Stephen King Has A Hellish Idea For A Friday The 13th Book

What makes Jason Voorhees tick? Stephen King’s ‘hellish’ Friday the 13th book idea would offer some perspective. 

The machete-wielding, ragged murderer has been an icon of horror cinema; particularly since 1982’s Friday the 13th Part III, where he wore the hockey goalie mask for the first time.

Over the course of 12 films – including a crossover mega-fight with Freddy Krueger and a 2009 remake – he’s sliced, diced, chopped and smashed people (a lot of teenagers) to pieces. However, the literary master of horror has one question: what’s going through Jason’s head when he throws women in sleeping bags about like a wet tracksuit?

The Pennywise creator took to Twitter to reveal a novel idea he had based on the classic slasher villain: a first-person book from Jason’s point-of-view, following him in his inescapable cycle of death.

King wrote: ‘The best novel idea I never wrote (and probably never will) is I JASON, the first-person narrative of Jason Voorhees, and his hellish fate: killed over and over again at Camp Crystal Lake. What a hellish, existential fate!’

The Shining author even suggested that Blumhouse – the studio that brought Insidious and Sinister to the screen – could turn the idea into a movie, but conceded in a later tweet: ‘Just thinking about the legal thicket one would have to go through to get permissions makes my head ache. And my heart, that too. But gosh, shouldn’t someone tell Jason’s side of the story?’

It’s a brilliant concept, not one without credibility. Look at Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, We Need To Talk About Kevin, or 2018’s The House That Jack Built – all movies that put the audience firmly in the twisted psyche of its demented killers.

While getting the permissions to pen such a work would likely be difficult, the franchise has gone to some pretty strange places in its time. For example, Jason X: the inexplicable tenth sequel that primarily takes place in 2455 in space.

The series has mostly resided in limbo since the 2009 remake, aside from the Friday the 13th game on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Perhaps King is the man to resurrect Jason on the big screen one final time.