By JOEL HARLEY
After Freddy met Jason and before they both succumbed to reboots, the two icons of slasher cinema starred in a series of spin-off novels from Black Fire Press. Between 2005 and 2006, fourteen (!) books were released under the publisher’s respective Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason X imprints.
Now out of print and fetching exorbitant prices on eBay and with second-hand booksellers, these novels live on in Internet archival projects, fan-made audiobooks and in the hands of collectors and fortunate fans. It’s appropriate, then, that among the first of these books – which have taken on a totemic, holy grail-esque status to so many – should be all about the religious experience. Enter FRIDAY THE 13TH: CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PSYCHOPATH.
“The Hand of Judgement, the Heavenly Vessel, will soon be resurrected. And they will know that they have sinned.” – Father Long, CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PSYCHOPATH.
Written by Scott Phillips and published in 2005 (the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street: Suffer The Children by David Bishop and Jason X: The Experiment), this ambitious take on the Friday the 13th mythos sends Jason where he’s never been before – to Church.
Dredged from his watery grave by a religious cult, Jason Voorhees is shipped off to a strip mall church and crucified – and that’s only the beginning of Father Eric Long’s plans for his so-called Heavenly Vessel.
WWJD? The answer, unsurprisingly, is murder, and a lot of it. Caught in the middle of all of this is recent convert Kelly Mills. Initially in it for her crush on Father Long, Kelly begins to have second thoughts once she meets the water-bloated, decaying corpse of a serial killer. But by then, it’s too late.
While it might have been fun to see Jason wreak a bit of havoc in Long’s strip mall (about the only missed opportunity in the book), the action quickly relocates to familiar territory. Traveling cross-country to their sainted Jason’s (re)birthplace, it’s at Camp Crystal Lake where Long plans to resurrect the killer, setting into motion a chain of events that will make the Waco massacre look like a family picnic by comparison.
As the shit hits the fan (or the machete hits the face, as it were), Kelly and 17-year-old follower Meredith Host engage in a desperate fight for survival – not just against Jason but also against Father Long’s increasingly deranged flock and his gross second in command, ex-military man Rickles (whose abuse of teenage Meredith leaves the wrong kind of taste in the mouth for a Friday the 13th story).
“It was supposed to be a walk in the park – a bunch of yuppie assholes who fancied themselves as badass drug dealers.”
Matters are further complicated as a military team tasked with taking down Jason Voorhees once and for all descends upon the camp. What seemed easy enough in the first five minutes of Jason Goes to Hell becomes a nigh-impossible undertaking as the commandos clash with Long’s militia. Meanwhile, Jason stomps about the camp, indiscriminately carving up hardmen and hillbillies alike, unconcerned with the what or the why of it all.
Fighting to survive on this team is Operative Walter Hobb, disgraced and seriously injured (by demented yuppies, no less) in a previous mission. The book is all the more interesting for these odd turns of phrase and strange digressions, leading to more uses of the word “yuppie” than has likely ever been published in a horror book before (29!) — much less one starring slasher icon Jason Voorhees.
“Kelly followed Operator Hobb, trying not to stare at his ass in an attempt to figure out what it looked like beneath his unflattering black fatigues.”
From devoted husband Hobb to his aggressive colleague Samantha Noon to the various weird and unsettling members of Long’s congregation, the characters are a fairly diverse bunch, While the combination of soldiers, cultists and yuppies makes a refreshing change from the horny camp counselors and sexed-up teens who tend to populate the movies, Phillips gets that sex is a crucial ingredient in any self-respecting Friday the 13th sequel. And so, everyone is absolutely horny here, pausing to leer at an ass, pop a boner or strip naked, no matter how inopportune the timing might be. Horny, yes, but there’s an internal logic to these people and those they lust after that fits the world of Friday the 13th perfectly.
The sex and the violence go harder than any of the films were ever able to, with an opening flashback depicting one buck-naked teen on the run from Jason with a condom still hanging from his now-flaccid member. While there’s little variety to Jason’s rampage (mostly machete work), the sheer amount of military hardware leaves Crystal Lake a bloody crater by the end, regardless – think Jason goes to Jonestown.
“Jason was bearing down on him rapidly. He’s a torpedo in a hockey mask, Hobb thought.”
Wisely leaving Jason as a force of nature in the background, Phillips has great fun with his battle between religious fundamentalists and comically over-armed military squaddies. It adds a new dimension to the franchise in a way that the movies could never have.
As for where and when CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PSYCHOPATH fits chronologically, the book’s photo cover, featuring Jason circa Jason X, would put it somewhere between his going to Hell and going to space. There’s even a nifty Nightmare on Elm Street callback (“that Krueger guy with the knives on his fingers”), referencing their shared universe. Whether Jason had met Freddy at this point is ultimately left unclear.
Phillips could have stuck to the established formula of Jason hacking up camp counselors and horny teens at Crystal Lake, and few would have complained or expected anything different, so it’s admirable that Phillips went above and beyond with CHURCH OF THE DIVINE PSYCHOPATH, delivering one of the franchise’s most vibrant and exciting entries to date.
Amen.
