(NOTE: I will be reviewing batkevin74's series about every 4 parts, so there's more reviews to come)
Hello and welcome to SIDF26 Spotlights, where the fans get their turn at the Silver Screen treatment! I love Jason Voorhees. He's big, he's badass, he's the ultimate exclamation point. While no monster can truly compare to those classic 40's Universal monsters, Jason is the only modern monster to give the Universal and Hammer Brothers a run for their money. But one thing that's always annoyed me about Jason is how I never found him to have any truly likeable traits, or much of a personality other than being a murderous beast. But what if Jason did have a personality? What if he did have a reason for being so evil? batkevin74's Jason Voorhees puts all that under the world's biggest magnifying glass in "Jason Voorhees".
batkevin74's "Jason Voorhees" is a remake of the classic Slasher story, focusing on Jason in his childhood to his adulthood. So far in the story, Jason certainly has proved to have a lot of reason for held in aggression. As a child with both Autism and Downs syndrome, he is horribly and violently abused by his mother Pamela Voorhees as she tries to get her son to make up for his mental deficiencies in physical prowess, and turn him into a hockey monster that would quite frankly make Wayne Gretsky piss himself. Jason becomes a brutal hockey player, 6 foot tall and a mere child. But all of this comes at a steep price, as the continued abuse of Ms Voorhees turns young Jason into a sociopathic murderer, taking his held in aggression in terrifying and violent ways.
Rarely do Fan-Fics manage to actually scare you. That goes double for slashers. That said, from what I've read from batkevin74, little, twisted Jason and his doubly twisted mother scare the hell out of me. Pamela Voorhees isn't the loving, obsessed mother she was in the original Friday the 13th movies: She's a narcissistic monster, who will do whatever it takes to get her son to the NHL. One particularly disturbing and frightening scene involves a Doctor who finally confronts Pamela Voorhees about her messed-up parenting. I won't give away what she does, but it is one of the most frightening and twisted things I've read in text. Of course, Jason is no innocent either. The abuse from his mother has decieved him into thinking he exists in a world that despises him. In Jason's mind, it's a cruel world, and the only justice in a cruel world is power and bloodshed. This makes the character equally frightening and sympathetic, something the original Jason never managed to do.
Surprisingly, underneath all of that blood and guts, their is a brain somewhere in batkevin74's work. I found in batkevin74's story a message about how the abused and put down will take power again. When you hurt others repeatedly, there comes a time where they won't just cry in a corner...They'll strike out, with a power and rage that is astounding. It's not a story of revenge as much as it is a cautionary story about how what goes around doesn't just come around, it hit's you harder than a punch from Mike Tyson.
So, I can't really find anything bad to say about this story! Well...If you want me to NITPICK, I suppose I would like to see somebody that Jason could sympathize with. True, the fact that he's a friendless, pitiful boy does make him more sympathetic. However, it would be interesting to see him actually connect with someone, so it's not just all hate and anger inside young Jason.
Overrall, Parts 1-4 of batkevin74's "Jason" series are a great read. It''s scary, smart, and fills the mouth with gore. He's certainly more deserving of making a live action Horror movie than Marcus Nispel and Michael Bay. I look forward to reading and reviewing the next 4 entries, as there is so much potential here. Perhaps bringing in Tommy Jarvis, or maybe Jason finally takes his killings to the next level. I simply can't wait!
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