Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Friday the 13th - Part 5: A New Beginning
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: Paramount Pictures Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18/ Australia: R
In 1984, Paramount gave us Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, a film that supposedly would wrap up the popular slasher saga by finally killing off its hockey-masked madman, one Jason Voorhees. The film lived up to its promise by allowing a very young Corey Feldman to go one on one with the evil slasher icon before finally hacking him to bits with a machete. The film was a success at the box office—which presented Paramount with a philosophical conundrum…do we leave the series dead, or should we churn out another to cash in while the demand for more of these films is still there? Well, since I’m writing a review about a film called Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (henceforth referred to as F13: 5), I suppose most of you can guess what Paramount’s decision was.
Released in 1985, F13: 5 jumps years ahead of the events that transpired at the end of part 4. Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman in part 4, John Shepherd in this installment) is still haunted by his encounter with Jason (the film opens with a nice sequence wherein the young Tommy watches some local teens unearth Jason from his forest grave, bringing the madman back from the dead before the scene reveals itself to be nothing more than a dream) and has spent the ensuing years in a mental health institute.
However, he’s getting better (well, at least according to the doctors—Shepherd looks pretty twitchy and disheveled to me—and I certainly wouldn’t be considering letting him back out on the streets any time soon.) and that means he can be shipped to a halfway house in the middle of nowhere (and conveniently located near Camp Crystal Lake). There, we meet the usual assortment of soon-to-be-dead teens (including a stutterer, two horny kids, a progressive chick with some wicked looking hair, and more) along with the soon-to-be-dead staff, locals (redneck mother and son Ethel and Junior—Junior reminds me of a cross between Tom Arnold and Randy Quaid), and various other non-essential characters (who also wind up dead—this movie weighs in with what appears to be 22 deaths. I lost count).
The slasher formula switches around a bit here, and instead of giving us the prototypical virgin heroine, we settle for a female counselor/assistant. She never has sex in the film, but I didn’t get the impression she was virginal. On top of that, we get Tommy, and a little African-American kid named Reggie…not exactly the most awe-inspiring assortment of heroes, but it’ll do.
Many Friday fans actively despise this film (and the first film as well) because Jason isn’t the killer. No, Paramount makes the interesting decision here to leave old Jason dead and buried this time out, and instead replaces him with another killer—one who just happens to dress up like Jason and dispatch people according to his normal M.O.. Theoretically, this twist could be interesting—it almost heralds a return to the giallo roots of the series by bringing back the mystery element to go along with the gory set-pieces. However, there’s no mystery here because director Danny Steinmann all but puts a flashing neon sign on the screen whenever the real killer shows up in his normal clothes. Even more humorous is when the big exposition comes after the climax (with a cop explaining the motives to the heroine Pam), the cop flips open the killer’s wallet to reveal a picture of the killer, then the killer’s son (who was murdered in the beginning of the film and inspired the events of the film). Maybe I’m wrong here, but not too many people carry a portrait of themselves in their wallet. Thanks to Danny Steinmann for assuming we’re all too stupid to figure out who the killer was.
Still, flaws (and there are many) aside, I find this film to be one of my favorite ‘guilty pleasures’ in the entire series. While the killer isn’t Jason (and for all real intents and purposes, it is Jason—he wears the mask, uses the machete, and stalks people just like the original model), this is still one mean-spirited and sleazy exploitation flick—even outdoing the previous Jason-filled installments (which is no small feat).
There’s a ton of death and dismemberment here—so much, in fact, that not all of it actually makes it onscreen. In several instances, we’re left to see the aftermath of our murderer’s handiwork and consider just what he might have done to the victims in order to leave their bodies in such a state. People die in almost every way imaginable…one guy dies by being impaled on a spike while in an outhouse, another takes a machete to the face, a girl takes an axe to the chest, another girl takes a set of garden shears to the eyes, and in my personal favorite, a young hooligan has a lit road flare crammed down his throat. But, my absolute favorite murder in F13: 5 doesn’t involve the pseudo-Jason at all…instead, it involves one of the halfway house residents taking an axe to another resident who’s clearly one of the most annoying film characters ever created. I cheer when this kid gets it every time... At any rate, there’s no shortage of violent death in this film.
Of course, the movie also boasts a pretty high sleaze factor as well. There’s more T&A in this installment than any other in the series to my recollection. Naked female flesh is exposed regularly (and gratuitously), often right before the woman is hacked to pieces. Even the heroine is required to show a little something this time out—she doesn’t get naked, but she does have to run through the forest in a wet shirt with no bra on. If you like slasher films with nudity and violence, this film is for you.
Director Danny Steinmann does a decent job behind the camera. He drops the ball on a few occasions (the aforementioned shot of the killer’s picture in his own wallet and the way he uses the camera to all but scream ‘this guy’s the killer!’ in the film’s early going), but overall, he does a fair job. One particularly memorable shot has Tommy at his window, looking down into the backyard where he sees Jason standing and staring back up at him. It’s a nice shot—and it was even nicer when John Carpenter used it near the beginning of Halloween. Still, if you’re going to borrow, might as well borrow from one of the best.
Pacing is rarely an issue in these films, primarily because they’re so formulaic. Honestly, a first year film student could helm one of these movies without messing it up. The first 10 minutes is spent either reliving past F13 events (the Jason’s Greatest Hits segment of part 4, or the replaying of the climax of part 2 in the beginning of part 3) or using a dream sequence prologue to get things rolling. From there, we spend the next hour getting to know the people who are going to die, watching Jason stalk them, then watching Jason kill them. From that point, we get a roughly 17 minute climax which generally starts off with the heroine discovering all the dead bodies Jason has conveniently placed in one room, or has nailed to the doors blocking the exits. From this point, the battle for survival ensues, with the killer eventually meeting a grisly demise at the hands of the heroine (or in this case, heroes). Finally, everything wraps up with a nearly 3 minute long epilogue where things are explained and a twist ending comes into play to pique interest in the next installment…and cue credits. Steinmann does a great job following the gameplan—which means that the film never bogs down. Murders occur about once every 5 to 10 minutes, and the film zips along to a conclusion.
The cast is pretty weak, but no weaker than what regular viewers of this series have come to expect. Shepherd actually does a commendable job acting like he’s got some severe personal issues. He’s twitchy and weird in every scene he’s in and you never really know if you can trust him or not. Unfortunately, by making him a mental case like this, the writers have robbed the series of a valuable character. Tommy Jarvis could have become Friday the 13th’s equivalent of Dr. Loomis in the Halloween films. Instead, this time out, he’s a nutcase who simply can’t cope—which really robs us of a satisfying showdown with pseudo-Jason at the climax.
The film also falters by pulling out one of those traditional F13 twist endings. All of the films in this series have relied on twist endings, but this one is particularly lame—especially when you consider that it’s never explored in the next film.
Finally, Harry Manfredini once again collects a paycheck for composing the film’s score (and I use the term composing loosely, since he’s basically just re-using all the music from previous installments here). By this point, the music is starting to lose its effectiveness, but so is everything else. It’s not a bad score by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just becoming a little too familiar at this stage of the game.
Overall, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is the one film in this series that probably doesn’t deserve the scorn it receives from hardcore fans. Unlike the dreadful Jason Takes Manhattan (which deserves all the scorn it receives and then some), this film manages to stay true to the traditional F13 formula, while delivering more gore and sleaze than any of other installments. Get over the fact that the killer isn’t Jason, because it is Jason up until the final unmasking. All in all, this film delivers in each of the key slasher areas—high body count, gruesome death set-pieces, and loads of gratuitous nudity. It’s not a good film, but it’s a great guilty pleasure…there’s almost something cathartic about watching obnoxious characters meet a grisly demise. So, final rating—2 stars from me, but another recommendation that you check it out if slasher cinema is your thing. You could do worse…trust me.
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