‘Evil Dead’s Weirdest Mystery Ties To An Iconic Slasher You'd Never Suspect
The Evil Dead (1981) not only changed the landscape of horror forever but also kickstarted some of the most interesting universes ever thanks to things like the Necronomicon. Reading from a book of the dead that unleashes evil forces is just the start, and for decades, its kept viewers coming back for more.
But as other horror franchises grew, it became more and more common for people to want to see them crossover, like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. But Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) teased something even more interesting by alluding to the fact that Jason might've been connected to the Evil Dead series.
What Is the Easter Egg in ‘Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday’?
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday takes a wildly supernatural direction where Jason's body is killed, but through a demonic worm, his spirit transfers over to a man who is compelled to eat Jason's heart. From there, the film sees Jason played by various hosts who violently kill innocent victims.
Eventually, we find ourselves at the Voorhees house, and in the basement is a table that has the Necronomicon from Evil Dead II (1987) and the Kandarian Dagger, both key elements in the lore of Evil Dead. Director Adam Marcus was a huge fan of the franchise and wanted to tie the two together, but due to rights issues, all we got was a book and a dagger.
Nevertheless, this has become an incredibly unique Easter egg that is just as mysterious, albeit more overt, as the one where we see Freddy Krueger's glove in the shed in Evil Dead II. But since then, it's raised more questions than answers.
Is Jason Voorhees Really a Deadite?
The original intention of the Easter egg in Jason Goes to Hell was that Pamela Voorhees used the Necronomicon to give Jason his supernatural abilities. As an undead revenant, he was super strong and durable, with his deaths often seeming more like dormant states than anything else.
But due to rights issues, this lore was never expanded on beyond what we saw in the film. With the intention being that Jason was and still is a Deadite, the only real closure we got was in a comic titled Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash by James Kuhoric, Jeff Katz, and Jason Craig.
According to this canon, it helps explain Jason's history and connection to the Necronomicon. But since this was only in the comic, the movies never looked into this further. As Evil Dead went its own way and Jason X (2001) was technically the last film in that main series, there was no reason to dig up the past.
‘Jason Goes to Hell’s Easter Egg Is Still a Great Horror Mystery
Jason Voorhees being a Deadite has become something that works only if you want it to when watching the movies. For some, the series ended when Friday the 13th stopped being added to the titles, and for others, it didn't, but in the end, Jason's status as a Deadite relies entirely on the fan watching.
Whether a true answer comes to light or not, the one thing that's for certain is that this is a matter of a fan loving two franchises that created one of horror's biggest mysteries. But rather than a mystery for the truth, it's more like a mystery over how serious we should take this Easter egg so many decades later.
We've seen many mysteries in horror unfold, from whether or not characters are really dead to if certain decisions were made with the right intentions or not. But it's rare to see one that leaves a semi-ambiguous answer on whether one franchise is intrinsically tied to another. Depending on that answer, it could also change horror as we know it.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday isn't a beloved entry by any stretch. In fact, it's one of the most avoided ones in its 11-film run. But if it had been a runaway hit, that might've led to both worlds colliding. Decades later, all we can do is look back and think about how one brief scene had the potential to change two of horror's best franchises in the most shocking way possible.
