Last May, a new company called Horror Inc. announced the launch of the “Jason Universe,” an initiative aimed at injecting fresh life into the Friday the 13th franchise. Though the company has a hand in Crystal Lake, the upcoming Peacock prequel series, its first big launch is Sweet Revenge, a short film bringing everyone’s favorite hockey-masked maniac back to slay.
After teasing the short at San Diego Comic-Con (and reassuring fans a feature film is most definitely on the “to-do” list), Horror Inc. has premiered it online. io9 got a chance to talk to Sweet Revenge writer-director Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn, Silent Night Deadly Night) and star Ally Ioannides (Into the Badlands) about the short. We do get into spoilers, so watch it before you read on!
Cheryl Eddy, io9: Sweet Revenge is celebrating the 45th anniversary of the franchise and is bringing the new Jason Universe initiative to the forefront in a big way. Did you get many instructions, notes, or things to do or not to do? What was the process like?
Mike P. Nelson: I think that’s what was so exciting about working with Sheri [Conn] and Robert [Barsamian] and Robbie [Barsamian]; they were really open to hearing a new take. And sure, there’s always little things, especially with an IP is as big as this, we want to make sure and be true to certain things. But they were open to a new take and to a little bit of a new twist. As long as we can bring back Jason as ferocious as ever, doing Jason things, that was the big thing.
And then of course it was cool that it was just as important to them as it was me to actually, like, for 13 minutes, try to tell an interesting story and not just, “Let’s just have Jason kill as many people as possible.” I’m not going to say that people wouldn’t like that, but I just have a feeling it would just get a little tiresome after a while. And my motto is always: it’s the heart. Heart is what makes horror great. That was an important aspect: telling a story that had some heart and introducing a character that people fall in love with and get to see a transformation.
io9: If you pay close attention early on, you’ll see some clues that this is not a typical Friday the 13th story. We have Eve being called a “force of nature” who “didn’t run away.” “Some people find the one, sometimes the one finds you.” Eve takes a bite of an apple. Knowing that the film would be so short and fans would be watching it more than once, did you pepper in things that people would only pick up on the second time through?
Nelson: A thousand percent, which makes me so happy you literally said all the right moments. I’m just like, “I hope people pick up on all these little things that I think are important to her in the story.” You said them all and that makes me very happy.
io9: Eve is underwater for a long time before she pops back up. Are we to assume that she dies in Crystal Lake and then is reborn with Jason-like powers?
Nelson: To a certain extent, yes. When I came up with this concept, the idea was that I didn’t care to see how Jason [underwent] his transformation. I love that we still keep that shrouded in mystery. There’s always conspiracies on what happened to him. Is he alive? Is he dead? Did he really drown? Did he not drown? And I think all that’s great. Now, from my perspective, that’s how I see Jason: is that he did drown, and he came back because there’s nothing more powerful emotionally than a story about coming back for revenge.
And to me, it’s a very similar story with Eve. And Eve allowed me to explore how it might have gone down for Jason. Every character is different, but being able to see what Eve goes through was this fun sort of body horror—not understanding quite what’s going on, why do I feel this way, why do I look this way, and then realizing that there’s something that brought her back. I mean, look, she gets impaled with a machete. She’s not coming back from that unless there’s something else going on. So I think keeping that—yes, there is ambiguity, which again all the Jason movies have, which I think is really important to have. But I also feel like having that wink and a nod to, ‘Did she go through the same thing that Jason did is?” is definitely there. Yeah.
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