Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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A shot is shown of Jason’s hockey mask, and the camera pushes into the left eye of
the mask, where an image appears of a girl standing on a dock, undressing to go into
the water. She turns, and although this appears to be a false eye/camera shot 10 ,
revealed as such because she turns to look at the camera and sees nothing, the use of
eye/camera coding combined with the fact that this shot appeared in the eye of the
hockey mask demonstrates this sequence as inhabiting Jason’s perspective. We see
the girl undress fully in long shot from an eye/camera framed through branches on
the edge of the forest and then dive in. Even though we see the girl’s eye/camera
from the water, looking back at the dock, the camera stays close to Jason as he
chases her, and goes back to his eye/camera once he has killed her and pinned her to
a tree. We see through his eye/camera as she lifts her head and says, “I should have
been watching them. Not drinking. Not meeting a boy at the lake.” In the same
shot, the girl transforms to a dead boy, who continues talking, “I deserve to be
punished.” Then the boy turns into a different girl saying, “We all deserve to be
punished.” Though this girl did not actually transform, this is meant to indicate
Jason’s perspective, and explain his justification for murder, without him speaking.
Like the opening credits sequence of Jason X, this becomes a representation of
Jason’s cognitive thought as opposed to direct vision. While more extensive than the
eye/camera, this, along with the early narrative establishment of Freddy’s control
over Jason, demonstrates how Freddy vs. Jason creates some identification and
sympathy with Jason. 11
10 This type of shot I will call a “mimic” eye/camera shot, a concept I will explore in more detail later
in this chapter.
11 Jason is not the only character that the eye/camera inhabits. There are multiple eye/camera shots
from other characters, primarily the central group of girls: Lori, Kia and Gibb. Most of these consist
of walking, searching and exploring, such as Lori in her dream in the police station, walking through