Unger Institution Logo
The Unger Institute of Mental Health is a behavioral health facility somewhere in New Jersey, where Tommy Jarvis was committed for psychiatric treatment following his traumatic experience at age 12 in July 1984, when he killed Jason Voorhees in self-defense.[1] This occurred at the end of Voorhees's notorious first murder spree, among whose victims was Jarvis's mother.[2] Jarvis was committed at the behest of his sister, who felt unable to help him through the trauma, and he was thenceforth kept as a ward of the state until turning eighteen.[3] But by age 17, he was transferred to nearby Pinehurst Youth Development Center.[1]
Not long after and due the traumatic events he experienced, Tommy was involved in an incident that resulted in him stabbing a doctor in the hand with a fork after he tried to take away his plate of food.
One of the orderlies at the institute, Billy, a cocaine user, was murdered in 1989 by Roy Burns, during the latter's copycat murder spree intended to look like the work of the late Jason Voorhees.[1]
Jarvis may have returned to the Unger Institute for additional treatment after experiencing a psychotic break soon after the death of Burns. He and his friend Allen Hawes returned to Crystal Lake (now renamed Forest Green) intent on exhuming Voorhees and destroying his corpse, prompting Hawes to observe that if word of their plan reached "the institution," both men would be permanently placed in straitjackets.[4]
Behind the Scenes[]
The Unger Institute may be located in Carpenter, New Jersey, a town mentioned as hosting an outlying station of the Forest Green Sheriff's Department in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Sheriff Mike Garris vaguely mentions waiting for "the authorities from Carpenter" to Tommy Jarvis, which may mean he intends for Jarvis to be confined for observation.
It is tempting to believe that Unger was the "hospital" mentioned by Tina Shepard and her psychiatrist, "Bad News" Crews, in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; she was confined for psychiatric care for several years following the accidental death of her father.
Unger was the only psychiatric facility known by name in the Friday the 13th universe until 2003, when Freddy vs. Jason added the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital from the Nightmare on Elm Street series.