Pamela Voorhees

Friday the 13th character
Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees in a publicity still from Friday the 13th (1980).
Pamela Sue Voorhees
Gender:	Female
Race	Caucasian
Location	Camp Crystal Lake
Family	Jason Voorhees (son) Elias Voorhees (husband)
Portrayed by:	Betsy Palmer [1][2] (Friday the 13th & Part II) Connie Hogan [2] Marilyn Poucher [3] (Friday the 13th Part III) Paula Shaw [4] (Freddy vs. Jason) Nana Visitor [5] (Friday the 13th (2009))
Signature Weapon:	Bowie knife

Pamela Sue Voorhees is a fictional character in the Friday the 13th films, and the antagonist of the original Friday the 13th film. She is a former camp cook and the mother of Jason Voorhees, the main character of the series.

In the original Friday the 13th film, the character is simply named Mrs. Voorhees, her first name not being revealed until Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

The character was portrayed by Betsy Palmer in the first two films. During the character's brief appearance in Freddy vs. Jason, she was played by Paula Shaw. According to the actress herself at conventions, Betsy Palmer was asked to reprise her role as Pamela Voorhees for the Freddy vs. Jason film but turned the part down after she read the script, as she stated in the "Friday The 13th Reunion" available as a "special feature" on the 2009 Paramount release of the "Uncut: Special Edition".

Nana Visitor played Pamela Voorhees in the 2009 reimagining of Friday the 13th.

Appearances

Films

Pamela Voorhees was born in 1930 (revealed in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter). At age 15, Pamela became pregnant by Elias Voorhees, and on June 13, 1946, at age 16, she gave birth to a hydrocephalic boy she named Jason, as shown in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Because of his deformity, Pamela never sent Jason to school, and was extremely overprotective of him.

Pamela got a job as a cook at Camp Crystal Lake. On a fateful day in 1957, Jason, infuriated with the constant teasing from other children, snuck out of his cabin late at night to prove he could swim. The counselors were not watching him, as they were at a party in one of the adult cabins, drinking, smoking pot, and having sex. Jason was never recovered from the lake and presumably drowned. Pamela blamed the counselors because she was working the day that it happened.

After her son's death, Pamela began hearing voices telling her to kill. In 1958, a year after Jason's death, Pamela brutally murdered two counselors (Barry and Claudette) who she felt were responsible for her son's death. Camp Crystal Lake was closed after the murders and was nicknamed "Camp Blood" by local residents. When the owner tried to re-open the camp in 1962, Pamela returned, poisoned the water, and set several fires. The camp was shut down once again and did not reopen until 1980. Pamela lived in a house which bordered the Camp Crystal Lake property. In Friday the 13th, it is revealed that no one knew who set the fires or poisoned the water. Pamela confesses her reasons for not allowing the camp to be reopened in Friday the 13th, stating she does not want another tragic accident to happen.

On Friday, June 13, 1980, the new owner of Camp Crystal Lake, Steve Christy, and seven young counselors return to the deadly campground to prepare it for reopening, even after several ominous warnings of a death curse by the local residents. Enraged, Pamela goes on a savage killing spree, killing Christy and six of the camp counselors.

The survivor, Alice Hardy, discovers two of the murdered victims and later meets Pamela, who tells Alice about Jason's death. Pamela flies into a rage and attacks Alice, chasing her around the camp and saying "Kill her, mommy!" in Jason's voice. During the final attack, Alice decapitates Pamela with a machete.

Two months later, a mysteriously revived Jason carries out his own revenge by killing Alice. Jason had kept his mother's severed head, first to frighten the girl (by placing it in her refrigerator) and then took both her corpse and the head to his shack deep in the woods where no one can find it. In it, he has built something of a shrine to his mother and subsequently placed some victims there. After he is hit in the shoulder with a machete (the same machete with which his mother was killed) and left for dead at the end of his first killing spree, he leaves his crudely made home and his mother.

Pamela Voorhees is initially laid to rest in a run down, roadside cemetery seen in The Final Chapter. When Jason is killed by Tommy Jarvis a few years later, it is presumed that her body is relocated to Eternal Peace Cemetery along with her son.^[6]

Although Pamela does not share her son's immortality, she does reappear in later films. The character is seen again in the climax of Friday the 13th Part 2 in which Betsy Palmer reprises her role when Jason sees his mother talking to him while in reality it is one of Jason's potential victims trying to fool him. Pamela is seen again in Friday the 13th Part III when lone survivor Chris Higgins has a nightmare which ends with Pamela's corpse (played by the Second Assistant Director, Marilyn Poucher), wearing her blue sweater with head attached, reaching up from the lake to pull her under. She is seen again in Freddy vs. Jason (played this time by Paula Shaw), seen in Hell commanding her son to kill the children of Elm Street; however, it turns out that it is actually Freddy Krueger masquerading as Pamela in order to manipulate Jason for his own needs. Pamela appears very briefly in the more recent Friday the 13th reboot in the beginning credits chasing a young girl (presumably Alice). She is decapitated and a young Jason Voorhees finds a locket containing pictures of him and his mother. Jason hears her voice telling him to "Kill for mother."

In an interview, John Carl Buechler revealed he had originally intended to have a scene in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood in which heroine Tina Shepard has a surreal vision in which Pamela's severed head appears in Jason's arms, repeatedly yelling "Help me mommy!" The scene was never shot, due to being deemed too over-the-top.^[7] Reportedly, the character was to make another appearance for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday in a flashback.^[8] Jason X was originally meant to feature an appearance of Pamela in the holographic projection of Camp Crystal Lake that Jason is distracted by in the film; one idea was to even have Jason attack the virtual Pamela to show just how evil he had become.^[9]

Literature

The cover of Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale #1, which reveals much of Pamela's early life, such as her pregnancy with her son Jason.

The severed head of Pamela Voorhees is a major character in the first book of Eric Morse's Camp Crystal Lake series. In the novel, hunter Joe Travers finds an unmarked gravestone in the forest and digs nearby to find a wet cardboard box containing the still living head, having been reanimated by Jason's cursed mask. Pamela then gives him directions to the location of Jason's buried hockey mask, which he digs up and puts on, thus becoming possessed by Jason in the process. Carly, the novel's heroine, later discovers the head still in its box, still in the grave. During the final showdown with Pamela and the hunter, she destroys the head with a shotgun blast, killing Pamela.^[10]

In the non-canononical Jason vs. Leatherface comic miniseries by Topps Comics, Pamela is renamed "Doris" for unexplained reasons and appears in two flashbacks, one in the first issue and another in the second; in the first flashback, brought on by Jason being asked his name by Cook, she appears, face obscured, encouraging a young Jason as he writes his name on a chalkboard.^[11] The second flashback, provoked by Jason seeing the Hitchhiker abuse his younger brother Leatherface, has her killing Elias Voorhees with a machete while he attempts to beat Jason.^[12]

The comic one-shot Jason X Special by Avatar Press features Pamela coming back from the dead by possessing a swarm of nano ants. Discovering Jason has been captured by a bio-engineer named Kristen, Pamela releases him and guides him to a camp near Kristen's laboratory populated by androids, who Jason begins to destroy, quickly becoming disastified with these victims due to the fact that, as Pamela states, "they aren't real." At the end of the comic, Pamela, after Jason is launched into space by Kristen, gets revenge on the bio-engineer by possessing her lover Neil and forcing him to stab Kristen in the stomach and slit his own throat. In the sequel to the one-shot, the two-issue miniseries Friday the 13th: Jason vs. Jason X, Pamela appears only as a fragmented memory shared between Jason and his clone (which was created using a portion of Jason's brain). After Jason disposes of his clone and assimilates the portion of his brain it possessed, his memories of Pamela (who he and the clone did not recognize) are restored.

In the novel Jason X: Death Moon by Black Flame, a character, while in a holographic version of Crystal Lake, stumbles across an underwater recreation of Pamela's grave in the lake and is attacked by a zombified version of her created by Dr. Armando Castillo. In Friday the 13th: Hell Lake, the character Gretchen Andrews, after an encounter with Jason, seemingly becomes possessed by Pamela. Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs involves Pamela possessing characters who come into contact with her severed head.

In 2007, a two issue comic miniseries titled Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale, detailing much of Pamela's history, was printed by Wildstorm; the comics take place before the main events of Friday the 13th and feature Pamela picking up Annie, one of the Camp Crystal Lake counselors in-training, and recounting to her her past, revealing Elias abused her while she was pregnant, which may have caused Jason to be born deformed. Driven by what she believed to be the unborn Jason's voice, Pamela killed Elias with an axe, blew up their trailer and dumped her husband's body in Crystal Lake. After killing Elias, Pamela moved to Crystal Lake and got a job as a chef at a diner, later being hired as Camp Crystal Lake's cook by the Christy family. After telling Annie her origin Pamela, as in the film, slits her throat, but treats her body as if it were still alive afterwards. The miniseries ends with a recreation of the scene from the film where Pamela meets Alice at Camp Crystal Lake. In Friday the 13th: How I Spent My Summer Vacation two-issue miniseries Pamela appears in a flashback to when she first brought Jason to Camp Crystal Lake in the first issue and the end of the second issue has Jason visiting his mother's grave.

In the six issue comic miniseries Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, by Wildstorm and Dynamite Entertainment, Pamela appears in the first issue of the miniseries, in a dream sequence of Jason's, where Freddy Krueger uses her to manipulate Jason into seeking out the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. The fifth issue of the series, in which Pamela makes a cameo appearance on a portrait in her old house, and also implicates she may have used to Necronomicon in an attempt to resurrect Jason after his drowning as a child.

2009 film trailer controversy

Initial teaser trailers for the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th contained dialogue from that original 1980 film that was spoken by Mrs. Voorhees to Alice. Upon release of the trailer, Betsy Palmer was notified that the voice sounded like her, yet she had never given permission for the studio to use her voice. After contacting Paramount's legal representative, Palmer was given a chance to listen to the recording first hand. After hearing the voice, Palmer concluded that they had taken an audio sampling of her from the original film. In their defense, Paramount stated that they had used a voice double. Bill Neil has gone on record stating that he was present when Kathleen Garrett was in the recording studio reciting the dialogue from the original film, and that he was the one that originally placed the dubbing into the first trailer. Neil states that Palmer's voice is tied to the music and sound effects of the original film, making it impossible for them to have taken a clean sample for their trailer.^[13]

Other media

Pamela also appears in the Friday the 13th video game for the NES. Her decapitated head is a mini-boss in a hidden cave. It floats around after lifting itself off a pedestal surrounded by candles, reminiscent of the second movie. Just as Jason has to be defeated three times to complete the game, Pamela can also be fought three times, and each defeat earns the player a unique item—a powerful weapon (usually a machete or axe), then her sweater, and finally the pitchfork.^[14]

Action figures of Pamela have been released by both Sideshow Collectibles and NECA.^[15][16]

An insane character in the Dark Brotherhood questline of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion keeps the severed head of his mother, along with victims, in his living quarters, as a reference to Pamela.

References

1. ^ Sean S. Cunningham (Director) (1980). Friday the 13th (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Steve Miner (Director) (1981). Friday the 13th Part 2 (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures. 
3. ^ Steve Miner (Director) (1982). Friday the 13th Part II (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures. 
4. ^ Ronny Yu (Director) (2003). Freddy vs. Jason (DVD). United States: New Line Cinema. 
5. ^ ScreenGeeks Radio » Updated: Nana Visitor Is Mrs. Voorhees!
6. ^ Tom McLoughlin (Director) (1986). Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures. 
7. ^ Pit Of Horror.com - Interviews
8. ^ Pit Of Horror.com - Interviews
9. ^ Thirteen Questions with Todd Farmer
10. ^ Morse, Eric (1994). Friday the 13th: Mother's Day. Berkley Books. ISBN 0425142922. 
11. ^ Nancy Collins (w). "Goin' South" Jason vs. Leatherface 1: 30/4 (October 1995), Topps Comics
12. ^ Nancy Collins (w). "A Day in the Life..." Jason vs. Leatherface 2: 22/6 (November 1995), Topps Comics
13. ^ "Betsy Palmer on the New Friday the 13th". Shock Till You Drop. 2009-01-29. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=9386. Retrieved 2009-02-19. 
14. ^ LJN. Friday the 13th. (LJN). Nintendo Entertainment System. (1988)
15. ^ Mrs. Pamela Voorhees from Sideshow Toys
16. ^ Part 2 Jason and Mrs. Voorhees Figures from NECA

External links

• Pamela Voorhees at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future and You (anecdotes about working on Friday the Thirteenth and the story of how she got her first acting job.)