Jason on the Lam

    Okay, so the change in Jason's look in each FRIDAY THE 13TH film has always bothered me, particularly the transition from PART 2 to PART 3. The second sequel is supposed to take place immediately after 2 ends, as Ginny is wheeled away in an ambulance in the very last scene of that first sequel. I recently watched PART 2 again on blu-ray, and I noticed something I'd never noticed before. Right before the opening credits of PART 3, we see Jason still lying on the floor of his lair, pulling out the machete Ginny struck him with. Jason is still dressed in the plaid shirt and overalls he sported in PART 2, right?

     But then after the funky opening credits, we see Jason immediately creeping the general store. But what I had never realized watching the film a thousand times before on dreary VHS was that Jason is standing by the clothesline behind the general store right after the opening credits of 3 still in his outfit from PART 2- except he's now bald again.

      I had always assumed he was already wearing the green jacket and khaki pants, but he was obviously at the general store to get a change of clothes, as we see him standing at the clothes line. Was Jason eluding the authorities by changing clothes? Is that why he shaved his head? Would Jason even have the mental capacity to know to run from the law? This all sort of blew my mind as it was so obvious to me suddenly. I've literally watched this movie a million and one times and never did I once think of this.

     Now remember in PART 2, Ginny had never actually seen Jason until the very end when she and Paul pull the bag back to see his face. WE the audience never see his face, until he jumps through the window and grabs Ginny back at the camp. When we finally do see Jason, he's sporting a rather shocking head of long, red hair. Now when Jason drowns as a child in the original, we see him bald. So is the hairy Jason who bursts through that window just a figment of Ginny's imagination? He would have to be, as we plainly see Jason at the beginning of PART 3 still back in his lair in the woods pulling the machete out of him. Or is it though?

     The ending of the first two FRIDAY THE 13TH sequels both have a dreamlike, ambiguous feel to them, much like the ending of the original. Did Jason really jump out of the lake at the end of the first movie and drag Alice down into Camp Crystal Lake, or was it all just a dream? Did Jason really crash through that window and grab Ginny at the end of PART 2? Where is Paul when they whisk Ginny away- did he become a victim of Jason? We see Paul leave Jason's shack with Ginny, but Ginny is deliriously asking "Where's Paul?" on the stretcher, so it's all somewhat confusing. Was Paul killed in Jason's shack or back at the cabin?  We may never know, kids.