Help settle another debate (about the Friday the 13th movies) [SPOILERS]

Cafe Society
1

So my friend, who had never watched a Friday the 13th movie before, is watching them all now. He’s up to seven.

One thing him and I disagree with is the following question, which I’m going to bring here for you all to weigh in on with your own answers. That question is:
When did Jason actually die?

Like, when is he officially dead in the series?

Me, I say it was at the end of four, he’s killed by Tommy and is dead from there on, starting with six (in five, it wasn’t Jason killing people)
I think, before that moment, he’s alive and basically a regular human (although deformed).

My friend disagrees. He points out the fact that it’s said, many times, that Jason dies as a boy. That he drowns in the lake while the counselors are having sex.
And yep, this is the main premise behind the entire series, that is true.
But I just can’t see Jason being dead all that time…from a boy onward. I mean, in 2, 3 and 3, he looks and moves and acts like a normal (alive) human). It’s only in 6, that he’s dug up from his grave, hit by lightning, and TRULY back from the dead, I feel.
So what say you? What do you think? Was Jason dead all that time, from when he drown as a kid (which would make him dead throughout the whole series) or, if not, at what point, in the movie series, did Jason really die and become the walking dead from then on?

2

Dead the whole time, he comes out of the lake in the first movie doesn’t he?

3

That was implied, heavily, to be a hallucination.

Because, after all, in the next movie, he’s a fully grown adult while the girl who was pulled under is the same age.

So unless he went from being a boy to being a man in the course of a few weeks, I’m not so sure him coming out of the lake really happened.

4

So, I guess either nobody knows or nobody cares, haha.

5

He died before the events of 1.

What came back in 2 and on was ‘somethign else’ with his and his mothers anger fueling it.

Similar to Freddie - who died well before the events of Nightmare - but who then lived in the minds of his victims.

6

Everyone in this topic (myself included) has given this much more thought than the people who made the movies ever did.

For me, the kid in the lake was a dream, but Jason really was alive out there (maybe he’d been resuscitated after supposedly drowning, but it still made his mom nuts), with his hillbilly look and pillowcase mask, and seeing his mom beheaded set off his killing spree, then he becomes undead in part 6 after being killed in part 4.

Also, that demon worm thing in part 9? Happened less than Highlander 2.

7

It just makes a lot more sense to me that he would have supernatural qualities from the very beginning.