Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985) Paramount Pictures/Horror RT: 92 minutes Rated R (language, graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, drug use) Director: Danny Steinmann Screenplay: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen and Danny Steinmann Music: Harry Manfredini Cinematography: Stephen L. Posey Release date: March 22, 1985 (US) Cast: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Richard Young, Marco St. John, Juliette Cummins, Jerry Pavlon, John Robert Dixon, Debi Sue Voorhees, Tiffany Helm, Jerry Pavlon, Dominick Brascia, Mark Venturini, Vernon Washington, Carol Locatell, Ron Sloan, Anthony Barrile, Caskey Swaim, Bob DeSimone, Rebecca Wood-Sharkey, Miguel A. Nunez Jr., Jere Fields, Dick Wieand, Corey Parker, Richard Lineback, Ric Mancini. Box Office: $21.9 million (US) Body Count: 21
Rating: ****
You see, I told you! The Final Chapter did decent box office the previous year, so producer Frank Mancuso Jr. found a way to continue the series. Appropriately enough, it’s called Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning.
This is the one with the “fake Jason”. No spoiler here, everybody knows that Jason Voorhees isn’t the killer in the fifth installment of the mega-popular horror franchise. Many fans regard A New Beginning as a rip-off and an insult to the intelligence. I disagree with the first part and choose to remain silent about the second. Instead I ask you when the F13 flicks have ever been an intellectual exercise. I will agree that it’s a colossally bad movie, so bad that it borders on parody. That’s really the best way to look at A New Beginning, as unintentional parody. The characters are dumber and more cartoonish. The dialogue is sillier. Much of the acting is over the top. I love it, I think it’s a lot of fun. Also, it has the highest body count of the first eight F13 movies (the ones distributed by Paramount). I stop short of calling it a total bloodbath because once again the MPAA interfered and demanded several cuts and trims before awarding it an R. There are still a few cool kill scenes, but I prefer mine heavy on the gore.
A New Beginning begins with young Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman making a return cameo) stumbling upon Jason’s grave during a rainstorm. He watches as two grave robbers dig up the corpse and promptly get killed by a resurrected Jason. The masked killer then advances towards the terrified boy and raises his machete. Guess what? It’s only a bad dream.
We catch up with teenage Tommy (Shepherd, Bless the Child) as he’s being taken to Pinehurst Halfway House, a country treatment center for troubled teens. Ever since killing Jason six years earlier, Tommy has gone from one mental institution to another. He’s still pretty messed up; he doesn’t speak much and occasionally hallucinates seeing Jason. The place is run by Dr. Matt Letter (Young, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and his assistant Pam Roberts (Kinnaman). The teenage patients include lovers Eddie (Dixon) and Tina (Voorhees), stuttering Jake (Pavlon), Goth chick Violet (Helm), mentally challenged Joey (Brascia), angry Vic (Venturini) and perky redhead Robin (Cummins). Also, a young boy named Reggie (Ross, Diff’rent Strokes) is visiting his grandfather, the camp cook (Washington).
The catalyst for all that happens is Vic murdering Joey with an axe. Here’s a question, why would they let somebody who’s clearly violent and dangerous chop firewood? Why not just give him a loaded gun? Right after that, the bodies start piling up. Not only does “fake Jason” go after the teens, he also goes after the staff and various locals including a white trash mother (Locatell) and her obviously inbred son Junior (Sloan). In the end, it’s Pam and Reggie that face off against “Jason”. Although I told you that Jason Voorhees isn’t the killer, I haven’t told you who is. All signs point towards Tommy being the actual killer, but we know that’s simply not the case. It’s too easy. I’ll leave it at that.
As for the killings in A New Beginning, here are the highlights: a foul-mouthed hood gets a flare shoved in his mouth (guess “Jason” didn’t have a bar of soap handy), a drug-snorting paramedic gets it with an axe to the head, a girl gets stabbed in both eyes by a pair of hedge clippers (SNIP!), somebody has his head crushed against a tree, a man gets impaled in an outhouse, another man gets decapitated while riding a motorcycle, two people get meat cleavers to the face, a girl gets impaled in her bed by a machete and somebody is impaled on a bed of spikes.
Like I said, it’s best to take A New Beginning as a joke. Surely the makers can’t be serious, can they? In its own weird and perverse way, it’s near brilliant. Take the aforementioned mother and son hicks. Their characters are obviously a nod to the grindhouse cult classic Mother’s Day, especially with Junior wearing a pilot’s cap and goggles (Holden McGuire’s character Ike, remember?). The acting is typical for the genre, but I do think that Kinnaman, Ross and Helm turn in the most interesting performances. It’s strange seeing Dudley from Diff’rent Strokes in a movie like this. Kinnaman has real talent and Helm is just hot. I wish her character had been in it more. Miguel A. Nunez Jr. (The Return of the Living Dead) plays a character named Demon that looks like a combination of Prince, Rick James and one of the Jacksons. I know it’s trash, but I get a real kick out of A New Beginning. It’s the good kind of bad movie.
