Tommy Jarvis

Tommy Jarvis is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th film series. He appeared in the fourth, fifth, and sixth films of the series (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives). He was portrayed, in order, by Corey Feldman, John Shepherd, and Thom Mathews.

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 affect 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 minds continues to slip again, seeing images of Jason haunting him. Tommy manages to confront the hockey masked muderer, 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. 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. 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. This winds up attracting bolts of lightning that reawaken Jason and gives him a more powerful lease on life. Trying to make amends for his mistake, Tommy warns the sheriff who, being familiar with Jarvis, locks him up thinking he's slipped. The piles of bodies Jason racks up only convinces the sheriff, but time is running short as Jason makes his way to the renamed campgrounds. With a plan in mind, Tommy lures Jason into the very same lake from which the Voorhees legend started. Chained to the bottom of the lake, encircled in fire, and having part of his face chewed by propeller blades, Tommy's monster is put to rest... as far as he knows.
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Importance

The character is notable for two reasons. He is one of the series' few returning characters, which, aside from Jason and his mother, only consists of himself, Alice, and Crazy Ralph, and both Alice and Crazy Ralph were subsequently killed (ironically, Tommy would somewhat take on Ralph's role in his finale appearance by being the town loon, trying to warn everyone). He is also the only character to successfully murder Jason Voorhees. The great irony is that he is the very same person to actually resurrect Jason, allowing him to exist for years to come in a more powerful and unstoppable incarnation. In his three film appearances, the character is actually vital to the series itself, first killing Jason, then potentially bringing the series into a new direction with himself being the first to carry Jason-mimicking murders into the next film. When the latter plan was dropped after the backlash of A New Beginning, it is his character that literally brings Jason back into the series, helping to usher the new Jason into the furture of the franchise. Appropriately, the character has never been seen in the films after Jason Lives.

Assorted facts

Tommy's only known family was his mother and sister Trisha. 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.

It is believed that the character was 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.