Some fan theories, well, they’re actually true.

For years, fans have been speculating that Jason Voorhees is actually what’s known within the Evil Dead franchise as a Deadite, and that’s all been fueled by 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell. Not only did the film tease a battle between Jason and Freddy, but it also came with a pretty interesting Easter egg: the Necronomicon-Ex Mortis in the Voorhees basement.

Was it just a fun tribute or something more? According to director Adam Marcus in a new chat with Horror Geek Life, it was intended to be something more than a simple nod!

“[I] wanted to create a mythology for Jason in this movie, because it had driven me nuts as a viewer,” Marcus explained, speaking specifically about Jason magically growing from a small boy to a full-grown, unstoppable monster in such a short period of time. “She [Pamela Voorhees] makes a deal with the devil by reading from the Necronomicon to bring back her son. This is why Jason isn’t Jason. He’s Jason plus The Evil Dead, and now I can believe that he can go from a little boy that lives in a lake, to a full grown man in a couple of months, to Zombie Jason, to never being able to kill this guy. That, to me, is way more interesting as a mashup, and [Sam] Raimi loved it!”

Marcus continued, “It’s not like I could tell New Line my plan to include The Evil Dead, because they don’t own The Evil Dead. So it had to be an Easter egg, and I did focus on it…there’s a whole scene that includes the book, and I hoped people would get it and could figure out that’s what I’m up to. So yes, in my opinion, Jason Voorhees is a Deadite. He’s one of The Evil Dead.”

“It absolutely is canon.”

Maybe that shared slashers universe we wrote about wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.