Pamela Voorhees

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

In the original film, Pamela is introduced as the mother of Jason Voorhees, a boy who supposedly drowned in 1957 at Camp Crystal Lake due to the negligence of the staff, while Pamela was working there as a cook. After she has exacted revenge on those she blamed for her son's death, the camp is closed. Twenty-two years later, its new owner and a group of counselors attempt to re-open it. To ensure that the camp remains closed so no other children will ever suffer Jason's fate, the vengeful and psychotic Pamela stalks and kills them one by one but is ultimately decapitated by the sole survivor of her killing spree, Alice Hardy. After Jason is revealed to still be alive, he avenges his mother and later murders anyone who sets foot into Camp Crystal Lake and the surrounding woods area, guided by Pamela's spirit, which he hallucinates inside his head as urging him to kill. Pamela (whose maiden name is never revealed) was born in 1930 (as revealed in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter). At age 15, Pamela became pregnant by a man named Elias Voorhees. On June 13, 1946, at age 16, she gave birth to a hydrocephalic boy and she named him Jason (as shown in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday). Because of his condition, Pamela never sent him to school, and was extremely overprotective of him. Pamela later got a job as a cook at Camp Crystal Lake through her acquaintances David and Louise Christy. On a fateful day in 1957, Jason, infuriated by the constant teasing and harassment from other children, snuck out of his cabin late at night to prove that he could swim. No counselors were watching him, as they were partying and having sex in one of the adult cabins. Jason was presumed dead by drowning, but his body was never found in the lake. After Jason's death, Pamela began to hear auditory hallucinations of her son telling her to kill those responsible for his demise. In 1958, a year after Jason's death, Pamela brutally murdered two counselors, Barry and Claudette, in cold blood, blaming them for allowing her son to drown. Camp Crystal Lake was closed after the murders and nicknamed "Camp Blood" by local residents. When the owners tried to re-open the camp in 1962, Pamela returned, poisoned the water, and set several fires, causing the camp to be closed once more. At the time of these incidents, Pamela lived in a house that bordered Camp Crystal Lake, which allowed her to observe that the camp remained unattended.

In Their Own Story

In 1978, Steven "Steve" Christy inherited the property from his parents. Steve hired seven young counselors: Annie Phillips, Alice Hardy, Bill Brown, Ned Rubenstein, Marcie Stanler, Jack Burrell, and Brenda Jones. On June 13, 1979, Steve had the counselors making final preparations on the property for its grand reopening. Pamela, who does not want the camp re-opened for fear of another tragic accident, is enraged and goes on a savage killing spree: she slashes Annie's throat in the woods with her bowie knife, lures Ned inside a cabin to slit his throat, pierces Jack's throat with an arrow from underneath the bed, slams a felling axe into Marcie's face inside the bathroom stalls, and brutally attacks Brenda at the archery range. Returning to the camp after a rain squall hit, Steve recognized Pamela and greeted her, surprised at seeing her so far out in the woods. Before Steve could make any other remarks, she stabbed him in the stomach. Bill investigates the generator which has been turned off, and Pamela slits his throat before pinning his body with arrows to the shed door. With Alice as the last remaining counselor, she finds Bill's body and barricades herself in the main cabin. After terrorizing Alice by throwing Brenda's body into one of the windows, she drives her jeep towards the cabin to lure Alice out, thinking that Steve has returned. Outside, she greets the frightened Alice in a friendly manner and cites herself as a friend of Steve Christy. When she enters inside the cabin with Alice, she sees Brenda's body and begins to discuss about Jason's drowning in which she blames the counselors for not paying attention to his incident. As she begins to have visions of Jason's drowning, she turns violent and draws her bowie knife to attack Alice, but the surviving counselor strikes her with a fireplace poker. When Alice flees into the gun storage, Pamela violently slaps her before Alice stuns her by smacking the butt of a rifle into her face. As Pamela searches around the camp saying in Jason's voice "kill her, mommy!", she finds Alice hiding inside the pantry of the mess hall. When Pamela breaks parts of the door and tries to attack with a machete, Alice renders her unconscious with a frying pan. When she later awakes, she finds Alice at the shore and attacks her once again. During the struggle, Alice gains the upper hand. Pamela's last look is one of horror as Alice attacks Pamela with her own machete, which decapitates her.

Reader's Guide

Although Pamela does not share her son's later immortality, she does reappear in later films, as a corpse or a hallucination in Jason's mind urging him to kill. In Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Pamela's head is used by the revealed-to-be-alive Jason to scare Alice by placing it in her fridge, before killing her to avenge his mother's death. The head is later seen on a shrine built by Jason in his cabin, which also stores the rest of Pamela's body and those of some of Jason's victims. One of the few survivors of Jason's killing spree, Ginny Field, stumbles upon the cabin and dons Pamela's sweater to trick Jason into thinking she is his mother. When Ginny attempts to calm Jason down, he briefly visualizes his mother (again played by Betsy Palmer) talking to him, but then notices Pamela's head on the shrine and sees through the deception. Despite this, Ginny is ultimately able to escape from Jason and injure him with his machete. Pamela is seen again in Friday the 13th Part III (1982) when lone survivor Chris Higgins has a nightmare which ends with Pamela's corpse (played by the Second Assistant Director, Marilyn Poucher), with her head attached, reaching up from the lake to pull her underwater. Pamela's grave briefly appears in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), revealing that her body was eventually found in Jason's cabin after he abandoned it, and laid to rest in a run down, roadside cemetery. Pamela's final appearance in the original series is in Freddy vs. Jason (2003), where she is played by Paula Shaw. While in Hell, Jason sees his mother commanding her son to come back to life and kill the children of Elm Street. However, it is quickly revealed that "Pamela" was actually Freddy Krueger in disguise, trying to manipulate Jason for his own ends. Jason is notably furious when the deception is revealed. Pamela (played by Nana Visitor) has a minor presence in the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot. The opening scene shows her chasing a young girl, presumably Alice, at the end of her Camp Crystal Lake killing spree, who ultimately decapitates Pamela with her own machete. The event is witnessed by a young Jason, who later examines his mother's corpse and finds a locket containing pictures of him and a younger Pamela, before hearing her voice commanding him to "kill for Mother." As an adult, Jason kidnaps one of his potential victims, Whitney Miller, who resembles the young Pamela seen in the picture, setting the film's events into motion.

Did You Know?

• Pamela was born in 1930, as revealed in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
• She gave birth to Jason on June 13, 1946, at age 16, as shown in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
• In 1958, a year after Jason's death, Pamela murdered two counselors named Barry and Claudette.
• In Friday the 13th Part 2, Ginny Field dons Pamela's sweater to trick Jason into thinking she is his mother.
• In Freddy vs. Jason (2003), the character of Pamela is revealed to be Freddy Krueger in disguise.