Tommy Jarvis

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Friday the 13th character
Tommy Jarvis
Gender:	Male
Race	Caucasian
Location	Camp Crystal Lake
Family	Trish Jarvis (sister) Mrs. Jarvis (mother)
Enemies	Jason Voorhees
Portrayed by:	Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: Corey Feldman Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: John Shepherd Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Thom Mathews

Tommy Jarvis is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th film series. He appeared in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

[edit] Character history

Tommy made his first appearance as a young boy with an affinity for making his own masks and make-up effects. When Jason Voorhees brings his blood bath to the Jarvis cabin, Tommy is forced to fight for his life along with his sister. In an attempt to trick Jason, Tommy shaves his head to make himself appear as Jason was when he himself was young. Ultimately, Tommy kills Jason, first with a fatal blow to the skull with a machete, then repeatedly hacking at Jason when the killer shows some signs of life.

This event has an effect on Tommy's mind where he is put in an institution until he is a young man. He is then put in a halfway house, but unfortunately, at this time, a series of murders begin nearby with Jason Voorhees being tied to the killings.Tommy's mind continues to slip again, seeing images of Jason haunting him. Tommy manages to confront the hockey masked murderer, believing him to be another hallucination. But he is real and attacks Tommy, finally forcing him to take his life - only for it to turn out that the killer was a copycat called Roy Burns. But it's too late for Tommy, as the last wall of sanity has fallen with the ghost of Jason fading before his eyes. Keeping the killer's hockey mask, he puts it on and attempts to assume Jason's mantle, but he is apparently stopped and treated before things go too far.

Sometime later, a more stable Tommy, with a friend from the institution, is ready to confront his demons - or rather the demon that is Jason. Wanting to see Jason's decayed body himself, he also wants to make sure that Jason will never rise again and attempts to cremate him. But his memories of his encounter with Jason still linger heavily and he madly attacks the body with a metal pole when the coffin is opened. Before Tommy can cremate Jason, the pole winds up attracting bolts of lightning that reawaken Jason and gives him a more powerful lease on life; he can now survive even being shot at point-blank range with a shotgun, although he still feels the impact of the bullets.

Trying to make amends for his mistake, Tommy warns the sheriff who, being familiar with Jarvis, locks him up thinking he's had another psychotic break (although the fact that nobody in Crystal Lake wants to remember Jason may also be responsible for this action). The piles of bodies Jason racks up only convinces the sheriff that the killer is Tommy(despite the fact that his own daughter can vouch for Tommy being somewhere else at the time of two of the murders).

Time is running short as Jason makes his way to the renamed campgrounds. With a plan in mind, and aided by the sheriff's daughter Megan (ironically, a counselor at the newly-reopened Camp 'Forest Green'), Tommy lures Jason into the very same lake from which the Voorhees legend started. Chained to the bottom of the lake by a large stone, encircled in fire, and having part of his face chewed by propeller blades.

[edit] Importance

The character is notable for two reasons. He is one of the series' few returning characters, who, other than Tommy, include Jason, his mother, Alice, and Crazy Ralph. Both Alice and Crazy Ralph were eventually killed off. He also defeated Jason Voorhees; at the same time, he is responsible for Jason's resurrection, allowing him to exist for years to come in a more powerful and unstoppable incarnation.

[edit] Assorted facts

Tommy's only known family was his mother and sister Trish, his father was only mentioned briefly in Part 4. In The Final Chapter, his mother is murdered (offscreen) by Jason. Neither of the subsequent films have made mention of Trish, much less explained what happened to her after the film's events.

Tommy's first name, and his hobby of creating special effect masks, were created as a reference to special effects artist Tom Savini who, it is said, only returned to The Final Chapter to kill the Jason character he helped create - something which Tommy actually does within the film's story.

Tommy is one of the most used characters in the fan film department. He has appeared in at least four fan films, which he again takes the lead and fights against Jason again, attempting to make sure he is dead finally.