Summary

• The masks in the Friday the 13th series changed over time, reflecting the evolution of Jason Voorhees as a slasher killer.
• Each movie in the series featured a different mask, ranging from iconic to disappointing, but Jason's appearance remained one of the most iconic in slasher horror movie history.
• In some movies, the masks showed degradation and deterioration, symbolizing the loss of Jason's humanity and hinting at his demonic presence.

The Jason Voorhees masks changed little by little as the Friday the 13th series wore on, and it was easy to see Jason's humanity slipping away as the masks deteriorated. Friday the 13th began in 1980 when Sean Cunningham directed the first movie in the franchise about a mysterious killer taking out young people at a summer camp called Crystal Lake. However, that first movie wasn't about Jason, it was about his mother, Pamela Voorhees, killing counselors as she continued to grieve the death of her son years before due to camp negligence. However, Jason wasn't dead, and he was the killer from the second movie onward.

One thing that each of the Friday the 13th movies did was alter the mask from movie to movie. What started as a burlap sack turned into the iconic hockey mask. The Jason masks in order showed a change in the slasher killer, from a hulking angry killer into an almost demonic presence who seemed like he would never die. With different actors taking on the role of Jason Voorhees, and even one movie where the killer wasn't even the real Jason, the masks ranged from iconic to disappointing, but every movie saw Jason's appearance remain one of the most iconic in slasher horror movie history.

11 The Copycat Mask

Friday The 13th V: A New Beginning (1985)

Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning is basically the infamous stepchild of the series. This is because Part V does not feature Jason at all, but a copycat killer pretending to be him. As with most imitators, the mask worn by said copycat is a cheap knockoff that fails to deliver the same terror as the genuine article. The mask isn't even the proper color, as it is shaded with blue lines around the edges rather than the blood-like red contours of the original. This may have been a subtle hint as to Jason's real identity, but it's still a pale imitation nonetheless. Luckily, this mask (and killer) only lasted for one movie before the real Jason was back.

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10 The Futuristic Mask

Jason X (2001)

Jason X imagines Jason extending his gory reign of terror to the cosmos in the distant future. The movie saw Jason captured and, because he wouldn't die, his captors froze him. Years later, while aboard a scientific research spaceship, Jason's mangled body falls into a medical station and gets full-body reconstructive surgery, with a metallic mask to give him a more futuristic appearance. The seems ill-fitted, with Jason's corpulent head protruding from the sides. Although it's refreshing to see Jason's face covered in something new, the clunky metallic mask went a little too far from his iconic look.

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9 The Original Burlap Sack

Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981)

Before the iconic hockey mask, the first Jason Voorhees mask in the Friday the 13th franchise was a burlap sack. This was a one-eyed burlap sack that he had at hand when Jason started killing for the first time (at least in the movie franchise). While the mask is pretty terrifying in its own right, it loses points for stealing from the 1976 made-for-TV horror movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which also features a killer adorning a burlap sack for a mask. Luckily, Jason soon saw the hockey mask and took it for himself, creating the iconic look that followed him in every other movie in the Friday the 13th franchise.

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8 The Stretched & Tattered Mask

Jason Goes To Hell (1993)

In Jason Goes To Hell, Jason becomes a shape-shifting ghoul who transports from one human body to another. As such, he rarely sports his trademark visage as a hulking maniac in a hockey mask. Finally, at the very end, he actually reverts to his original form, but his iconic mask appears stretched out and badly tattered. Worse, the mask appears to be melted onto Jason's face, as his bloated scalp bulges from all sides in a way that only diminishes his frightful appearance. The idea was for Jason's body to be rotting so badly that it is now bursting out of the costume's seams, but instead, it just looks like his mask was a size too small.

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7 The Generic Mask

Friday The 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

There is nothing particularly wrong with the mask Jason wears in Jason Takes Manhattan; it's just that there isn't anything particularly new or inspiring about it either. The generic hockey mask appears quite similar to the ones worn in the prior three or four franchise entries and is likely one of the reasons why Jason's appearance was so radically altered in the following film, Jason Goes to Hell. The movie wanted to change the format of the franchise by taking Jason out of Crystal Lake and into New York City, but the filmmakers did little to change anything about Jason personally or aesthetically to mirror the change in location.

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6 The Cheesecloth Bag

Friday The 13th (2009)

Although technically a remake, the 2009 version of Friday the 13th plays like the greatest hits from the entire franchise. For example, before Jason finds a hockey mask to wear, he sports a variation of the burlap sack worn in this first appearance in Friday the 13th Part 2. Yet somehow, this tight-swaddled mask appears more menacing than the baggier, one-eyed burlap sack from Jason's film debut. It almost has a dirty cheesecloth appearance with a sash tied across his right eye. It helped add to what many fans feel is the scariest Jason Vorhees ever. Sadly, this was the last time fans saw this Jason as the Friday the 13th sequel never arrived.

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5 The Vintage Mask

Friday The 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986)

One of the more unheralded chapters in the Friday the 13th franchise is the sixth entry, Jason Lives. The film commences in a graveyard, where Jason is reanimated after being stricken with a bolt of lightning. From the moment Jason rises from the grave, he's seen wearing his trusty hockey mask. The assumption is that it's the same mask he wore in The Final Chapter before being killed by Tommy Jarvis, who coincidentally is the one responsible for accidentally resurrecting Jason. The mask comes with a three-pronged strap, multiple breathing holes, and a blood-red upside-down triangle pattern above the nose.

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4 The Brain-Gouged Mask

Friday The 13th VII: The New Blood (1988)

While there isn't a lot to differentiate the mask Jason wears in The New Blood, the cracked facade exposing chunks of brain matter and rows of broken teeth makes Jason appear far more macabre than normal. In what almost appears like a Harvey Dent/Two-Face homage, the lower-left portion of Jason's face and mouth area is completely exposed, revealing a rotten mouth from decades of dental neglect and decomposition. A giant gash in his head can also be seen in profile shots. This was where his mask began to deteriorate to show the deterioration of any humanity that Jason ever had.

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3 The Bloodstained Mask

Friday The 13th IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

The second film in the series in which Jason dons the horrifying hockey mask is Part IV: The Final Chapter, which takes the design of the previous film and tweaks it to be more terrifying. In The Final Chapter, the hockey mask still has the tri-strap and dual bolts on the chin. However, it has curiously replaced the lower red contours with a nasty bloodstained wound atop Jason's head, which is where an axe landed in the previous movie. The gory gouge and the trickle of blood leaking near his left eye make the evil man-child look even more hideous than he already is.

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2 The Dirt & Blood Covered Mask

Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)

To convey the passage of time, Jason's signature hockey mask was given a dirty, dusty, aged, blood-soaked makeover in the big-budget mash-up Freddy Vs. Jason, where longtime slasher icons from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th finally crossed paths. The wear and tear of the new Jason Voorhees mask are adorned with several scratches, faded red coloring, a busted right cheekbone, and two large facial scars on the left side. The result appears less like an anachronistic hockey mask and more like a primitive mask made in ancient cultures. It also made him look like a fighter which was suitable for Jason's showdown with Freddy Krueger.

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1 The Original Mask

Friday The 13th 3D (1982)

The first appearance of the best Jason Voorhees mask was in Friday the 13th Part III (3D), which was the first appearance of the inaugural hockey mask. Granted, it's been altered in subsequent sequels, but without this mask, Jason's iconic look would never have been the same. Jason first found the now-notorious hockey mask after murdering a character named Shelly, who wore it to scare someone. After killing Shelly in a barn, Jason steals the mask, slips it on, and proceeds on a three-decade rampage of abject carnage. It was the original and the mask helped create the icon that Jason Voorhees eventually became.

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