Danny Steinmann’s 1985 slasher film Friday The 13th: A New Beginning reintroduces Tommy Jarvis who successfully killed the iconic killer Jason Voorhees and, as one fan theory suggests, is responsible for imagining or writing the subsequent sequels. Joseph Zito’s 1984 slasher film Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) introduced Tommy Jarvis. Zito’s addition to the Friday The 13th franchise is the fourth installment following the success of the original film by Sean S. Cunningham in 1980. Each film follows Jason Voorhees as he wreaks havoc in classic slasher fashion except for in Zito’s film, when Tommy ends his reign of terror by mercilessly slashing him with a machete.
Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter was meant to be the final installment in the Jason Voorhees story, but so was its previous film, Friday The 13th Part 3. With this in mind, the end of Jason was a clean cut way of ensuring that the series could conclude without issue and provide closure to the audience. Even the special effects mastermind Tom Savini returned to assist in killing Jason. Except, it was not the final film as Friday The 13th: A New Beginning came only a year later. This installment focuses on Tommy Jarvis in his adulthood as he is still stricken with the horrors of his childhood.
As the film progresses, Tommy finds himself in Pinehurst Halfway House where he meets a group of teenagers who all become the target of a copycat killer. Similar to Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter, he kills the perpetrator posing as Jason, who turns out to be a paramedic at the facility. The film ends with Tommy donning the hockey mask and wielding a kitchen knife. It is an indisputable fact that Jason died at the hands of Tommy, but several installments still came afterward, leading fans to believe that Tommy may be imagining the subsequent films or even writing them somehow.
Why Every Sequel After Part 5 Is NOT In Tommy’s Mind
The fan theory ultimately suggests that Tommy Jarvis’ lifelong love for horror mixed with his mental instability after the discovery of a copycat killer leads to writing himself into various scenarios all relating to Jason. Therefore, the subsequent films that followed are a figment of his imagination. Which explains why every film following Friday The 13th: A New Beginning is entirely impossible. Except Friday The 13th is a slasher franchise and like many others, Jason is just another unkillable masked assailant.
The theory could be entirely plausible if it had indisputable evidence, except it does not. The only instances that could lend some truth to it are during the later films when Tommy is not mentioned whatsoever despite having killed both Jason and the copycat killer. All the fan theory has to go off of is Tommy’s mental instability and an absence of him being mentioned in later installments. Much like Michael Myers of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), Jason might just be an unkillable killer. Just like Michael, he is seen dead numerous times, but always returns.
Ultimately, Jason Voorhees is a classic slasher killer who can’t be killed forever; he will always find a way to come back for another movie. Due to the lack of evidence in this fan theory, it is not probable that Tommy is imagining or writing Jason’s story. Furthermore, it posits that, at some point in the franchise, Tommy will be exposed for what he has written or thought up, but that is highly unlikely as there is no evidence it’s even happening in the first place. Therefore, the films following Friday The 13th: A New Beginning are likely not the brainchild of Tommy Jarvis.
