- "I don't want to scare anyone, but I'm going to give it to you straight about Jason. His body was never recovered from the lake after he drowned. And if you listen to the old timers in town, they'll tell you he's still out there... some sort of demented creature, surviving in the wilderness, full grown by now. Stalking... stealing what he needs, living off wild animals and vegetation. Some folks claim they've even seen him... right in this area. The girl who survived that night at Camp Blood, that Friday the 13th, she claimed she saw him. She disappeared two months later. Vanished. Blood was everywhere. No one knows what happened to her. Legend has it that Jason saw his mother beheaded that night... and he took his revenge. A revenge that he'll continue to seek if anyone ever enters his wilderness again. And by now, I guess you all know, we're the first to return here. Five years... five long years he's been dormant... and he's hungry. Jason's out there... watching... always on the prowl for intruders. Waiting to kill... waiting to devour. Thirsty for young blood."
- ―Paul Holt
Paul Holt is the deuteragonist in the film Friday the 13th Part 2 and the boyfriend of Ginny Field.
Biography
Paul, having worked at various summer camps throughout the country, opens a counselor training center called Packanack Lodge in the summer of 1984. The school shares a property line with the Crystal Lake Camp, which is now condemned and off-limits, but Paul does not seem to be bothered by this. During the orientation meeting with the in-training counselors, Paul has his speech interrupted by his assistant Ginny Field, who arrives late. Taking Ginny into his office, Paul, after telling Ginny he was worried about her and after she apologizes for her lateness, sends her off to park her car with the counselors. Shortly after returning to the counselors to deliver his speech, Paul, noticing Ginny is having trouble getting her car to go, comes to aid and fixes it, getting a face full of exhaust in the process.
Several hours after the orientation meeting, Paul holds a campfire meeting and tells Ginny and the others about the bloody history of the nearby Camp Crystal Lake, where Pamela Voorhees had gone on a killing spree five years ago as revenge for her son Jason drowning in the lake. After telling the counselors about how Pamela's killer, Alice Hardy, had disappeared two months after surviving Pamela, and about how Jason may still be out there, Paul has Ted Bowen, wearing a monster mask and brandishing a spear, jump out of the bushes to scare everyone. After the prank, Paul tells everyone that Jason is dead and tells them that Camp Crystal Lake is off limits and to stay away from the site. After the campfire, Paul, as the others party in the main cabin, plays chess with Ginny and winds up losing. As Ginny leaves to go to bed, Paul follows her back to her cabin and the two have sex, unaware that local eccentric Crazy Ralph is being murdered by Jason just outside. In the morning, Paul gets up early and leaves, leaving "Beware of Bears" scrawled on Ginny's mirror.
During training exercises, two counselors, Sandra Dier and her boyfriend Jeff Dunsberry, are found prowling around the off-limits Camp Crystal Lake by Deputy Winslow. When Winslow brings the two teenagers back to the Packanack Lodge, Paul has a meeting with the officer, who advises Paul pack up and leave and start his training center somewhere else, as things have been quiet at Crystal Lake for the last five years. Ignoring Winslow's suggestion, Paul, after the deputy asks if he even intends to punish Sandra and Jeff for trespassing, tells the recently arrived Ginny to make sure Sandra and Jeff don't get seconds for dessert.
After the incident with Winslow, Paul, during the night, goes into town with Ginny and several others for one last night of fun in the bar. While drinking with Ginny and Ted, Paul listens to Ginny as she espouses her theory that Jason could still be out there, living in the woods as some kind of wild man. Bemused by Ginny's rambling, Paul reassures her that Jason is just legend.
Eventually, as the hours wear on, Paul and Ginny head back to the Packanack Lodge and find the place empty. Looking around, Paul and Ginny, after finding a large amount of blood in the upstairs bedroom of the main cabin, go downstairs when the power abruptly goes out. Warned by Ginny just in time, Paul avoids being skewered by the spear wielding Jason, who had leapt from the shadows. Fighting Jason, Paul is knocked out by the hulking killer, who leaves him to go after Ginny.
Regaining consciousness sometime later, Paul tracks Ginny and Jason down to the killer's ramshackle cabin in the woods. Attacking Jason, Paul distracts Jason long enough for Ginny to strike the killer in the shoulder with a machete, seemingly killing him. With Jason laying still, Paul and Ginny, before leaving, take the sack Jason was wearing off and see his horribly disfigured face.
Carrying the wounded Ginny back to the Packanack Lodge, Paul brings her into the main cabin and sets about tending to her injured leg when a noise outside attracts his and Ginny's attention. While Ginny's grabs a pitchfork, Paul, arming himself with a shovel, opens the front door and is relieved to find the noises outside had simply been made by Muffin, the pet dog of Terry McCarthy, one of the counselors. When Muffin walks to Ginny, Jason suddenly comes crashing through the window behind Ginny and grabs her. The next morning, a disoriented Ginny, who had blacked out, is brought out of Packanack by paramedics, but Paul, Muffin, and Jason are nowhere to be found.[1]
Some have speculated that Paul survived, though there is no hard evidence to support this theory. Since Ginny blacked out during Jason's final attempt to kill her, it is possible that Paul fought off Jason to prevent Jason from killing Ginny. Paul may have prevailed and escaped, or was killed defending Ginny and his body was taken by Jason. Another possibility is that Paul was killed earlier during the struggle with Jason in the cabin in the woods and that the events that followed were an elaborate dream sequence in the distraught mind of Ginny. At the beginning of Part III, a news broadcast reported that Ginny was taken to a local hospital after "suffering from multiple stab wounds and severe hysterical shock." This might explain the sudden reappearance of Muffin, presumed to be dead after Sandra and Jeff found the carcass of a dog that looked suspiciously like Muffin. However, the news broadcast in Part III also reported the body count at eight. Since there were eight known victims, this opens the door to the possibility that Paul could have survived. The known victims include Crazy Ralph, Deputy Winslow, Scott Cheney, Mark Jarvis, Jeff Dunsberry, Sandra Dier, Victoria Perry and Terry McCarthy.
Alternate Ending
Paul's fate was more explained in an interview with Peter Bracke, author of Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th. In the Friday the 13th Part II DVD features, there is a picture of Paul with a huge scar on his head and a dead, shocked face indicating that Jason did kill Paul. Also in the DVD, Bracke reveals that there was an unused ending in the movie: after Ginny questions where Paul is, the scene switches to Mrs. Voorhees' head, which opens her eyes and smiles, confirming that Jason had killed Paul in cold blood. However, like the unused picture of a dead Paul, they thought it looked too silly when they filmed it. As a result, it was taken out of the movie.
Paul's Fate
"Jason's coming through the window was written as reality. My intent was this: Paul is, in fact, killed by Jason. Ginny survives. She asks, when found, 'Paul! Paul! Where's Paul?' Then we cut to Jason's shack, and a close-up on Mrs. Voorhees' head. It's bathed in faint light, staring at the camera. Slowly, distinctly a diabolical smile forms at the corners of its mouth. In other words, in answer to Ginny's question, the smile tells us that Jason has killed Paul. That is how I wrote it and that's how Steve Miner filmed it. Granted, as it appeared on screen, shot and edited as it was, I can see cause for some confusion." - Ron Kurz, Screenwriter. ("Crystal Lake Memories" Page: 69)
At Crypticon in 2018 Amy Steel revealed that if she would’ve returned for Friday the 13th Part III, that Paul would have in fact been killed by Jason, as her character would’ve went to the laundromat of her college and found Paul’s severed head in the washing machine.
Appearances
Films
- Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Novels
- Friday the 13th Part 2 (1988)
References
- ↑ Friday the 13th Part 2