The Original Friday the 13th is on Hulu

Give us a spoiler alert.

GEEZ!

Agreed OP. I loved her acting and she does a great job with the crazy, but the idea she could have pulled off all those killings by herself is laugh-out-loud ridiculous. And what makes it even more stupid is the fight scene with Alice, where she fights pretty much exactly like you would think a woman in her 50s/60s would.

Now now, boys.

Betsy got "starring" billing and was in the film for maybe 10 minutes (and that's being generous). That must have been the easiest paycheck she has ever earned.

True. Major plothole. She looks about 5 feet tall in heels. No way could she kill grown ass men with her tiny lil body.

Bear in mind Friday the 13th was a very low budget, haphazardly conceived cash grab meant to ride the coattails of Halloween from two years earlier. The script is … kind of dumb. Don’t be surprised that it isn’t a masterwork.

I get that part R6. But Betsy Palmer should have had an accomplice, unless she was somehow supernatural. Other than the Mrs. Voorhees reveal, the script is pretty tight

Maybe they can do a reboot where they explain that Jason only almost drowned or maybe she used black magic to bring him back to life and he was the one who helped her kill off the counselors. It always seemed weird to me that, in part 2, they explain how Jason didn't die and was just living in the woods for decades.

I find it amusing that this was probably one of the easiest gigs of Palmer's career and she only did it to buy a new car, but it ended up being the role she was most known for and was able to make bank well into old age by going to conventions.

If you look VERY closely you catch a glimpse of her heading into the cabin just before Ned walks in.

I suppose you could claim she had help from Jason himself, who in Pt. 2 is a fully grown man still out there in the woods. I believe Pt. 2 is supposed to be only several years later.

Hardcore fans correct me if I’m wrong, but a quick google search says that Part 2… “despite being released in 1981, was actually set in 1984.” I assume to give more time for mutant Jason the get older and the camp to realistically decide to reopen after the murders? I think Pt. 1 came out in 1979.

So… basically, Friday the 13th Pt. 2 is almost a science fiction film.

I laughed when they chopped her head off but her arms were still swinging.

I laughed more at the hair on her hands.

I saw Betsy in South Pacific at the Paper Mills in the 70s

Yes, R11, after Part 2 focused on Jason I think many fans just assumed he was helping his mother in Part 1. I know I did.

The problem with the "Jason was helping her" hypothesis is that Alice gets attacked by Jason at the end (or at least hallucinates it) and he's a boy (a really moldy, squishy, stinky boy, but a boy nonetheless).

I mean it could simply be a figment of her imagination based on what Mrs. Voorhees told her about him drowning as a child, but it is there. Also, given as crazy as she was, if she had help wouldn't she have mentioned it/called out to him/etc?

And yes, I'm fully aware that we're debating the logistics of a 1980's cheezy horror film.

R17, I think it was a figment of her imagination. After all, Jason was no longer a child. She dreamed that part.

*SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN PART 2*

Buffering the Jason-was-helping-her hypothesis is that Jason finds and kills Alice at the beginning of Part 2, presumably out of revenge. Given Jason lives in the woods with no technology, it's likely the only way he knew who killed his mother is if he witnessed it. It could have been such a shock for him that he just ran back in the woods and didn't seek revenge right away. Or maybe he wasn't a homicidal maniac yet until he saw his mother beheaded?

And yes, it is hilarious that we're debating the logistics of a 1980 cheesy horror film!

People do the same for inconsistencies in The Golden Girls.

I have no idea why people think these conversations are worth having, personally, but it’s fun for some (no judgment!).

Then someone’s mother, then you’re camp. She got two birds with one stone.

I remember seeing it the first time and being annoyed that there was no way to guess who the killer was until she announced herself.

They should have showed Mrs. Voorhees in that diner in the beginning, when Annie shows up and announces she's going to work at Camp Crystal Lake. She could have looked concerned like all the other patrons, and then left the diner (while Annie and Crazy Ralph are talking outside) and booked it to her jeep and waited for the opportunity to kill her.

People speculated that it was Steve Christy up until he was murdered. He and Mrs. Voorhees drove the same car.

R16 What a retarded assumption. We are supposed to believe that tiny dwarf Betsy did all the killings.

I guess the assumption is she was so crazy, it gave her extra strength (like the child pinned under the wheel of a car and the parent rescues it by lifting the car concept), she was able to kill and move all the bodies to surprise Alice at the end. The fact that a middle age woman was the killer was a great surprise and shock at the end, so I’m willing to suspend my disbelief a bit for the film.

She was a very determined woman

I think Mrs. Vorhees’ character is portrayed as knowing the campsite and surrounding area very, very well. And having been on a mission about revenge for years leading up to that night. I imagine she was capable of all kinds of things having that much time to plan and stalk the abandoned grounds.

According to the trucker who gives Annie a lift in the beginning that the following years after the drowning the closed campsite had strange things going on, “unexplained fires” and one time when they tried to open it again the, “water was bad” (poisoned?) It’s presumed that was all her.

She’s got elbow grease and gumption!

Of course she knew the camp and area well. She worked there as the cook.

After reading the following link, I have definitely come around to the idea that she had an accomplice. This person actually breaks the killings down one by one and how it would have been impossible time-wise for one person to have done them. Also, I forgot about Jason killing Alice at the beginning of Part 2, so the "boy in the lake" must have indeed just been a hallucination brought on by trauma.

Incidentally, why didn't they arrest Alice at the end? Her fingerprints would have been on the machete, and would the police have believed an old woman killed everyone else?

Jason helping her is as good of an explanation as any.

In Pt. 2 Jason has a shrine in his hut with his mother’s decayed, severed head and her trademark sweater. So It’s presumed he was around the night she was beheaded and may have been watching, I assume he took those things. I think he was definitely around and capable during part 1!

I did not know she had been the original camp cook! The things you learn on DL.

She says it when she starts rambling on to Alice.

Ok this is a great thread.

So she was capable of doing most of the murders. Most of the people were stabbed or had their their throat or stabbed in the throat like Kevin Bacon.

There’s 2 murders that seemed difficult.

The guy that was nailed to the door with the arrows.

And throwing the dead girl through the window.

On top of putting a body on the top bunk bed. She’d have had to have been strong to do those things.

R28 No I’m debunking some of that.

She definitely killed Annie. She’s wearing the same flannel shirt she had on that day. She put the sweater on cause it was rainy and cold but she had the same exact shirt on under the sweater.

She didn’t have an accomplice. The script is just not very well written.

It isn’t a true crime case that needs to be solved, like the Zodiac Killer or Kurt-Werner Wichmann in Germany.

R34 Says you!

Mrs. V was a much more interesting killer than Jason. I wish they'd reboot it and bring her back as the main killer and give the role to a woman over 50 who can really sink her teeth into it. Have Jason pop up at the end.

A Ryan Murphy Production starring Jessica Lagne.

[quote]Mrs. V was a much more interesting killer than Jason.

I don't disagree with this, but certain things would need to be explained to make her being the killer logical.