The director of the Jason Voorhees movie Sweet Revenge has explained why it isn’t an origin story. Sweet Revenge is a short film that continues the Friday the 13th franchise that was released in August 2025. Sweet Revenge focuses on a young woman whose trip to Crystal Lake with her friends is ruined by betrayal and Jason Voorhees attacking them.

Not long after fans learned who will play Jason in the upcoming prequel series, Crystal Lake, they got to see the villain’s return. While Sweet Revenge isn’t as straightforward as it may initially seem, it kept things relatively simple by not retelling Jason’s origin. Sweet Revenge’s director has explained his decision not to reintroduce Jason during the short film.

In August 2025, Screen Rant interviewed Sweet Revenge’s writer and director, Mike P. Nelson. During that discussion, Nelson explained that he wasn’t interested in focusing on how Jason became the fearsome creature horror fans love. Instead, Nelson wanted to keep Jason’s mysterious nature intact and had a different story he wanted to tell. Check out Nelson’s comments below:

This idea popped into my head, and I was like, “You know what? I don’t want to make a movie that shows what Jason went through after he drowned and how he became Jason. I’m not interested in that.” We’ve seen that happen with The Texas Chainsaw movies and every character under the sun about how they got to where they got to; I kind of don’t want to see that.

What’s so great about Jason [is that] he’s f***ing mysterious in how that all happened. But what if we could see what happened to somebody else who undergoes something similar to what Jason went through, and how they [respond?]

[It’s] very short [with] not a lot of time to jump into all the intricacies of how that works, but what [does] this weird body horror story look like for a character that undergoes a transformation through this revenge-driven property in this lake, and dive into [what] the elements of Friday the 13th are, seen through the eyes of another character.

What This Means For The New Jason Universe

After the Jason Voorhees intellectual property rights have been wrapped up in a legal battle for years, fans are finally starting to get some new content. In 2024, it was announced that the new content involving the horror icon will be part of a franchise called the Jason Universe. Nelson’s comments about Sweet Revenge are very telling about the Jason Universe.

It is important to note that Sweet Revenge isn’t another one of the fan films that have entertained devotees of the franchise. The short film is an official part of the new franchise. As a result, the fact that Sweet Revenge didn’t have to be another origin story is very telling.

Based on Nelson’s comments to Screen Rant, he was allowed to tell a story within the Jason Universe that he was pᴀssionate about. That seems to indicate that the people in charge of the new franchise will allow people whose visions they trust to tell different kinds of stories involving Jason and his surrounding mythos.

Our Take On Sweet Revenge And The Jason Universe

To put it succinctly, I couldn’t be happier about what Mike P. Nelson told Screen Rant about Sweet Revenge. The reason I am so overjoyed with Nelson’s comments is that it hints at the distinct possibility that the team behind the Jason Universe are doing something simple, yet brilliant.

Over the last several years, there have been far too many examples of movie studios that notoriously have taken too much control of the films they release. Instead of hiring talented storytellers and letting them make movies with some guardrails, the studios insist on things like movies having too many villains.

Thankfully, Nelson’s comments about Sweet Revenge indicate that he was allowed to tell a story he cared about. If the team behind Jason Universe chooses the right creators and gives them similar freedom, horror fans like me should have a lot to look forward to. Hopefully the team behind Jason Universe’s first TV show, Crystal Lake, are given the same chance.