Jason Voorhees Makes Animated Debut in Free Short "Ghosts in the Fog"
Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked killer of the Friday the 13th horror films, has a new home on screen: a 10-minute animated short. "Never Hike Alone: Ghosts in the Fog" premiered on Friday, November 13, at 5 p.m. Pacific time, and anyone can watch it for free on the YouTube channel of Womp Stomp Films, according to Variety.
The story follows three friends on a camping trip. They get lost in the fog around Camp Crystal Lake, the lake at the centre of the franchise, and the trip turns gory. The film is the fourth entry in Womp Stomp's "Never Hike Alone" series, and it is the first one drawn in animation.
Womp Stomp Films was founded in 2016 by filmmaker Vincente DiSanti. The series started with the 2017 short "Never Hike Alone," followed by the 2020 prequel "Never Hike in the Snow." In 2023 the company released "Never Hike Alone 2," a feature-length sequel. That film brought back Thom Mathews and Vincent Guastaferro as Tommy Jarvis and Sheriff Rick Cologne, the characters they played in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.
The new short was made with Mako Animation Studio, a company based in Mexico. Mako was founded in 2015 by Juan Rivera and works in 2D animation, the hand-drawn style of flat, frame-by-frame figures. DiSanti and Rivera share the director's credit on "Ghosts in the Fog."
The short also stands apart from the franchise's corporate owners. Womp Stomp operates independently of the studios that hold the rights to Jason Voorhees, and it makes its "Never Hike Alone" films available free of charge. That means a fan can watch Jason in a new form without buying a ticket or subscribing to anything.
For readers who have followed the films for years, the appeal is simple. The series has kept its focus on campers, fog and a lake that never seems to let its visitors leave. For everyone else, the short is a quick watch, about the length of a long coffee break, and it can be found on the same free channel as the earlier entries.
