Among the harder to find (and thus, expensive) horror novelizations are the handful of Friday the 13th entries written by Simon Hawke. After producing a traditional release for Jason Lives in 1986, Hawke went on to write adaptations of the first three films, even though the third entry already had a novelization by Michael Avallone.
As they were released at the same time as the syndicated (and unrelated) TV show, I assume these were produced to help cash in on the overall brand while the show was running from 1987-89, because once it got canceled, the novels stopped as well.
As they went out of print and the series became more cherished, the books became harder to find and increasingly pricey. Usually I save the “how to get it” part for near the end, but I'll rip off the band-aid and let you know right off the bat: if you want a physical copy of Jason Lives or any of Hawke's others, be prepared to set aside three figures. Each.
But is it WORTH that much to you? In honor of the film's 40th anniversary, I figured I'd see if there were even enough changes to warrant reading it at all, let alone forking over a sizable chunk of the average weekly paycheck to have it on the shelf.
At a lean 192 pages, it's not surprising that there aren't many significant changes from what we saw on-screen, with most of them coming through the inner monologue of its various characters. That usually translates to “the author made them up,” not “they were in the script and removed,” so it seems that what we saw in theaters (OK, for most of us, on VHS or DVD) was more or less what writer/director Tom McLoughlin scripted in the first place.
I sincerely doubt a recap is necessary, but just in case: this is the one where Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews, the third actor to take the role in as many films) and a lightning bolt inadvertently resurrect Jason from his grave. Tommy's attempts to warn the town sheriff (David Kagen) fall on deaf ears, and he is run out of town.
Meanwhile, Jason does his thing as he makes his way back to Camp Crystal Lake, which has just been opened (it's the only entry in the series where we see kids actually camping there). Eventually, Tommy teams up with the sheriff's rebellious daughter Megan (Jennifer Cooke) and arrives at the camp with a plan to send Jason back into the lake where he supposedly died in the first place. With five more entries in this timeline, Tommy wasn't as successful as he thought.
But per the script and subsequent novel, perhaps he was? The biggest change is the one most Friday fans know: a scene with Jason's father. Elias Voorhees. (The book doesn't actually identify him with that name, but it's since been canonized.) After Tommy sends Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake, Elias appears at the cemetery.
He visits the graves of his son and his wife Pamela, only to quickly realize through some sixth sense that it's a different corpse in his son's coffin (it's Tommy's ill-fated friend Allen). He does a typical “Now I am ANGRY!” kind of turn to the camera, and then we cut to the lake, where Jason's face appears at the surface of the water… only to reveal it's just his mask, floating away as its owner presumably remains dead at the bottom.
As the movie clearly establishes Jason's inevitable return by showing his eyes opening, McLoughlin's original idea seems to suggest Elias will take over in any future entries, rather than a zombie Jason.
This excised subplot helps explain a minor continuity issue (in this franchise's otherwise tight, well-constructed narrative, I know) regarding Jason's cremation. Per the previous year's New Beginning, Jason was cremated after being killed in Final Chapter, but here his body is buried in a marked grave.
Honestly, the timeline works better if you assume McLoughlin ignored Part V and picked up directly from the fourth entry. The novel explains that Elias stopped Jason's cremation, paid everyone off, and demanded a burial next to Pamela instead. Since the grave has a tombstone, it's unclear why no one noticed over the years, but hey, at least it's something.
Hawke also has a bit of an explanation for why Tommy was let out at all, considering the fifth film ended with him seemingly ready to don the hockey mask himself: a nurse came in and saw him wearing it, talked him down, and worked closely with him for the next few years to get him back to “normal.”
Back to the “Jason’s Dad” stuff, his scene also includes Martin the caretaker, which relates to the other major change from its on-screen counterpart: Martin survives this version. In the movie, he stumbles upon a pair of late night yuppie lovers and is stabbed in the throat with his own broken bottle, which alerts the couple to take off, only for them to be impaled moments later.
This entire sequence (and those two characters in their entirety) does not even appear in the book, so I assume they were added in to give the middle act another couple of kills, with Martin tossed in for good measure if they already decided not to use the original ending (it was never shot, per McLoughlin). It's the rare instance of the theatrical cut of a Friday the 13th movie being the gorier option.
Another thing the book lacks is much of the movie's humor and horror references. Those seem to be later additions as well. There's a draft of the script online that is clearly the one Hawke was working from, as even the way the author describes things is taken directly from McLoughlin's written action (like referring to the RV as a “fallen metal beast”).
Many of the movie's jokes aren't in the draft. Cort's silly story about “Indians” helping their fathers hide their affairs by moving the rocks placed to help them find their way, the one kid asking “So, what DID you want to be when you grew up?”, a very young camper reading “No Exit”… these gags are a big part of why this entry sticks out as above average in the fun department, but they're all absent here.
That was actually the biggest surprise for me; I always assumed McLoughlin set out to give this entry a more comedic vibe right from the start, but his older script and this subsequent novelization, while not without some humor, play it fairly straight.
Most of the other notable moments come from inner monologue, including Jason's. The most fun is the idea that he actually WANTS to die, and he's angry at Tommy for ruining his much-desired slumber. When he's dispatched, Jason's thoughts explain, “The cool waters of the lake seemed soothing as they quenched the fires of his life. His last conscious thought was, “Maybe now they'll let me rest.” (Way to ruin it for the poor dude, New Blood team!)
We also get to hear a little about his childhood, how he never spoke (but was physically able to), how he killed a bee by closing his hand around it when he was a toddler, and how the kids in his classes went from bullying him to not interacting with him at all, fearing him instead. There's even a suggestion of supernatural powers, with Jason recalling a time when a bully punched him in the face, and he didn't retaliate. However, a few days later, the bully stuck that same hand inside a garbage disposal and couldn't explain why.
As this is a horror novelization from the 1980s, some of the inner monologue is pretty crass, with both Deputy Cologne AND Sheriff Garris (Megan's own father) pausing to note her developing body more than once. Cologne even daydreams about catching her speeding or something and promising not to tell her dad about it if she services him in return. More than just “kind of” icky, but unfortunately nothing particularly unusual for the era, either.
We're also told in one of these passages that Garris bought her such a flashy car so it would be easier for him and his men to spot her and keep a close watch (read: control) on her as often as possible. On-screen, Kagen’s performance makes Garris kind of likable in a JK Simmons-y way, but here the character comes off as much more of a creep.
On that note, I was disappointed that even with all his inner monologue, Garris never admits Tommy was right. Jason Lives is one of my favorite entries in the series (after parts 4 and 2), but I've always felt I might like it even more if Garris ever acknowledged to Tommy that he shouldn't have doubted him.
Garris briefly considers the possibility that he was wrong, and knows it's not Tommy doing it because he's still locked up as far as he knows (it's a somewhat ironic note, because at that point Tommy is NOT locked up), but that's it. Once he comes face to face with Jason, he just mostly panics and wonders why his bullets don't seem to be helping.
Oh, and if you've ever watched the movie and wanted to know more about how to play the Jason card game that Sissy is trying to teach Paula, don't look here: they play Clue instead.
Long story short, it's not exactly an essential read, and the lack of humor leaves you with a story that is kind of low on personality. Even the film's faster-than-average pace (it's tied with Part 2 as the series' shortest entry) doesn't quite come across, thanks to the inner monologues spacing out the action bits.
Add in the exorbitant cost, and you have a novelization that is really only worth it for the bragging rights among other fans… and if they’ve already read it, they likely won’t be that impressed anyway.
