THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When something is too good to be left alone, studios bring it back for extra profit and beat the dead horse until there’s nothing left. Hollywood loved slashers in the 80s and couldn’t help keep things afloat for Friday the 13th .
PLOT
The fifth film, A New Beginning, takes place five years after Tommy Jarvis defended himself against mass murderer Jason Voorhees. Now 17 years old, he’s been having nightmares ever since the incident and is now being taken to Pinehurst Halfway House after going through internment in past psych hospitals. The house is managed by Doctor Matt Letter and assistant Pam Roberts. As he settles in, Tommy meets the rest of the group that include: Jake Patterson (Jerry Pavlon) who has a habit of stuttering, punk rocker Violet Moraine (Tiffany Helm), Robin Brown (Juliette Cummings) who acts too serious, Joey (Dominick Brascia) who compulsively eats, Eddie Kelso & Tina McCarthy (John Robert Dixon & Debi Sue Voorhees) who are lovers, and the youngest of the group Reggie Winters. The latter’s grandpa George (Vernon Washington) works at the house as facility cook. The group is disliked by the cranky neighbor Ethel Hubbard (Carol Locatell), due to Eddie & Tina constantly having sex on her property, thus Matt forbidding everyone from venturing outside the facility’s premises. The weekend quickly takes a turn for the worst when another patient named Vic Faden (Mark Venturini) gets so annoyed of Joey that he kills him with an axe, resulting in him being arrested. By evening, two greasers, Vinnie & Pete (Anthony Barrile & Corey Parker) get killed by an masked assailant who would also kill a local waitress named Lana Ardsley (Rebecca Wood) and her boyfriend Billy (Bob De Simone) who is the facility’s personal driver. With a new murder spree occurring, the sheriff suspects Voorhees to be back from the dead. The bodies pile up when the assailant kills not only Eddie & Tina who disobey Matt’s orders, but also Ethel’s farmhand Raymond. By night, Reggie begs George to see his older brother Demon (Miguel A Nunez Jr.) who had just returned to town with his girlfriend Anita (Jere Fields). Pam chaperones the visit and Tommy tags along, but the situation gets out of hand when the latter fights Ethel’s needy son Junior (Ron Sloan). Tommy would be ashamed of his actions that he’d run away into the forest. When Demon goes to the bathroom, he gets impaled through the walls with a spear while Anita got her throat slit by the same assailant. By the time Junior returns to Ethel, the assailant kills them both with a cleaver. By the time Pam & Reggie return to the institute, they find out Matt & George are missing as well as Tommy. Pam chooses to search for the others while Reggie goes to sleep and for them all to return. The villain continues the trail of blood when having another cleaver attack on Jake and stabbing Robin from under the bed via machete. Violet is also stabbed in the stomach by him with the same weapon. When Reggie wakes up, he sees all the carnage by the time Pam returns and together, they run away from the masked perpetrator they assume to be Voorhees. As they retreat, they find the bodies of Matt & George and a paramedic named Duke before heading to a barn. Pam tries defending herself with a chainsaw before Tommy returns to confront who they believe to be a familiar perpetrator. Due to hesitance, he gets slashed in the chest and is knocked unconscious temporarily. Pam & Reggie by trying to push Voorhees out the loft window and it works once Tommy recovers in time to chop off his hand, leading to him falling into a tractor harrow. Unmasked, it is revealed to be paramedic Roy Burns who was Joey’s father who went insane and sought revenge for his son’s death; Confirmed by Sheriff Tucker (Marco St. John), no one knew of the relation between the two until he checked his wallet after he died. As Tommy recovers in the hospital, he has nightmares of Jason again and tries to face his fear by making him disappear at his command. The film ends in a cliffhanger in which he sneaks up on Pam with a knife while wearing a hockey mask like Jason would.
THOUGHTS
I don’t think there is a certain expectation you make of a slasher movie when the central villain ain’t coming back until the next one. The only thing expected is a bloody good time which I think was pulled off by Director Danny Steinman. He gets the basics of giving us some graphic deaths are gonna glued to my memory in all the right ways you’d expect when watching these kind of movies. I mean it’s not everyday you see someone get killed with a road flare, getting your head stabbed by garden shears or getting your head pressed to a tree thanks to a branch & a belt which is possible thanks to Martin Becker’s practical effects. The tone is off when trying to lighten the mood before terror resumed, which is a problem since The Final Chapter had a better job with such pacing. Although you know what you’re in for, Steinman being coked up during production to the point he let the supporting cast do what they please to better the performances was a bad call because this is the beginning where all the victims becoming one noted where you don’t care when they all die no matter how diverse they come off at first. It’s barely held together when the focus goes to the main man that brings in the carnage. The fact the villain has a hockey mask with blue lines instead of red was the ultimate nod it wasn’t Jason like some expected. While it is Tim Morga & John Hock that don the mask during the climax, credit should also be given to Dick Wieand as Roy who quickly showed how stunned he was to lose all he had left to give his life meaning, although he wasn’t completely part of his life. From the start, he is frozen in sanity in losing his son that he wanted everyone to feel his pain and used the identity of Voorhees to cover his tracks. They may have not shown him kill Vic, but I really wouldn’t rule out the possibility of his revenge happening before his own body count gets going. His graphic actions that take place give a dead on representation when we let grief and/or trauma get the best of us and luckily, our protagonist is able to overcome his troubles in time to defend himself once more. John Shepherd steps up to the plate of portraying Tommy Jarvis as one living off of fear who worries he’ll become a killer like Voorhees and his legacy will live on through on. The ending in which he sneaks up on Pam is indeed a fakeout long before Jason Lives becomes reality because it would’ve undone the maturity he achieved. And thankfully, he had people who showed enough kindness & moral support to pave the way for said maturity. Melanie Kinnaman made a memorable scream queen/final girl out of Pam who was gentle to all the kids she’s helping to versatile when defending herself because she’s the first to fight off Jason with a chainsaw, which she should’ve just charged after slashing his shoulder. Similar to how Richard Young depicts Matt, she cares about all the kids and she was willing to die trying to protect them which was bold on her end. I also got to give a shout out to Shavar Ross who brought his own energy to Reggie the way Corey Feldman did as young Tommy. When not being playful to show he means well, he was willing to defend himself no matter how scared which he proved when jumping onto Jason after already charging at him with a tractor. Whatever life he has after this since he ain’t with Tommy in the next entry, I hope he’s got it better than he did here. This movie is still fun when you know what you’re in for, but it never excuses the things that don’t make much sense otherwise. Like why would Billy read porn magazines while on the road? It’s one thing to be bored, but another to be discreet. And why did Tommy have a knife? While this is a way to give a whodunnit and have us mistake he could be responsible for the murders that occur, he shouldn’t have that at all home when going from one psych ward to another because it is just as much for his protection than it is for everyone else around him. Also, why would Vic be allowed to have an axe if people knew how angry he can get? Forget the fact Joey didn’t know any better because Matt should’ve not let someone as angry as Vic be near a weapon like that no matter how boring it can be with limited technology in that time period. If I can blame one roommate for something, I’d blame Eddie for trying to harmlessly scare Tommy with one of his masks. He does not know Tommy at all, so he had no idea how’d he react and should’ve known better. And lastly, where exactly does Roy enter the house during the climax? You can say the thunder blocked up the sound of his footsteps, but it doesn’t answer if he got in through a door or a window. Other than that, this one is for fine for what it is. To wrap up, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is an entertaining slasher flick for being its own shakeup before the franchise would later top itself in mayhem. If this horror franchise is your jam, I don’t see a reason to skip it.
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