He first appears in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) as a child interested in special effects who encounters a seemingly unstoppable slasher—Jason Voorhees (Ted White).

[5] Tommy Jarvis first appears in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter as a young boy (played by Corey Feldman), residing with his divorced mother and sister, with an affinity for making his own masks and make-up effects.

When Jason Voorhees appears and kills both his mother and a group of teenagers partying in the house next door, Tommy is forced to fight for his life along with his sister Trish.

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 named Roy Burns.

Keeping the killer's hockey mask, he puts it on and attempts to assume Jason's mantle, but he is thankfully caught and treated before things go too far.

But his memories of his encounter with Jason still linger heavily and he madly attacks the body with a metal fence pole when the coffin is opened.

Before Tommy can cremate Jason, the pole winds up attracting bolts of lightning that unfortunately reawakens Jason as a zombie now and gives him a more powerful lease on life; he has become impervious even to being shot at point-blank range with a shotgun - though he still feels the impact of the bullets - and now possesses supernaturally powerful strength and healing factor to aid in slaughtering his victims with.

Trying to make amends for his mistake, Tommy warns the sheriff who, being familiar with Jarvis, locks him up thinking he's had another mental breakdown.

Near the end of the film, he picks up Jason's latest victim, Kyle McLeod, who barely survived his encounter with the mass murderer.

This film also features the appearance of Jason's father, Elias, revealing that he used black magic to bring his son back to life.

In the mockumentary called "The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited" (included on the 2009 DVD extra) it is mentioned that Tommy was thought to be the killer in "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives" by the local town folk.

[12] The character of Tommy Jarvis was initially conceived by writer Bruce Hidemi Sakow, who came in early during the film's pre-production.

"[1] Adam Marcus, director of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, has revealed that he had originally intended for the film's male protagonist Steven Freeman to be Tommy Jarvis, but could not include him because New Line Cinema did not own the rights to Tommy's character at that time and so was forced to write a new character and name for the film.

[14] Tommy Jarvis was referenced in the script for Freddy vs Jason, the dialogue insinuating that he is running a petition to have the reopening of Camp Crystal Lake annulled.

"[19] For Jason Lives, actor John Shepherd did not reprise his role from part 5 as he chose to abstain from it for personal reasons: "I was at a crossroads in my life where I was trying to decide - do I really wanna pursue acting or, you know, is this the best use of my time and talents?

His replacement Thom Mathews had not seen A New Beginning until after he was cast, and claims that he thought the film was awful and wondered if he had made a mistake, but liked the script for Jason Lives so much that he decided to play the role anyway.

[21] In an interview, Mathews discussed his preparation for the role, stating: Tommy has received considerably positive reviews from critics.