Editorials
Inside the Head of Pamela Voorhees [Part 2]!!
Broadcast Thought is the collective name for a creative cabal of three forensic psychiatrists (H. Eric Bender, M.D., Praveen R. Kambam, M.D., and Vasilis K. Pozios, M.D.) who also happen to have a vast and unquenchable thirst for pop culture knowledge.
Last week we published Part One of their look inside the head of Pamela Voorhees and now it’s time to conclude the process. Which means we’re getting to the REALLY juicy stuff. You might want to refresh a bit by visiting last week’s article first. Then come back here and dive in.
Be sure to follow BTdocs on Twitter and head below to go Inside The Head Of Pamela Voorhees!!
DISCLAIMER 1: In real life, we would need an adequate evaluation:
Various diagnoses might help explain Pamela Voorhees’ mental state as seen in Friday the 13th (1980), but to truly understand her struggles, we would need to conduct a psychiatric evaluation and gather necessary information to properly diagnose anything. It might be tough to interview her given that she’s been decapitated.
DISCLAIMER 2: There is an overblown link between mental illness and violence:
While we can try to offer hypothetical explanations for Mrs. Voorhees’ behaviors, clinical mental illness, in and of itself, doesn’t typically increase one’s risk for violence except in a few narrow circumstances (e.g., alcohol and drug use disorders, acute paranoia).
We know that most serial killers can’t be classified as “insane,” and that her status as one wouldn’t be directly related to a mental illness. That being said, was Mrs. Voorhees a serial killer?
Dr. Bender: Technically, yes, according to the 2005 FBI Serial Murder Symposium’s definition of serial killing: “The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” Also, it appears Mrs. V had a “cooling off period,” or period of time in which no killing occurs, between her killings, which is an element of serial killing.
Dr. Pozios: But we may not really consider Mrs. V a serial killer, even if she meets the FBI Symposium’s definition. In the real world, the semantics of the definition and intuitively knowing that someone is a serial killer are two separate things. Additional characteristics that aren’t formally part of the definition would be considered – things like motivation, modus operandi, rituals, and signature aspects of the murders.
Dr. Kambam: These characteristics are also carefully analyzed by law enforcement agents, like members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Units, in the investigation of possible serial murders. The agents might also consider whether the killer is getting any gratification from the killing. Most experts would argue that the killings of serial killers involve some sort of psychological gratification – and often some aspect of sexual gratification.
Dr. Bender: Instead of psychological gratification, it could be that the purpose of her killing was to try to shut Camp Crystal Lake down and keep it closed. In this way, she might be considered an instrumental offender: the killings were simply business. Instrumental killers, like mafia hitmen, kill for such gain and are generally not considered to be serial killers, even though they may meet the semantics of the FBI Symposium’s definition.
Dr. Pozios: Unlike an instrumental offender, she seemed emotionally invested in the killings and was not killing to achieve an external material gain, such as money or goods. Mrs. V’s killings seemed more vengeful, much like some school shooters or disgruntled employees “going postal.”
Dr. Kambam: But back to arguments for her being a serial killer… Mrs. V’s killings perhaps reflected some rituals – need-based behaviors that are unnecessary for the successful commission of her crimes – like posing a body, displaying a body, overkill. Ritualistic behaviors are often seen in the acts of serial killers; her tying up Steve’s body and displaying Bill’s body might have reflected such rituals. And perhaps Mrs. V could be categorized as a “visionary” serial killer, a type of serial killer that experiences psychotic directions or commands to kill. Mrs. V may have experienced commands from Jason to kill the counselors, as she conveyed when talking with Alice. Additionally, like most visionary serial killers, Mrs. V is focused on the act of killing itself, rather than getting than getting off on the a longer process of torturing and killing (she’s “act-focused” as opposed to “process-focused”).
Dr. Bender: Mrs. V’s pinning of Bill’s body to the door and throwing Brenda’s body through the window could be viewed as meaning to induce fear in the remaining victims, right?
Dr. Pozios: Possibly, but Mrs. V’s style of killing may be considered more “disorganized” rather than “organized.” (Visionary serial killers typically engage in more disorganized killing. The disorganized nature of the killings and crime scene may be an extension of disorganized thinking, due to psychosis).
Dr. Kambam: Right. An organized killer will usually kill in one place and deposit the body in another. They painstakingly plan out their killings and are careful about not being detected. Disorganized killers, on the other hand, are haphazard in their killing. They are more impulsive and will often leave murder weapons and the bodies of their victims where they were killed. Recall the axe in the bed left by Mrs. V…
So was she insane? If she had been caught and charged with these multiple counts of murder, would she have been able to plead insanity?
Dr. Kambam: To examine this question, we need to talk about what it means to be “insane?” Insanity is actually a legal term, not a colloquial term meaning “crazy” or even a medical term. And each state has its own definition or guidelines for insanity. Current New Jersey insanity statutes (http://www.newjersey-legal-guide.com/) indicate that someone is not criminally responsible for his or her actions when acting as he or she did if “at the time of committing the act the defendant was laboring under a defect of reason such that he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.” [Note: In real life, we would need to use the legal statute in effect at the time of Mrs. V’s acts, i.e., 1957 (killing of two counselors), 1958 (poisoning of the water supply), and 1980 (murdering several counselors and a camp organizer).]
Dr. Bender: Okay, so, let’s tackle the first part of this: Did she have a mental disorder at the time of her crimes? Well, there is some evidence that Mrs. Voorhees might have had some sort of psychotic disorder or dissociative disorder at the time of her crime(s) as we discussed previously.
Dr. Pozios: For the other part of the insanity test, what evidence do we have that Mrs. V knew that what she was doing was wrong?
Dr. Kambam: Even if Mrs. V were genuinely experiencing a hallucination of hearing Jason’s voice telling her to kill, there is no evidence that she believed that killing wouldn’t be illegal. What’s more, even if she were genuinely experiencing a delusional belief that the camp personnel let Jason die, this belief would not prevent her from understanding that killing is illegal.
Dr. Pozios: She also had the rational alternative motive of seeking revenge (maybe partially driven by guilt) for Jason’s death as opposed to killing because of psychotic command auditory hallucinations.
Dr. Bender: More evidence to show that Mrs. V knew wrongfulness is reflected in her possible efforts to avoid detection and capture. She presumably cut the phone line (although we don’t see her do this). She turns off the generator and lights (so as not to be seen). When she needs to find Alice to kill her, Mrs. V later turns on the generator and lights. Mrs. V hid Ned’s body (hiding evidence) from the others. She hid under Jack’s bed, then grabs him before spearing him through neck. She also tied Steve’s body to a tree branch (presumably so no one finds him).
Dr. Pozios: Okay then, what about evidence that Mrs. V knew the nature and quality of her acts (and therefore was not legally insane)?
Dr. Kambam: Even while possibly psychotic and having a conversation with herself, Mrs. V explicitly talked about killing and not letting Alice live. This indicates that she understood that she was not only killing but killing a person, not a doppelganger, alien, or some other non-human entity. She also specifically targeted the camp personnel because she thought that they failed in their duties as counselors to supervise children in the camp. This indicates that she understood that they were human beings with a specific job.
Dr. Bender: We all know the lawyers would argue about this… The defense would undoubtedly bring up various counterpoints. They might mention that Brenda was already dead when Brenda was thrown through the window. And Mrs. V displayed Bill’s dead body by pinning it to the cabin door with arrows. If Mrs. V were trying to avoid detection, why would she do this?
Dr. Pozios: Well, the prosecution’s argument would probably be that Mrs. V was trying to induce fear in the surviving counselors.
Dr. Bender: But Mrs. V didn’t wear any disguises, gloves, or clothing to conceal her identity. She didn’t run away from the camp to avoid capture after her acts.
Dr. Kambam: Maybe she just wasn’t finished killing yet. She wasn’t caught in the past.
Dr. Bender: Her hiding and turning off the lights may just indicate that she was trying to ensure that her actions were carried out without resistance (i.e., an effort to most effectively attack her targets). If she believed that what she had been doing wasn’t wrong, she would want to ensure that her actions were carried out.
So there you have it. Mrs. Voorhees, based on the evidence at hand, was technically a serial killer. And, while she might have had psychotic symptoms or episodes, she would not be a good candidate for the insanity defense since most signs point to her knowing that what she was doing was wrong. But, as evidenced above, this case is just as complicated as Mrs. Voorhees herself.
Happy Belated Mother’s Day, Pamela.
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
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