‘Sweet Revenge’ Director Talks Short’s ‘Friday the 13th’ Connections

The following article contains spoilers for Sweet Revenge, the Jason Voorhees vignette of the Jason Universe.Fans of Jason Voorhees woke up to a sweet surprise today, as the villain from the Friday the 13th franchise has gone on another rampage. It’s not a movie, not a TV series, but a short feature (or “vignette,” as it has also been called) titled Sweet Revenge, which marks his first appearance in the newly revived horror franchise now known as the Jason Universe. How Sweet Revenge fits with the existing Friday the 13th lore is a bit complicated, so director Mike P. Nelson has decided to make things clear for fans across all generations.

Voorhees hasn’t appeared on the big screen since 2009, when the Friday the 13th reboot arrived in theaters and failed to cause an impact with fans. Since then, the franchise has fallen into a legal limbo that’s hard to break down. All there is to offer at the moment is a modern rendition of the classic killer with the hockey mask in Sweet Revenge. Nelson sat down with Variety to talk about the short feature, and how he’s just trying to pay tribute to the beloved franchise without restarting anything:

“I love these movies, so how can I keep the vibe, especially of the first four, which are my favorites? How can I bring that feeling when you watch those movies for the first time? I wanted to do that again: Keep the mythology, keep where Jason comes from all intact.

“I didn’t want to restart anything, but what if we introduce a new character who maybe gives us a bit of insight into what Jason’s path might have been? I wrote the script and we put the thing together in pre-production, shot it in seven days, post was 3 1/2 weeks and it’s now coming out.”

Nelson was also asked about the title. There’s no “Voorhees,” “Jason,” “Friday the 13th,” or anything that might reveal that a connection to the existing material. His answer reveals that what he wrote takes place inside the universe of the classic horror franchise: “Honestly, it was what I called the script and that’s what we stuck with. It’s supposed to be something that not only can live on its own but can also live within the universe of Friday the 13th.”

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Jason Universe

In the short, a group arrives at a cabin for a getaway trip. As expected, things look creepy, and there’s an old dude with an ominous message. When one of the girls goes on a boat, a mysterious figure emerges from the lake and drags her down. A few minutes later, Jason appears and does his usual grisly thing.

Sweet Revenge isn’t exactly a twist on the formula, but at least it brings back Jason, features creative kills and tons of gore, and ends things on an intriguing note. It also features plenty of nods to the original franchise, and aside from Jason’s mask, the one thing that will make you remember Friday the 13th is the music score. Nelson continued to explain some of the creative decisions he made with the short:

“The first thing was I wanted to make sure it was modern day. I didn’t want to do a period piece because I felt like … I don’t want to call it the easy way out, but that could have very easily been, ‘Yeah, we’re doing a period piece. We’re setting it in the ’80s and we’re going to do Jason again.’ To me, it was more about giving winks and nods and putting in Easter Eggs to some of the wardrobe, which is inspired by some of the other characters in the first movie: Annie’s shoes, the striped shirt with the denim for Dana. It’s just the visual overall tone and color and lighting and the way we placed the camera that was trying to create the old-school feeling.

“The music too, which I gotta give a shout out to Matt Compton and Michelangelo Rodriguez, for giving such a great soundtrack to the movie and trying to capture the vibe that those movies had. It was important to make it feel its own, but also give that nod to those originals and say, ‘This is why we are here.’ To me, those first four movies created a complete feeling of movies in the ’80s. So if I could get something on that track, in that vibe, then we were good to go.”

Sweet Revenge can be streamed on YouTube.