FRIDAY THE 13th PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING – The series hits peak silliness (arguably, or at least does battle with ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ for the trophy). It’s like they were stumped – “where shall we go? It’s 1985, slashers are old news!” “Shh, let’s just amp up the stupid bits of 3 and 4 and pretend it’s Scooby Doo while we figure something out.” It’s not like Scooby Doo, but there is an element of that at the end there. Otherwise, ANB plays like a comedy without laughs. At least I THINK they were joking, or trying to, because the parade of bloodless kills suggests they weren’t that into the horror (although a lot of that had to do with the notorious MPMA meddling). Forget stormy nights and lakeside beheadings, this one’s about weirdly choreographed singing in the toilet and goths doing robotics. Its unreality is summed up by the bit where they need ‘Jason’ out of action for a few seconds, so they engineer a kid bursting from a barn on a tractor to knock him over. That’s quite cocky. On the other hand, there’s more sleaze than usual for an F13, and a slightly leering, obnoxious attitude that cuts against the breezy tone. This trashy approach is a little at odds with the scene right at the start, where Jason emerges from his grave in the rain like a classic movie monster of yore, a nicely atmospheric bit that sets you up for a very different film (one we possibly get in Part 6). As a serious horror film, ANB is nearly worthless; as a crass bit of exploitation it’s a lot more successful, and I bet if it were a standalone movie outside of the franchise it’d be the latest eighties obscurity with a deluxe VinSyn upholstery job, complete with frenetic blurb.
FRIDAY THE 13th PART6: JASON LIVES! – Along with ‘The Final Chapter’, ‘Jason Lives!’ is often hailed as a series best. For me it’s an odd film, tonally at sixes and sevens even as it impresses with visual style and atmosphere. The start is pretty audacious, a re-run of the first minutes of ‘A New Beginning’, a graveyard re-animation sequence that culminates in Jason’s rebirth as a maggot-infested Fulci-esque Frankenstein. That in itself should signal its allegiance with eighties horror hokeyness, and in fact we do get dribs and drabs of era ‘humour’ in the form of irritating paintballers and a scattering of one-liners. But the abiding feeling is darker – for starters, it looks so different to all the other Fridays, kind of a lot more ‘goth-noir’ if that makes any sense. There’s a ‘con on the run, racing against time’ thread running through it that cements a noirish association, but then also the presence of a classful of kids in need of protection against our unstoppable hulk, an aspect that pushes it towards dark fairy-tale territory. Incongruities come and go, and an element of splatstick never quite gives up the ghost, but it leaves me more with a sense of brooding woodland menace not all that far removed from the end of the first. Interesting direction, a strong effort and a surprise after ‘A New Beginning’, which was a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.
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