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FRIDAY
THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING Review
By the time Paramount decided to move on with the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise, it was clear it was only for the box office profits and not for further developing the story of Camp Crystal Lake. They had decided to kill Jason, but the film became its biggest grossing FRIDAY and a sequel was only inevitable. Faced with a similar task in PART 2, Jason was dead and the franchise was to go in a new direction. The result was one of the most controversial films of the 1980s. A few years after the events of FINAL CHAPTER, an adult Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd), traumatized from the events, is sent to a halfway house with other troubled youngsters in the hopes to rehabilitate his violent behavior. He is quiet, reserved, and has visions of Jason. When one of the kids at the house is brutally murdered, it starts a series of events that suggests that maybe Jason is back from the dead, creating more havoc at Camp Crystal Lake. This had such a good premise going for it, it’s a shame it was ruined by horrible direction. Danny Steinmann hasn’t directed a movie since this and it’s apparent way. Part of it wasn’t his fault though. The studio was so quick to rush this into theaters there was no care put into the product. Aside from Tommy, most of the characters are extremely one dimensional, with no real story given to why the other members of the halfway house are there. The addition of the redneck family nearby of Ethel and Junior provide some very funny comic relief, but nothing more. Steinmann also uses obvious clichés in the characters to establish them. For example, I don’t think an ambulance driver on the way to a kids’ halfway house would be looking at a porn magazine while they drive into the premises of the house. In addition, the death scene of said driver is done in three poorly executed shots of the killer swinging an axe down, the axe hitting an obvious dummy head, and a close up that turns into a tight zoom of the guy’s face widening (his whole face is shown without any indication of the axe in his skull) which I don’t think would be a reaction after receiving a blow like that. Another one is the use of a flare which is shoved into the mouth of a kid looking like he came from the set of HAPPY DAYS. So poorly executed, you could tell it was a dummy head. There are obvious fake heads and dummies used for other scenes. The only standout kill is a tourniquet used around a tree to crush one of the kids’ skull in. If the rest were done as realistic, it would’ve made the film stand out more. Of course, the main controversy is that the killer isn’t Jason, just a guy dressed as Jason. The complaint is that Jason isn’t in the film, but nothing could be further from the truth. Jason is all over the film, shown in the delusions of Tommy throughout the film but his legend is the film. The reveal of who the killer was (Roy the ambulance driver, played by Dick Wieand) was disappointing in itself but didn’t ruin the movie for me. Tom Morga, who played the masked Roy, is good here in a limited capacity (like Betsy Palmer in the first film, he isn’t revealed under near the end and has about 13 minutes of screen time). Even with a poorly executed script, there are some very good performances, headed by John Shepherd’s intense performance as the adult Tommy Jarvis, trying to move on from the ordeals of THE FINAL CHAPTER. The scene where Tommy confronts the masked Roy masquerading as Jason is excellent in Shepherd’s vulnerability, and his sudden acceptance when he is slashed. Corey Feldman, who worked for a day between breaks on THE GOONIES, has an interesting scene where Jason is dug up and goes after him. Melanie Kinnaman is excellent as Pam, one of the organizers of the halfway house who fights back at Roy with such believable determination. Dominick Brascia gives a tender performance as the fat, awkward, misunderstood Joey who is needlessly hacked to pieces to set up the slaughter to come. Carol Locatell is hilarious as the foul mouthed Ethel, who is the perfect loudmouth character you want to die, with her overgrown man child son Junior, who does get one of the best death scenes in the FRIDAY franchise in terms of its setup. Although I dislike the film, it did have one of the best endings of the franchise, and one based slightly in reality as Tommy gives in to his demons and takes over the mantra of Jason, donning the mask and reaching in for the kill. If only Paramount had been patient with the script and hired a more competent director had they been on the ball with this one. Instead, they dropped it and crashed it through the floor. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING: 5 Out Of 10 Maggots
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