November 12, 2015

There are a lot of things that can be attributed to the success and longevity of the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise. Naturally, a big part of it was timing. Right place at the right time. The world was ready for Jason Voorhees. The franchise represented the epitome of the “slasher” boom and these films made it into more theaters across America because of that Paramount Pictures logo at the opening than any of the knock offs of that period. But I think for most people of my age range in their 30’s, there’s one simple reason this series resonated. Tommy Jarvis.

When Tommy Jarvis was introduced in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER, he was a young kid about our age. He was an aspiring FX artist obsessed with monsters and ghouls. And despite being a little kid, he was able to do something that no one else in the series could. Stop Jason.

The character ended up returning for 2 more sequels and each time was played by a completely different actor. And I mean completely different. I love the documentaries on the special edition releases of FRIDAY THE 13TH’s 4-6 titled “The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited,” because in those they speculate that every couple of years, Tommy Jarvis underwent extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance. But in reality, they had 3 actors play him. This week on Character Showdown, let’s look at all 3 Tommys and decide who our favorite was.

This is going to be a tough call, because I love them all. But let’s go back to the actor that originated the role, Corey Feldman. I’ve always had a soft spot for PART 4 in the series because the Jarvis’ were finally a break from the traditional formulaic “teens coming out to a cabin or the woods” plot device that PART’s 2 & 3 repeated. Now we have a family that has a house on Crystal Lake. Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), her daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck) and Tommy (Feldman). Meanwhile, just down the way, the teens that are partying for the weekend are getting torn apart by Jason Voorhees, fresh off the slab at the morgue and back at Crystal Lake, completely pissed off and wrecking shop with anyone that crosses his path. Having learned the legend of Jason, Tommy, in a last ditch effort to distract the madman away from his older sister, shaves his head to resemble young Jason that drowned at the lake. With his guard down, Tommy rams that machete straight into the side of Jason’s head, and when he twitches, he freaks and savagely attacks him. Considering the loss of his mother and the entire traumatic experience, how else would a 12 year old boy react?

Feldman returns for only the opening scene of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING, primarily because the story jumps ahead a few years, and at this point in the 80’s, Paramount was churning out these FRIDAY movies one per year. A lot of people have mixed feelings on PART 5 of the series, primarily because the murders are the work of a faux Jason, but I’ve always held it up as one of my favorites. Look – there’s a guy in a hockey mask running around killing kids. In the final 20 minutes, one last final girl faces him down and defeats him. This is no different than any of the previous FRIDAYs. But I do love John Shepherd’s performance here as the now teenage Tommy Jarvis. (I think he’s supposed to be a teenager, right?) So damaged by the events of his childhood, he constantly pops pills to avoid hallucinating about Jason Voorhees. He also barely mutters a word. But if someone pushes him the wrong way, he kind of snaps and starts beating the crap out of him. In other words, in high school he was my idol and I desperately wanted to pull a Tommy Jarvis on some of the bigger kids, but never did. Once someone with Jason’s M.O. starts offering people at the mental institution he’s stuck at, the audience wonders, is it Tommy? Has he finally gone off the deep end and become Jason? Is it the real Jason back from the grave? Or is it an imposter. Naturally, we all know the answer to this now, but regardless, I rather like the final confrontation between Tommy and Jason, and Shepherd delivers a quality performance as this version of Jarvis.

From what I understand, John Shepherd had the opportunity to return as the character in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, which would’ve been fascinating, but opted not to come back because at that point in his life and career, he was deeply religious and shortly thereafter became a preacher. Instead, Thom Mathews best known to genre fans for his performance the previous year in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD took over the role of adult Tommy Jarvis. And yet again, there’s something special about the way Thom plays it here. Having overcome the events of both previous entries in the series, he is now hell-bent on making sure that Jason is not only dead and buried, but he wants to cremate the body and make sure there is absolutely nothing left. In digging up his grave, a bolt of lightning strikes which resurrects Jason, FRAKNENSTEIN-style! Now unstoppable, Tommy is trying to get anyone to believe his story about Jason’s return.

Eventually, Tommy defeats Jason by putting him back in his original resting place, Camp Crystal Lake. For people that either don’t know the FRIDAY franchise, or aren’t exactly the biggest fans of horror in general, I feel like this is a good refresher course on who Jason Voorhees is and just an overall really fun movie. Now comes the tough part… who was the best Tommy Jarvis? Can’t I pick all three?

In all seriousness, it’s difficult to decide but because of my affinity for the character, I’m going to go with the version that was the same age as I was when I watched the film. And that’d be the original Tommy Jarvis, Corey Feldman in PART 4.

What do you guys think? Who was your favorite?