run through the woods looking for Jason. They eventually begin to hear more screams and follow the noise, leading them to a shack in the woods. They enter through the door and find it to be much larger than it appears on the outside, with maze-like corridors an rooms filled with animal carcasses and some human bodies, suggesting he's killed before. As they enter the main room of the shack they find Rachel tied up and gagged. She tries to warn them to not come any closer but they can't understand her. Suddenly, Jason closes the door behind them and attacks. Teddy tries to fight him with the baseball bat but it's cut in two and he's tossed aside. Alicia tries to fight him with the knife, stabbing him once in the shoulder. He pulls the knife out and is about to stab her, but she steps out of the way and he instead stabs Rachel through the chest. This gives Alicia time to knock Jason over the head with the end of an ax repeatedly, seemingly knocking him out. She unties Rachel who is bleeding heavily and tells her everything will be OK. Jason rises again and heads towards Alicia but Teddy tackles him, going through one of the shack's flimsy walls in the process. Alicia and Rachel, at the urging of Teddy, while he stays to fight Jason.
Pete runs straight into Alicia and Rachel and they head back to Alicia's house while he goes into the shack to help Teddy. Pete finds Teddy on the ground, injured and bleeding but alive. Jason appears and begins strangling him. He's about to kill him with a meat cleaver when Pamela stops him, calling Pete 'mine'. Pete then goes unconscious. She tells Jason to go get the others, giving him a machete now that the ax has broken, and tells him to finish them this time.
Alicia and Rachel make it to Summer house where Susan is shocked to see their injuries. Alicia tells her they've been attacked and to help Rachel, Susan being a Doctor, while she calls the cops. Alicia finds the line is dead and can't get a signal on her phone. Eric begins to worry but she tells him everything will be fine. Susan questions her about what's going on and where Ron is. She realizes he's dead just by looking at Alicia. Susan helps Rachel's wounds and puts her in an upstairs bedroom with Eric while her and Alicia decide what to do. Alicia remembers that their car is at the camp and should still be working, it being too dangerous to run all the way back to town. Susan protests about her going back to the camp before Jason suddenly breaks through the door. Susan, shocked, can barely move while Alicia tries to drag her upstairs. She slaps her out of the trance and they run, Susan being stabbed in the leg by Jason as they try and escape upstairs. They lock themselves in the bedroom as Eric begins panicking and Rachel awakes. They decide to head up into the attic as Jason begins breaking the bedroom door down. They all narrowly make it up into the attic. However, as they try and remain quiet Jason begins stabbing up through the attic floor with his machete. He stabs Susan again and drags Rachel down through the floor as they try and escape out the attic window onto the outside roof. Rachel is thrown onto the bed and has the machete shoved through her mouth/out the back of her head and down through the bed.
Alicia, Susan and Eric crawl out onto the slippery roof and jump onto the nearby tree and crawl down it. Jason appears again at the front door and Alicia decides to distract him long enough for Susan and Eric to flee and hide. Alicia then runs back to the camp with Jason in tow.
Pete wakes up in the shack, tied to a chair. He struggles with the binds as Pamela appears. He remembers her and they chat, him blaming her for his life going downhill for years. She goes back and forth between personas, saying she loved him one moment and calling him a sinner like all the other the next moment. During her psychotic speech Teddy wakes up and manages to sneak up on her but she turns around and stabs him in the chest. Pete manages to undo his binds and runs at her, tackling her to the ground. They fight over the knife and he eventually wins but she escapes the shack. Teddy begins coughing up blood and makes Pete promise to save Alicia, before dying.
Alicia runs back to the camp where she finds the tires of her families car have been cut. She begins to cry again before seeing the police car down by Pete's office. She runs towards it and enters, finding that it's still working but the radio has been destroyed. Suddenly, Carla enters the passenger seat and begins mumbling nonsense, her head still bleeding. She gives Alicia the gun before going unconscious again. Alicia exits the car and finds Jason standing nearby. She enters the car again and begins to rev the engine. She starts the car and drives straight for him, running him down and carrying him on the windscreen as he continues to try and attack her before suddenly stopping the car, sending him flying from the windscreen and into the lake. She begins to look around for his body before Pete appears, scaring her. He is forced to tell her that Pamela killed Teddy when she asks where he is. Alicia, furious about this, tells him that the car is working and they can go back to her house, get Susan and Eric, and escape to the town. Pamela appears and stabs Pete with an arrow through the back twice. He collapses in Alicia's arms as Pamela goes to attack her too. They fight on the ground before Alicia kicks her in the groin and runs away.
Alicia is chased by Pamela throughout the campgrounds, from the main lodge to the cabins and then to shower rooms and finally the lake. They both get hits at each other along the way. Alicia, tired and injured, limps out onto the jetty with Pamela in tow. Pamela gives a speech about how she promised she would make them all pay and the camp would remain closed, all for her special Jason. Alicia finally discovers that she is Pamela, and that the hockey mask wearing killer is in fact Jason. Pamela goes back and forth between personas while insulting Alicia. Alicia criticizes Pamela, calling her pathetic and a terrible mother. Pamela slowly walks towards her, saying that she's the 'only one left' and that she intends on making it quick so she can read Jason a bedtime story (having clearly lost her mind). Alicia raises the ax she got from one of the cabins and decapitates Pamela when she runs at her, Pamela's head falling into the lake while her lifeless body collapses on the jetty. Alicia falls to her knees out of exhaustion and crawls onto the small boat as the sun begins to rise over Camp Crystal Lake.
She drifts off through the lake as the emergency services siren's can be heard blaring in the distance as they finally arrive at the camp. Alicia begins to wake up but she then looks down into the water and sees the figure of a little boy looking up at her from the depths. Jason then emerges from the water and pulls her from the boat into the water as she screams.
She suddenly wakes up screaming from the nightmare in the back of an ambulance at the camp. A paramedic assures her everything will be fine and that's she safe now. Her mother and brother appear to comfort her, happy that she's safe. It's also revealed that Carla and Pete survived their injuries and they comfort each other at the edge of the lake, staring out into the water. Alicia questions them about Jason, the hockey masked killer. Susan tells her that they think it's just someone who escaped from a mental institution two days ago. Alicia assures her that it's not, that Pamela told her that Jason came back. Susan reluctantly tells her that they haven't found the body yet.
The film ends when Alicia, clearly traumatized, tells them "Then he's still there" as the camera pans over the still lake, a single ripple being seen in the water along with several bubbles.
Cast
- Maika Monroe as Alicia Hamilton
- Julianne Moore as Pamela Voorhees
- Evan Peters as Teddy
- Patrick Wilson as Pete Sullivan
- Malin Åkerman as Deputy Carla Buchanan
- Dylan Minnette as Dean
- Samara Weaving as Rachel
- Alfred Enoch as Jake
- Callie Hernandez as Marie
- Richard Burgi as Ron Hamilton
- Connie Britton as Susan Hamilton
- Jacob Tremblay as Eric Hamilton
- Gary Oldman as Elias Voorhees
- Dylan O'Brien as Mickey
- John Carroll Lynch as Stuart Henson
- Grace Phipps as Debra
- Keir Gilchrist as David
- Derek Mears as Jason Voorhees
Main Cast Gallery
Alicia Hamilton
Teddy
Dean
Jake
Marie
Rachel
Mickey
Pete Sullivan
Pamela Voorhees
Jason Voorhees
Elias Voorhees
Ron Hamilton
Susan Hamilton
Deputy Buchanan
Eric Hamilton
Stuart Henson
Debra
David