It seems like, with any horror franchise, we're continuing with the sequels. Last time we visited this world, we got to see more of what would happen if Tommy Jarvis became the new killer in the Friday the 13th franchise.
Needless to say, it didn't go well in multiple instances for several individuals. Seventeen of them, in fact, by the time Tommy was finally stopped. The worst part? Things were about to get worse and very fast to boot! So what happens next? Well, take a seat and ponder the question... What If?
We pick up right where we left off, Violet being carted away in an ambulance, the last thing she sees before the sedatives kick in being the burnt and mangled form of Tommy Jarvis disappearing into the trees around Camp Forest Green. We quick cut to one year later, where Violet has been placed into a proper asylum rather than a halfway house like Pinehurst. In her straitjacket and padded cell, she is still insisting that Tommy is still out there, even though her psychiatrist - Amy Steele - tries to reinforce that Tommy is dead, having been declared dead since the incident at Pinehurst. Violet is far more skeptical, knowing that that story is a lie.
Elsewhere, as we saw in the mid-credits scene from last time, Chris Higgins from Friday the 13th: Part 3 had gotten her hands on the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and had gathered the body of Jason Voorhees as well as the sacrifice of a human heart. We get a brief flashback of her in the asylum much as Violet is in the present, ever since 1984 when she managed to somehow survive Jason's slaughter at Higgins Haven. Chris suffered hallucinations of Pamela Voorhees for reasons unknown, Pamela telling her that she owed Jason for what she had done to him, that she had to make things right. Chris, already in a fragile mental state, is tormented by this specter of Pamela again and again and again until her mind breaks. Following instructions from Pamela, she breaks into the old Voorhees house and retrieves the Necronomicon.
Which leads to her having stolen Jason's rotting body and having acquired the heart, chanting from the Necronomicon and stabbing the heart with a dagger. Jason jolts up from the slab, now in a state not quite alive and not quite dead. Despite giving a long look at Chris, Jason actually does not kill her and instead leaves to head back to Crystal Lake, called by the voice of his mother to return to the woods. Chris is left a gibbering insane wreck of a human being, later found by a family member who upon seeing the scene calls the police. After all... where did Chris get the human heart from?
A year passes, and we return to Violet still in her cell at the asylum and still under the care of Dr. Amy Steele. Amy relates to Violet that she spent some time during her time in college as an assistant to a doctor who tended to Tommy, saying that the two of them as well as Violet share the survivor's guilt and trying to get her to believe that what she's suffering from is projection. Clearly, this is just a Jason Voorhees copycat killer. Violet's response is to calmly and slowly speak the names of the people that Tommy has murdered. Every time Amy attempts to reach her, she simply starts again. Finding the session fruitless, she leaves Violet to get some rest... and finds herself back in her office.
Her office, where she has several newspaper clippings concerning both Jason and Tommy up on a cork board. No strings connecting things, though. Merely a canvas of insanity that she has put together. It seems that Amy hasn't forgotten what happened to her back in Part 2, either... and she certainly isn't as ready to move on as she wants her patient to be, given the very determined look she gets when she looks at it.
Elsewhere, a group of campers head off into the woods of Forest Green and are approached by a tall, muscle-bound figure in a hockey mask. The question we must now ask ourselves is - is this Tommy or is this Jason? For a time, the answer is moot as the killer moves with rather ruthless efficiency. One kill mirrors the death of Crazy Ralph from Part 2, indicating that this may be Jason. However, another gets their head torn off much like Cort's was by Tommy last time. The kills vary as the killer makes his way through the group one-by-one, ending the kills with the final person getting a gallon of gasoline dumped down their throat and a lit match dropped down as well.
Extra crispy!
Amy goes to visit Chris, her having been brought back to the asylum after having been found in her basement with a human heart and a scary-looking old book. Wanting to investigate, she goes to Ted (also from Part 2, one of the few who survived Jason's first massacre), who is now working forensics for Wessex County. She asks about the book and he attempts to stonewall her before he ends up relenting, and Amy gets to see the Necronomicon. While she recognizes that it's Sumerian, she doesn't know Sumerian herself and decides to call on an expert.
Meanwhile, the killer (whoever they may be) tears their way through a couple fishing at Forest Green's lovely lake. They grab the husband as he's fishing, grabbing him by the throat and snapping his neck and pulling him down under the water. The wife attempts to use the motor on the back to escape, only to have it crushed and a pair of bloodied hands literally rip the boat apart, those hands grabbing her and pulling her under to drown out her blood-curdling screams for mercy.
Amy has made a call to the University of Michigan to speak to a Professor Knowby. However, she has been informed that the man has gone missing under mysterious circumstances and thus will not be able to help her. That avenue bearing no fruit, she hangs up the phone in frustration... and sees Jason outside her window, staring up at her. Terrified, she goes to call security and finds the phone line has been cut. Looking back, she sees no sign of Jason and quickly moves to go check on things elsewhere. The asylum has had its power cut and the inmates are running free. She ducks away as they riot, attacking guards and each other. Among them all, Chris is laughing and smiling and almost dancing.
When Amy finally corners her, she's elated.
"He's back! He's back! He's ready!"
Chris then attempts to kill her, only to be stopped by Violet, knocking her out with a chair. Thankfully, Amy jokingly says that Violet has earned her early release. Before she can fill Violet in on all she has been doing, Jason or Tommy arrives and begins carving their way through the inmates. As the inmates are dying around her, Chris regains consciousness and begins to chant merrily:
"Yes! Yes, Jason! Kill for mother!"
This causes the killer to turn on her... and Chris realizes that it is not Jason, but Tommy. She calls him out as an imposter just before Tommy rams his machete through her head, killing her outright. Amy and Violet manage to escape from the place in Amy's pick up truck, Jason watching them from a distance as they leave and us finally now being able to draw a distinction between the two of them as separate entities. Tommy is more lean than Jason, whereas Mr. Voorhees (rotting flesh and all) is much more muscular (a detail that your more observant movie goer would have noticed in the previous scenes, but not something overtly obvious).
Escaping in her truck, Amy explains to Violet that she has been researching the history of Forest Green/Crystal Lake. Bad things have always happened here, even before Jason drowned in 1957 and Mrs. Voorhees went on her killing spree one year later. A curse placed on the land by a Native American tribe, several mineral mines in the area that started out lucrative and all ended up being ruined by the end, mysterious deaths, and so on. Amy has theorized that the magic may be real and that it can have profound effects on people who are particularly sensitive to it. People, in particular, like Chris and Tommy. Thus, we get a good explanation for Chris' strange abilities in Part 3 as well as the hallucinations having such a profound effect on Tommy and his mental health. With Chris dead, Amy's plan is to get the Necronomicon and get it to someone who can translate it, hoping to use its power to kill Jason and get Tommy the help he needs to put his own demons to rest.
Heading to the police station once more, the two find Ted alone manning the radio. They tell him about the breakout at the asylum and he tries to call up the rest of the deputies only to get radio silence. Presumably, either Jason or Tommy or both has killed them all. Ted retrieves the Necronomicon from the evidence locker, but the problem remains that 1) they can't read it and 2) they still have not one but two serial killers active in the Forest Green area that they can't leave out while they try to find someone who can read it. Violet strikes inspiration and decides on a plan of action.
Outside the station, she calls out for Tommy, baiting him with the promise of giving him what he wants. That being Jason... revealing to him that, yes, Jason is actually alive again and they know how to kill him once and for all. Still mute and clearly still murderous, Tommy nonetheless listens and appears to be onboard. Ted checks the files and records and learns that the book actually came from the Voorhees house, the group deciding to bait a trap for Jason there. In the woods somewhere, Jason hears the voice of his mother telling him to come home... and he begins to stalk his way there.
At the Voorhees House, Amy and Ted resolve a few bits of housekeeping from Part 2, namely our official acknowledgement that Paul did actually die during the film and thus ending that fan debate on that. Ted also isn't sure that he believes any of this talk of magic or psychic ability or whatever, but he knows that something has gone wrong and he's determined to help out however he can.
He is brutally murdered almost instantly when Jason arrives, pulling Ted through a wall and us hearing a sickening crack as his neck is snapped off-screen. Violet sicks Tommy on Jason and the two have their first proper squaring off again since 1984. It is a brutal fight. Furniture gets destroyed, glass is shattered, and the very walls themselves are torn through as the two titans battle it out, neither one gaining an edge over the other for very long. Violet and Amy, however, do not remain idle. They take the Necronomicon and head into the basement, having set up conditions to start a fire as soon as a match is struck, intending to trap both Tommy and Jason in the house as it burns down around them.
Upstairs, as Jason rams his machete through Tommy's chest and seemingly kills him, he hears Pamela's voice in his head telling him to go after the girls and retrieve the Necronomicon. He comes down to the basement, where Violet is unable to light a match at a critical moment, Jason managing to get a slice in at her side and her to drop the match. Amy smashes a thick table leg against the back of Jason's head, forcing him to fall onto his front for a moment. Amy forces the book into Violet's hands and tells her to run for her life away from here. Violet does so, but only as Amy loudly insists she does.
Jason rises... and Amy picks up the match and lights it.
The entire basement erupts in fire and soon the entire building is ablaze. Violet, holding the Necronomicon, barely escapes with her life... and passes the spot where Tommy Jarvis once lay, a spot that is now devoid of Tommy Jarvis. Outside, the fire department has arrived and Violet quickly commandeers Amy's pickup truck with the book in the passenger side seat to leave the scene for parts unknown. The police aren't far behind the fire department, in particular... Ted, who seems perfectly alright for having just had his neck snapped. We soon discover the truth, however, as a moment turned away from another officer reveals the eyes of a Deadite... and "Ted" doesn't seem all that bothered that the body of neither Jason nor Tommy was found in the burning house...
...and that's where we're leaving Part 2. Another Horror Month completed with a rather interesting little spin on a tale we all know so well. What will become of Violet and the Necronomicon? What of the Ted Deadite... a character I definitely did not pick out to make a return simply to do an Evil Dead reference joke? Where are Tommy and Jason?
The answers to all of these and more are coming... next year. Horror Month 2022 has come to a close and so have its What If scenarios... but the What If scenarios will continue on. Next time, we will be revisiting a What If from a while ago. Soon, it will be time to do it!
Be there!
Do it!
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