Jason Voorhees Is 80 Years Old

From 1980 to 2009, New Line Cinema released 12 Friday the 13th movies. For a six-year period in the ’80s, New Line pumped out a new installment every single year. Say what you will about Jason Voorhees’ hostile attitude toward camp counselors, his tendency to solve interpersonal disputes with violence, his drab sense of personal style: The dude does work hard.

Or at least he did work hard. Since 2009, Friday the 13th has been like Jason lying at the bottom of Crystal Lake between sequels: Totally dormant. That finally changes with the new Peacock and A24 streaming series Crystal Lake. But while Jason is a character on the show, he’s not the dude impaling horny teenagers while wearing a hockey mask and coveralls anymore. He’s not even the show’s central antagonist.

That would be Jason’s mom, Pamela Voorhees, played by Linda Cardellini. As all Friday the 13th fans, while Jason became the big bad of this franchise starting with its sequel, the original movie’s villain was Mrs. Voorhees, who was driven mad by her son’s death and began killing counselors at the camp where he drowned. Crystal Lake is a prequel, focusing on good ol’ Pammy at the start of her rampage in the picturesque locale of the title.

Especially after a 17-year absence, a Friday the 13th reboot/prequel makes a certain amount of sense. (It had only been nine years since Rob Zombie’s Halloween II when Blumhouse made their Halloween legacyquel starring Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. Younger fans of A24’s might not know Jason Voorhees or his mother at all at this point.

But there’s another reason why Peacock and A24 may have chosen the prequel route: Jason Voorhees is now 80 years old.

At least, he would be if any new film carried forward the continuity established by that first Friday the 13th from 1980. Those movies established that Jason was born in 1946 and then drowned in Crystal Lake 11 years later. That timeframe lines up with the age of Betsy Palmer, the actress who played Mrs Voorhees in Friday the 13th, who was born in 1926. That would have made her roughly 20 when she had Jason, and in her mid-50s during the events of that film.

READ MORE: 12 Forgotten Movie Prequels

Granted, the standard rules of aging and a body’s physical decay may not apply to an undead zombie monster man like Jason Voorhees, who has died at least a couple times already. But still: 80 years old! Jason has lived through 14 different American Presidents. Alaska didn’t become a U.S. state until Jason Voorhees was 13. He’s four years older than George Cukor’s Born Yesterday — which he certainly was not.

So now we know why Jason keeps wearing that hockey mask. He doesn’t want people to know his age. That thing’s like serial killer Botox. Covers up the wrinkles.

I think the rights holders are trying to cover up Jason’s age too. Horror movies in general, and slasher movies in particular, are predominantly targeted at young audiences. Trying to convince a 22 year old to buy a ticket for a film about a serial killer who predates the microwave oven would be a tough sell. Instead of promoting an octogenarian with a pitchfork, you do Crystal Lake.

I have a real soft-spot in my heart for some of those old Friday the 13th sequels, and I hope Crystal Lake is goo. But I really hope its success finally opens the door to a 13th Friday the 13th movie — which has to be called Friday, the 13th with a comma — and that it stars Old Jason.

Seriously, let Jason be old. He already walks slowly. Let him walk really slowly. Let him occasionally complain about his back. Let him get distracted and screw up a kill because he’s busy looking at AI slop on Facebook he thinks is real. Let him get stabbed in the back while he struggles to open a bottle of Motrin. Let him bludgeon some horny camp counselor with a VCR that’s flashing “12:00 AM” over and over. Let him fall down after the final girl ties together the laces of his Hokas that he wears because his podiatrist told them they would give him better arch support.

Old Jason. Let’s go.