I started taking a look back at a film series that I first saw back when I was a teenager in the mid-90's, the seemingly never ending Friday the 13th saga. Initially drawn to it largely because it was taboo, over time the flaws have become more apparent as I've grown, but I still enjoy at least some of the entries with more than a little nostalgia. And now, picking up where I left off with the first post , I continue my look back at the series.
After The Final Chapter was another box office hit, producers decided to proceed with another outing. Unfortunately, the most clever thing about the film was the title: Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. Easily the sleaziest entry in the series and populated by so many unsavory characters, you can't help but root for the killer most of the time.
This film catches up with Tommy Jarvis (played this time by John Shepherd because Corey Feldman moved on to brighter pastures with The Goonies, although he makes a brief cameo in the beginning) being transferred to a halfway house for troubled teens. It's not long before the teens start getting hacked to pieces (it's literally the same afternoon). But with Jason dead and apparently cremated, who's doing the killing? This one returns to the whodunit nature of the original film, keeping the audience wondering who inherited the Hockey mask.
The problem is the way the film is structured. With a whopping 22 victim body count, the entire film is structured not unlike a porno with characters are set up with a minimum of details and then the money shot, in this case they're brutally murdered. To it's credit, they're at least creative, with such unlikely implements as hedge clippers or fellating a road flare.
Still, as I said before, this film seems so much sleazier than the others with a general mysoginistic feeling towards most of the female characters. I wasn't surprised when I found out the director Danny Steinman got his start directing porn.
The film isn't all terrible though. John Shepard does well as Tommy, showing how tormented he is, suffering from intense Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is also Reggie (played by Shavar Ross), a sassy young boy living at the Halfway house with his grandfather, the house cook. Reggie gives the film a nice dose of humor and is probably one of the only endearing characters in this mess. The last part of our final trio is Melanie Kinnaman as the Halfway House's Assistant director, Pam. She fills the role well as our typical final girl, and gives her a nice Mother lion aspect with Reggie as well when they are left to deal with Pseudo-Jason.
It's not enough to redeem the film though and for me Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is one of the lowest points in the series, with poor plotting, poorer direction, and too large a focus on the death sequences. Without characters we care about, the death scenes mean nothing and the film fails to be scary. When I rewatch the series, I usually skip over this one and proceed directly to the vastly superior Part VI.
"So, what were you going to be when you grew up?"
Just when the series looked to be running out of gas, along came Tom McLoughlin to save the day. He was hired to write and direct the sixth entry and given only one directive, Jason had to be resurrected. Creating an entertaining concoction of humor and horror, we got Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. It's easily one of the best in the series and a personal favorite.
The film opens with Tommy Jarvis (played this time by Thom Matthews) driving one stormy night to the Crystal Lake cemetary with Horschack from "Welcome Back Kotter" because, really why not? (Ron Palillo, who actually plays Tommy's friend Hawes.) Tommy intends to dig up Jason and cremate him. However, when he see's Jason's body, he freaks out a grabs a broken wrought iron fence post and repeatedly stabs him with it. A bolt of lightning then hits the post and once again Jason is resurrected, more powerful than ever.
Trying to fix his mistake, Tommy tries to get the assistance of the local law enforcement, consisting of Sheriff Garris (played by David Kagan) and a couple nitwit deputies. Tommy also catches the eyes of Megan (played by Jennifer Cooke), the Sherrif's daughter and one of the counselors at the newly re-opened camp. She agrees to help Tommy despite her father's objections, thinking Tommy is dangerous and delusional. This also marks the only time in the series that the camp has been open with actual kids there. This is an appropriately cynical, sarcastic and quick witted crew of kids too, providing such self aware bon mots as the one quoted above.
While this outing has the same hack and slash mayhem as before, it's done with a certain amount of tongue in cheek humor, with one of the characters even staring right in the camera and saying, "Some folks have a strange idea of entertainment." Pre-dating Scream by a good decade, the liberal dose of meta humor sprinkled through out the film along with a dose of gothic horror helps set it apart from the ones that come before and after. With soundtrack contributions from Alice Cooper, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI may just be the best of the bunch, as hard as that is to believe.
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood introduces a new worthy adversary for Jason in the form of telekinetic teen Tina (played by Lar Park Lincoln) Originally, Paramount had started trying to get a Freddy vs. Jason film off the ground at the time but New Line, which owned the Freddy Krueger franchise, declined because they were doing just fine on their own thank you very much. Thus, a new approach was taken and Freddy was swapped out for a telekinetic teen.
Tina, along with her mother Amanda (played by Susan Blu) and her unscrupulous psychiatrist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser), returns to The newly re-christened Crystal Lake to deal with the guilt she has over accidentally killing her father, which we see in the opening scene of the film and then again in flashback literally five minutes later just in case we forgot. In record time, Tina has accidently resurrected Jason from the depths of Crystal Lake, although oddly not right where Tommy left him. At the end of Part VI, he was plunged to the depths of the lake in front of a summer camp, but now, he's on the lakefront between two cabins. Continuity be damned, I guess.
Aside from the inclusion of Tina's telekinetic powers and some seriously kick-ass makeup effects, it's business as usual with another large group of partying teens meet a sticky end. The film breaks away a bit when it's down to Tina and her new beau Nick (played by Kevin Spirtas) facing off against Jason. Using her telekinetic powers, she proves to be a formidable foe against the unstoppable killing machine. Still, the time it takes to get to this point is pretty dreadful, with plenty of bad acting and mostly annoying or detestable characters. After the fun of Part VI, it was clear the formula was showing it's wear with this one.
"You have to help us. There is a maniac trying to kill us!"
"Welcome to New York."
For the eighth installment of the series, the producers were trying to come up with yet another new spin on their veritable franchise. Enter writer/director Rob Hedden who suggested they take Jason out of Crystal Lake, giving us Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (although as it turns out, Jason Takes a Boat Trip or Jason Takes Vancouver Because That's All We Could Afford would have been more accurate.)
Jason Takes Manhattan once again plays fast and loose with the continuity as Crystal Lake seems to have developed an outlet to sea since it was last visited. This time around, the graduating class of Crystal Lake is taking a senior trip to Manhattan by cruise ship with Jason as a stowaway (guess he was getting tired of the camp scene too). Of course, this being a Friday the 13th film, it's not long until Jason is working his way through the passengers and crew.
While the Cruise ship setting adds some novelty to the movie, it's still business as usual until the few survivors and Jason make their way to the Big Apple. Seeing Jason deal with the drug dealers, gang members, floods of toxic waste and Times Square add a little juice to the final quarter of the film.
This marks the end of the 80's entries of this ongoing series. The first four, along with Part VI, were the best. None of them were anything that could be mistaken for art and don't stand up to much scrutiny but for a low rent vintage thrill ride, they're not bad. Of course, that could be the nostalgia talking, preventing me from being too critical.
This retrospective will conclude with a look at the latest (but surely not the last) entries in this veritable franchise next month on Friday the 13th.
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