Some things just don’t work out the way filmmakers intend. You need only to look at the Halloween or Terminator franchises to wonder what went wrong and what were they thinking when they greenlit the movie. The original Friday the 13th was a surprise hit piggy-backing (and some might say ripping off) the success of the original Halloween.
Made for only about half-a-million dollars, it made almost $60 million and launched a franchise. Originally, for the sequels, they tried to do what Halloween would later attempt and make it an anthology whereas Friday movies would be about superstitions. But they decided to stick to the slasher subgenre by making Jason Vorhees the killer in the second, third and fourth movie. But by the time the producton began on the fourth, Paramount Pictures wanted to end the franchise once and for all giving it the subtitle The Final Chapter.
But it made money and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning was rushed into production. The movie focuses on Tommy Jarvis the young man, played by Corey Feldman in the fourth and appearing in a dream cameo, now an disturbed teenager, now played by John Shepherd, living with post-traumatic stress as he’s sent to a half-way house for troubled youth where a deranged madman is killing people. But when it was revealed that Jason Vorhees wasn’t the killer but a paramedic pretening to be Jason, fans weren’t too happy.
Actually, the movie ended on a cliffhanger with Tommy assuming the fate of being a serial killer and plans were in place to make him the bad guy in sequels. But, this didn’t work out the right way. Critics and fans hated it, so just bring Jason back. Even though it was referenced in the fifth movie that Jason had been cremated, he’s actually been buried in a cemetery near Crystal Lake.
The movie is set actually in the then near future as the fifth was set in 1989 but released in 1985. Tommy, now played by Thom Mathews as Shepherd didn’t want to return, has gone to cemetery to dig up the body of Jason he killed, in an attempt to burn it. But things don’t go as planned. Still traumatized, Tommy rips out a metal fence post and impales the rotting corpse. But as he goes to get the gas can, lightning strikes the post and revives Jason and he kills Tommy’s friend, Allen Hawes (Ron Palillo). Tommy gets away as Jason dons the hockey mask that Tommy has brought and is ready to go on another killing spree.
Tommy goes to the nearby sheriff’s office as the community has been renamed Forrest Green. But Sheriff Garris (David Kagen) doesn’t believe Tommy’s words that Jason is alive. Through a disagreement and scuffle, Tommy is locked up in the holding cell overnight. Jason comes across a couple (Darren and Lisbeth) played by a young Tony Goldwin and Nancy McLouglin heading to the lake in a Volkswagen Beetle, a throwback to a VW being in the second and third movie. Naturally Jason kills them but not before the McLoughlin character makes a comment that she’s seen enough horror movies to know that a man wearing a hockey mask in the middle of a roadway at night isn’t good.
Jason Lives is written and directed by McLouglin’s husband, Tom, who would do the fantasy rom-com Date With an Angel as a follow-up. The filmmaker manages to add a little meta-humor to the movie before it was a main thing. This is Goldwyn’s first movie as well. The casting of Palillo famous for his role as Arnold Horshack on Welcome Back Kotter has a connection with another cast member. Tom Fridley, nephew to John Travolta, plays one of the camp counselers (and eventual victims) Cort.
Cort along with Megan (Jennifer Cooke), Garris’ daughter, Paula (Kerry Noonan) and Sissy (Renee Jones) arrive at the sheriff’s office to tell him about how Darren and Lisbeth were supposed to be at the camp already but aren’t there. Apparently, it’s opening for the weekend for a few dozen young kids around the tween age. Judging by the terrain and setting, the movie looks like it’s set in late Fall or early Spring. The plot is basic. Jason kills a lot of people. Tommy tries to tell the local law enforcement about it. They don’t believe him until it’s too late.
But by giving the movie a little of humor, Tom McLouglin manages to make it enjoyable. By 1986, these films were started to die off in popularity. When the crotchety old gravedigger, Martin (Bob Larkin) approaches the open grave the next morning, he mistakes it for a prank. After his murder. Hawes fell into the open casket and it shut with his foot sticking out. Martin angrily fills it back up with dirt grumbling, “Why’d they have to go and dig up Jason?” Then he glances right at the fourth wall and says, “Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment.” And Martin meets Jason for the first and last time himself.
Jason is able to get a machete from a group of corporate office workers doing a paintball gun exercise in the woods and kill them all. He does so by ripping the arm off a sexist, misogynistic worker and sending him flying toward a tree where he’s impaled on a piece of protuding wood and his leaves blood over a smiley face someone carved in it. Also, Jason stares a moment at the arm wondering “Did I do that?” Jason has always had superpowers but this is the beginning of the franchise where he’s the undead even though he had features in the previous movies where he could rejuvenate in health for some unknown reason.
When he comes upon Cort and a friend, Nikki (Darcy DeMoss) having sex in an RV making it rock, it tilts his head a little wondering what is going on. Despite the sex scene, there is no nudity. Even though he was making a slasher movie, McLouglin had a strict no-nudity motive. It’s the first in the franchise not to contain nudity. And even though previous movies had problems with the ratings board over the violence, McLouglin was encouraged by studio executives to make it more violent, which is why Martin is killed as well as another unfortunate couple out in the woods.
Filmed in and around the Covington, Ga. area, fans of the TV show In the Heat of the Night, which was filmed in the same area, might notice similar locations. There’s also a surprising well use of Alice Cooper’s music who also wrote “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” for the movie. Even though it made a third of what the original made at just about $20 million, it was the best reviewed movie since the first one. It currently has a 50 percent aggregate on RottenTomatoes.com.
C.J. Graham does a fine role as Jason, even though Dan Bradley was initially cast before getting fired. His scenes mostly through the paintball sequence are still in the movie. Graham would later be approached by New Line Cinema, after they obtained the rights, to play Jason in Freddy vs. Jason. However, Graham refused because he felt the role should be played by Kane Hodder, who had played Jason in the subsequent movies after this.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 