The other day someone who doesn’t know me, but whom I respect, ventured surprise that I review collectibles on Twitch. Isn’t Twitch a movie site? Let me clarify. You bet your sweet ¼ scale I review ‘em!! Why? Because collectibles are just another way for me to share what I love about film with others and I venture to guess that the vast majority of people reading this have a few of their favorite film characters/props/posters taking up shelf space. Why? I also venture to guess that what is most important about any film are the qualities it evokes that make it emotional, intellectually and spiritually resonant.

We care about movies because they inspire, make us think, reinforce belief and challenge us. We are different after encountering them. They don’t even have to be great films. Sometimes they downright stink. But a character, a moment, an image or an action stays with us haunts us.

In the world of film inspired collectibles few characters have the commercial appeal of Jason Voorhees. His emergence as one of the most recognizable and popular horror characters of all time is unexplainable if all we do is critically evaluate the Friday the 13th films that are to a one- execrable. Yet this latest release from Sideshow offers an interesting clue as to his appeal and I believe it lies in the elusive quality of what is under the mask- an accoutrement that didn’t even make it’s appearance until three films into the series.

Jason’s appeal to hardcore fans is as surprisingly diverse and complex as his fictional antecedents. There are elements of the hooded figure of death, Lenny, the man/child from Of Mice and Men, and Frankenstein’s Monster. An unstoppable, hulking yet almost completely instinctual bringer of death Jason has survived death himself many times and an argument that he is basically a stand-in for death seems a good lead in for discussion.

But I’ve come to see that a closer look at the character is best done by facing a campfire, back against the dark woods, ear nervously cocked for the sound of breaking twigs. Jason is not death but that which brings death- the hidden one who emerges from the shadows, himself almost a shadow. If the Friday the 13th series has survived the critical ravages of time it is because it is not so much made up of memorable movies but of a collection of moments-one seminal moment in fact- the moment in that campfire story when the boogeyman appears.

The boogeyman is the faceless “it” terrifying because once he is revealed all is lost. He may leave his hook on the car door and disappear into the night, he may leave a body swinging from the trees so it barely brushes the hood of the car door and draws his victim outside. He’s that old hermit who lives in the woods, the ghost who returns for revenge, the killer who has thought through the perfect plan. That’s why the saying goes, “The boogeyman’ll getcha if ya don’t watch out.” However awful the Friday the 13th movies are they offer that gotcha moment over and over again and they also offer us the chance to survive it. .

And each of the film’s that features the character of Jason, that thoroughly iconic killer, offers a different portrait. It’s one of the most interesting of facts about Jason that he is seen with his mask and without, young and old, as a barely human looking fiend and a slack-jawed deformed manchild, as one bloodthirsty and one merely homicidally curious.

But he is always that thing we tried to point out to our parents that they just didn’t believe in. We knew he was there. “Look, look!” we’d scream. “In the closet, peering out from the crack in the door.” C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe opened into an enchanted forest and so did our closet doors in those darkened bedrooms of youth. But that forest was under the enchantment of some awful thing. That forest was a forest to be lost in, forever.

I’ve got lots of Jason Collectibles. My favorite is my ¼ scale Sideshow statue of Jason with a removable mask. The detail is incredible especially on Freddy Krueger’s decapitated head, which Jason carries in his right hand. Mask off shows Jason as a Neanderthal-like brute, a primal being, animated but barely aware. Other 12’ figures in the Sideshow line recreate closely his appearances in various installments of the franchise including his initial one in Friday The 13th II where he spends most of the film with a sack on his head!

Somehow I think my favorite look is this new one from Jason Goes To Hell where the hockey mask has been fused onto his face almost becoming part of the flesh. It’s a tacit admission that Jason works best as a mystery. What animates him? Why does he indiscriminately kill? The mere excitement of our senses may be provoked by the elaborate death effects of such films but Jason exists beyond that haunting our peripheral awareness where ancient fears are pushed back to make room for the comfortable illusions of modern life. The figure offers over 30 points of articulation and outfit aged to resemble the one from this specific film. Of course you also get a blood stained machete, the Voorhees family sacrificial dagger and a Necronomicon. But my favorite accessory is Jason’s blaaaaaaaack heart. Sideshow offers detail that’s hard to beat, beat, beat- pun intended.

But they also offer fans of various icons the chance to confront them hands on as it were. I think that’s important because we all should be asking questions about death? Are we just a conglomeration of parts waiting to be taken apart by “it?” I opt for a hopeful vision of life beyond death no matter how death itself comes. Jason is just a reminder that it is coming. But I also know it’s easy to cover up such questions by filling shelves full of “collectibles. Of course eventually we’ll all be collected. Think about that next time you’re anxious because the closet door creaked or you find yourself walking in the woods not sure where you are, or perhaps just find yourself staring at those statues on your shelf and realizing their expressions seem a little mocking. What they represent is much larger than the sum of their parts and perhaps it’s why you collected them in the first place.