Pamela Voorhees
Known aliases:	Mrs. Voorhees
Location:	Crystal Lake, New Jersey
Known relatives:	Elias Voorhees (husband) Jason Voorhees (son) Jennifer Voorhees (daughter)
Year of birth:	1930
Year of death:	1980
Signature weapon:	Hunting knife
First appearance:	Friday the 13th
Portrayed by:	Betsy Palmer

Pamela Voorhees (also known as "Mrs. Voorhees") was the mother of the main antagonist Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise.

History

Pamela Sue Voorhees was born in 1 January, 1930. At age 18, Pamela became pregnant by Elias Voorhees, and on Friday, June 13, 1948, at age 18, she gave birth to a hydrocephalic boy she named Jason, as shown. Because of his deformity and her antisocial personality, Pamela never sent Jason to school and was the only one who knew him as seen in Friday the 13th Part 2. Pamela got a job as a cook at Camp Crystal Lake. During her working hours, she would bring Jason to camp, presumably because she had no one to watch him while she worked. Jason tried to befriend the other children and engage in camp activities, but the children viewed him as a freak because of his deformity. They also pushed him into the water and made fun of him due to his inability to swim.

On a fateful day in 1957, Jason had enough of the teasing and ridiculing that the children gave him. He sneaked out of his cabin late at night to prove he could swim and waded into the water. The counselors weren't watching him, as they were at a party in one of the adult cabins, drinking, smoking dope, and having sex. Jason Voorhees was never recovered from the lake and presumably drowned.

After her son's death, Pamela began hearing voices telling her to kill. In 1958, a year after Jason's death, Pamela brutally murdered two counselors whom she felt were responsible for her young son's death. Camp Crystal Lake was closed after the murders and was given the nickname "Camp Blood" by local residents. When the owner tried to re-open the camp again in 1962, Pamela returned, poisoned the water, and set several fires. The camp was shut down once again and did not re-open until 1979. Pamela lived in a house which bordered the Camp Crystal Lake property; presumably this allowed her to keep watch on the camp. When the camp reopened, Pamela attacked all of the workers.

The last one, Alice Hardy, discovered the murdered victims and later met Pamela. Pamela told Alice about Jason's death, during which she flew into a terrifying rage and attacked Alice and chased her around the camp, saying "Kill her, mommy," mimicking Jason's voice. During the final attack, Alice decapitated Pamela with a machete that Pamela attempted to kill her with.

Pamela Voorhees was initially laid to rest in a run down cemetery. When Jason was killed by Tommy Jarvis a few years later, it's presumed that she was relocated to Eternal Peace Cemetery along with her son.

Behind the scenes

The character is seen again in the climax of Friday the 13th Part 2, in which Betsy Palmer reprises her role when Jason sees his mother talking to him while in reality it is one of Jason's potential victims trying to fool him. She is seen again in Friday the 13th Part 3 when lone survivor, Chris Higgins, has a nightmare that ends with Pamela's corpse, wearing her blue sweater with head attached, reaching up from the lake to pull her underwater. She is seen again in Freddy vs. Jason seen in Hell commanding her son to kill the children of Elm Street; however, it turns out that it is actually Freddy Krueger masquerading as Pamela in order to manipulate Jason for his own needs.

Appearances

• Friday the 13th
• Friday the 13th: Part II (hallucination only)
• Friday the 13th: Part III (nightmare only)
• Freddy vs. Jason (a guise of Freddy Krueger)