Pamela Voorhees
Encyclopedia
| Friday the 13th character | |
|---|---|
 Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees in a publicity still from Friday the 13th (1980). |
|
| Pamela Sue Voorhees | |
| Gender: | Female Female Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male... |
| Race | Caucasian Caucasian race The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia... |
| Location | Camp Crystal Lake |
| Family | Jason Voorhees Jason Voorhees Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. He first appeared in Friday the 13th , as the son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S... (son) Elias Voorhees (husband) |
| Portrayed by: | Betsy Palmer Betsy Palmer Betsy Palmer is an American actress, best known as a regular panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret, and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the notorious slasher film Friday the 13th.-Life and career:... (Friday the 13th & Part II) Connie Hogan Marilyn Poucher (Friday the 13th Part III) Paula Shaw Paula Shaw Paula Shaw is an American actress. She has portrayed characters in numerous films and on television . She is perhaps most well known who for portraying the character of Mrs. Pamela Voorhees in the Freddy vs. Jason movie... (Freddy vs. Jason) Nana Visitor Nana Visitor Nana Visitor , born Nana Tucker, is an American actress, best known for playing Kira Nerys in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Jean Ritter in the television series Wildfire.-Early life:... (Friday the 13th (2009)) |
| Signature Weapon: | Bowie knife Bowie knife A Bowie knife is a pattern of fixed-blade fighting knife first popularized by Colonel James "Jim" Bowie in the early 19th Century. Since the first incarnation was created by James Black, the Bowie knife has come to incorporate several recognizable and characteristic design features, although its... |
Pamela Sue Voorhees is a fictional character in the Friday the 13th films, and the antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of the original Friday the 13th film. She is a former camp cook and the mother of Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. He first appeared in Friday the 13th , as the son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S...
, 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
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a 1984 slasher film. It is the fourth film in the Friday the 13th film series. Though it was billed as "The Final Chapter," there have been many further sequels in the franchise. The popularity and financial success of the film, which grossed over $32 million,...
.
The character was portrayed by Betsy Palmer
Betsy Palmer
Betsy Palmer is an American actress, best known as a regular panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret, and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the notorious slasher film Friday the 13th.-Life and career:...
in the first two films. During the character's brief appearance in Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu. The film is a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises...
, she was played by Paula Shaw
Paula Shaw
Paula Shaw is an American actress. She has portrayed characters in numerous films and on television . She is perhaps most well known who for portraying the character of Mrs. Pamela Voorhees in the Freddy vs. Jason movie...
. 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
Nana Visitor
Nana Visitor , born Nana Tucker, is an American actress, best known for playing Kira Nerys in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Jean Ritter in the television series Wildfire.-Early life:...
played Pamela Voorhees in the 2009 reimagining of Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
.
Films
Pamela Voorhees was born in 1930 (revealed in Friday the 13th: The Final ChapterFriday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a 1984 slasher film. It is the fourth film in the Friday the 13th film series. Though it was billed as "The Final Chapter," there have been many further sequels in the franchise. The popularity and financial success of the film, which grossed over $32 million,...
). At age 15, Pamela became pregnant by Elias Voorhees, and on June 13, 1946, at age 16, she gave birth to a hydrocephalic
Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus , also known as "water in the brain," is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain. This may cause increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and progressive enlargement of the head,...
boy she named Jason, as shown in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a 1993 slasher film, the ninth—and, as the title suggests, intended final—installment in the Friday the 13th film series and the first sequel to be distributed by New Line Cinema....
. 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
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
, and having sex
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
. 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
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...
.
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.
Although Pamela does not share her son's immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
, she does reappear in later films. The character is seen again in the climax
Climax (narrative)
The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
of Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Steve Miner, who also directed its sequel, Friday the 13th Part III and several other popular horror films. A sequel to Friday the 13th , it is the second film in the Friday the 13th film series. It was a moderate box-office hit, opening on...
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
Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu. The film is a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises...
(played this time by Paula Shaw
Paula Shaw
Paula Shaw is an American actress. She has portrayed characters in numerous films and on television . She is perhaps most well known who for portraying the character of Mrs. Pamela Voorhees in the Freddy vs. Jason movie...
), seen in Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
commanding her son to kill the children of Elm Street; however, it turns out that it is actually Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a fictional, horrifying character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams,...
masquerading as Pamela in order to manipulate Jason for his own needs. Pamela appears very briefly in the more recent Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
reboot
Reboot (continuity)
The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas...
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
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is the seventh installment in the original Friday the 13th series, released in 1988. It also marked the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason Voorhees.-Plot:...
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. Reportedly, the character was to make another appearance for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is a 1993 slasher film, the ninth—and, as the title suggests, intended final—installment in the Friday the 13th film series and the first sequel to be distributed by New Line Cinema....
in a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Jason X
Jason X
Jason X is a 2002 science fiction horror slasher film directed by James Isaac. It is the tenth in the Friday the 13th film series and stars Kane Hodder as the undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees, the film made $16,951,798 worldwide with a budget of $14 million...
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.
Literature
Eric Morse
Eric Morse is the pen name for author and multi-medium artist William Pattison.Under that name, Pattison wrote the Friday The 13th Young Adult Book Series for Berkley Books, published 1993 through 1994. These books include Mother’s Day, Jason’s Curse, The Carnival, and Road Trip. He is the...
'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
Demonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
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.
In the non-canononical Jason vs. Leatherface
Leatherface
Leatherface is the main antagonist in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror-film series and its spin-offs. He wears masks made of human skin and engages in murder and cannibalism alongside his inbred family. He is considered by many to be one of the first major slasher film villains alongside Michael...
comic miniseries by Topps Comics
Topps Comics
Topps Comics is a division of the American trading card publisher and gum/candy distributor the Topps Company, Inc. that published comic books from 1993–1998, beginning its existence during a short comics-industry boom that attracted many investors and new companies...
, 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. 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.
The comic one-shot Jason X Special by Avatar Press
Avatar Press
Avatar Press is an independent American publisher of comic books, founded in 1996 by William A. Christensen, and based in Rantoul, Illinois.Avatar initially published only mini-series; however, they have since begun to branch out...
features Pamela coming back from the dead by possessing a swarm of nano ants
Nanorobotics
Nanorobotics is the emerging technology field of creating machines or robots whose components are at or close to the scale of a nanometer . More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots, with devices ranging in size from...
. 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
Black Flame
Black Flame was an imprint of BL Publishing, the publishing arm of Games Workshop and a sister imprint to the Black Library and Solaris Books. Black Flame was devoted to publishing cult fiction in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror...
, 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
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
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
Wildstorm
WildStorm Productions, or simply WildStorm, published American comic books. Originally an independent company established by Jim Lee and further expanded upon in subsequent years by other creators, WildStorm became a publishing imprint of DC Comics in 1999...
; 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
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash is a six-issue comic book limited series that was released in November 2007 and ran until March 2008. It was published by Wildstorm, Dynamite Entertainment, and DC Comics. Based on the original Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash film treatment by Jeff Katz, the story serves as a...
, by Wildstorm and Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...
, 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.Other media
Pamela also appears in the Friday the 13th video game for the NESNintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
. Her decapitated head is a mini-boss
Boss (video games)
A boss is an enemy-based challenge which is found in video games. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight...
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
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
), then her sweater
Sweater
A sweater, jumper, pullover, sweatshirt, jersey or guernsey is a garment intended to cover the torso and arms. It is often worn over a shirt, blouse, T-shirt, or other top, but may also be worn alone as a top...
, and finally the pitchfork
Pitchfork
A pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thin, widely separated pointed tines used to lift and pitch loose material, such as hay, leaves, grapes, dung or other agricultural materials. Pitchforks typically have two or three tines...
.
Action figures of Pamela have been released by both Sideshow Collectibles and NECA
National Entertainment Collectibles Association
The National Entertainment Collectibles Association or NECA is an American manufacturer of collectibles typically licensed from films, video-games, sports, music, and television based in New Jersey...
.
An insane character in the Dark Brotherhood questline of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
keeps the severed head of his mother, along with victims, in his living quarters, as a reference to Pamela.
External links
- Interview with Betsy Palmer on the podcast The Future and YouThe Future And YouThe Future and You is a podcast hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb and teamed with Jim Baen's Universe Magazine...
(anecdotes about working on Friday the Thirteenth and the story of how she got her first acting job.)