FRIDAY THE 13th: Part 5 - A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

Cast: Shavar Ross, Miguel Nunez Jr., Anthony Barrie, Todd Bryant

Directed By: Danny Steinman
Written By: Danny Steinman & Martin Kitrosser & David Cohen
Story By: Martin Kitrosser & David Cohen
Cinematography By: Steven L. Posey
Editor: Bruce Green

They Lied. Een though the film does live up to it's title

(SPOILER ALERT)

This whole review is a spoiler

I Give this film credit as it is a ruse and kind of a cop out since there is no real Jason in the film but it is a continuation in the series as young Tommy Jarvis grows up and is put in a home for troubled teens. Corey Feldman was supposed to reprise his role but he was too busy filming “The Goonies” Wise decision or not you decide.

You know where this film is headed when the first kill is not by Jason but some random disturbed character that we think or hope we won’t be seeing again. The guy they kill is expendable because not only is he mentally challenged but fat. But the ending makes no sense since the guy who killed his son is behind bars why not kill him and get it over with instead of killing all these people who didn’t really have anything to do with it.

The film has a few good ideas of continuing the series sort of like Halloween 3 but a lot better. This film still keeps up the high body count and plenty of violence but in the end you find out that Jason is a imposter. You can tell early on look at the mask it has blue marks instead of red ones. But there are plenty of problems with the film even though it is supposed to be a typical Jason film why is it made lie a who done it the director makes it seem like certain members of the cast are killing everyone off even though we see it is Jason I can understand the characters in the film thinking this but why make the audience also think it.

Now I know the Friday the 13th films are short on logic but if this is a imposter Jason how come he has almost as much strength which borders on supernatural.

Now A the end and once you think about it you can see how the imposter came to be seeing as what happened earlier in the film how it could scar them to be driven to do this almost similar to what made Jason become the killing machine we know him as though without the strength and mongoloidism.

The pleasures of this film though are Shavar Ross who will be familiar to fans of television as Dudley of different strokes as one of the first African Americans in the series and as a about face the first to actually survive. In going with all these breakthroughs he also has the realest reactions of a character in a horror film when he sees the killer monster he screams like a girl and hightails it out of there leaving his friend to fend for herself she is a afterthought. It also features Miguel Nunez in full bad 80’s rock gear complete with a jheri curl as one of the first African American characters killed by Jason and in the toilet none the less. Pure magic and hilarious

Later I found out there was a heavily edited Scene where Jason kills the punk rock girl originally he was supposed to stab her right in her privates and we watch her bled out that way instead of the usual slash in the intestines. Now most of these films it ends up as violent as they are the MPAA has declared war on these films citing it for being sexist and excessive I’m sure they are and certain age groups shouldn’t be allowed to watch these films but that is the responsibility of the parents these films are made for pure entertainment not social statements they don’t preach a certain rhetoric and just like I am reviewing them, you take what you believe from them attacking them doesn’t stop them as you can see they still come out in fact you stump the audience and creators by not showing the story to the best of there abilities I know how ridiculous this all is for a movie that is sub-par but it needs to be said.

The ending is just bizarre as the ghost of Jason sets up Tommy in the hospital to become the new Jason. Which doesn’t exactly happen but we don’t find that out until the next film. For now this is truly the only Jason movie that really has no Jason in it. Kind of a rip off but a interesting experiment for the series.

GRADE: C