Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Tagline: “If Jason still haunts you, you’re not alone!”
Duration: 92 minutes

Film Quality: 2/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value:1.5/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

So what do you do when the 4th instalment of a successful franchise is a huge hit but the killer has been chopped to bits, his head sliced in half and it was unambiguously called ‘The Final Chaper’? Make a sequel of course!!! Yes, Jason’s inexplicably back to have another pop at the kid who killed him, who’s now a young adult and still suffering from the trauma of his ordeal.

Tommy - a shell of the happy go lucky kid we saw in Part 4

In a nutshell

Tommy Jarvis (left) arrives as the new mental health patient in a halfway house to continue his rehabilitation into society after suffering a breakdown due to his own violent actions at the end of part 4. But a murder at the institute causes him to start seeing Jason again and with kids being sliced and diced left, right and centre, is it all in his mind or has Jason risen from the grave once again to wreak havoc on a new bunch of hapless youngsters and innocent bystanders.

Pam - a resourceful final girl

So what’s good about it?

Christ, this is going to be difficult…well, for one thing it tried to do something that I don’t think any other slasher film up to that point had attempted and that is to focus on the surviving victim of the previous instalment. Yes, ‘Halloween 2’ did it a few years earlier but it started at the exact moment the original ended whereas this film is separated by six years within the ‘Friday the 13th’ universe, introducing us to a young man whose life will never be the same again. Tommy is distant, living in fear, not quite sure of his own mind and this a refreshing look at what surviving a horror can do to you. It’s such a shame that not enough is truly made of it.

It does feature some pretty colourful characters, particularly Reggie who is the young boy Tommy most relates to who displays interest and shows respect for Tommy’s mask making talents. Some of the characters are clearly there for comic relief, especially Ethel and her manchild son who show up a couple of times and have ‘victim’ tattooed on their foreheads! As director and co-write Danny Steinmann was instructed to include a gory death every 8 minutes, none of the characters are sufficiently fleshed out to give a damn about any of them. The only one I sympathised with in the slightest was Jake but only due to the simplest of plot devices as he’s spurned and humiliated by the one girl he has feelings for. It’s THAT devoid of emotion, charm and heart that such a ‘lowest common denominator’ scene works!

This could have had a more spectacular conclusion before

MPAA intervention

I have no doubt that the gore effects will have lifted the film but, as was the case with previous instalments, it was hacked to pieces by the machetes of the MPAA. Pretty much every single murder scene was shorn of the red stuff which, given the writers’ brief was to include a steady stream of gory murder, takes away the reason for the film existing in the first place. Take that away and you’re left with almost zero characterisation, no worthwhile dialogue, and a pale imitation of the four films that went before it.

There is one point of note for this film…did you know that it is the first film in the franchise to refer to the masked maniac as ‘Jason Vorhees’? Previously he was only referred to as ‘Jason’ (his name wasn’t uttered once in part 3!) which is kind of ironic considering (and this is a spoiler alert so look away now if you don’t want to know the score!) that, technically speaking, this is the only film that doesn’t feature him at all!!!

And what about the bad?

It would be a little harsh to say ‘everything’ but one of the best things you can say about this is that it isn’t the worst of the series…that’s a toss-up between parts 7, 8 and ‘Final Friday’ which shows how bad they are!!! But really it is dire. Characters are introduced purely so that they can be dispatched two minutes later (the farmhand, the couple in the diner, Reggie’s brother and his girlfriend, the couple in the car that breaks down), it is truly terrible and as original as a Justin Bieber tribute act.

It’s almost a parody of itself with most characters having sex, drinking, taking drugs or about to beat their girlfriends before quickly getting ‘punished’ by our masked killer. And speaking of our killer (another spoiler alert) it really is a terrible twist to have a minor, barely seen character revealed as the killer in an almost ‘Scooby-Doo’ moment that makes you feel short changed, another slap in the face to add insult to injury.

A pre-credits scene with Corey Feldman, filmed on a day off

from shooting 'The Goonies'!

Any themes?

Unfortunately this film isn’t smart enough to have any themes other than the standard ‘punish the youth for their sins’ message that’s featured in many superior slashers, including the preceding four parts of the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise. As previously stated, it tried to make a comment on the state of mind of a survivor but wastes the opportunity…where is the survivor guilt? Where is the family support, or commentary on the lack of alternative support? What about the genuine attempt to reintegrate into society? This final point is barely touched upon which is a real shame and just adds to the frustrations of an entry into a franchise that had already promised its final chapter.

Release History

This, at least is interesting! When the MPAA saw the first edit of the film they demanded some 16 cuts which accounted for virtually every murder and sex scene within the film. Most of them were shortened and one was possibly re-shot (the girl dancing in her room was reportedly slaughtered with a machete to the crotch and there is photographic evidence to back this up - see left) along with the outdoor sex scene in the woods which was rumoured to have been reduced from three or four minutes to a brief ten second glimpse. As with some previous entries there is a lot of rumour and hearsay and we will probably never know what the original uncut version would have looked like but the version that was eventually put out by the MPAA was too strong for the UK’s censors.

Oh yes, the BBFC went a little crazy themselves with the scissors, cutting a further one and a half minutes out of the already cut version. Some incredibly tame nudity (Tina on the floor following the already cut sex scene), the same girl’s murder with garden shears (I always assumed her head was cut off but no – eyes gauged out apparently as the aftermath was also cut - see right), the guy with the belt being tightened around his eyes and the shots of the victims stored in one of the rooms – all gone! It’s not surprising that this particular instalment has not had good reviews and isn’t fondly remembered when its’ only redeeming feature, the gore effects, were removed.

The version currently available on DVD in the UK is the best available version with BBFC cuts waived but it’s still the ‘R’ rated version courtesy of the MPAA. There seems to be no desire to release a restored version which baffles me as I’m sure that curiosity alone would make it a best seller.

Cultural Impact

It has become a cult film but only due to its association with the franchise because, as slasher films go, it falls firmly in the ‘could do WAY better’ pile. By all accounts the intention was to introduce a new trilogy that would feature a new killer in each one, in fact it ends with the suggestion that Tommy Jarvis may be the next killer. This idea was firmly rejected by the time ‘Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives’ got underway which was, thankfully, a much better film and a drastic change of tone, going for comedy and one of the first examples of a self-referential horror film that predates ‘Wes Craven’s New Nightmare by eight years! Other than that it remains a good example of how not to make a slasher film interesting.

Final Thoughts

More resembling a giallo than a slasher film in the end but without the style, grace and elan, this is a poor entry into the ultimately successful franchise. Despite that it was a hit, making its money back and then some, but compared to the ones that went before it, it was a disappointment at the box office. A couple of extra marks for at least trying something different it then loses them again by not picking up the ball and running with what could have been an engrossing subplot. ‘Halloween H2O’ tried something similar in 1998 and ultimately managed to balls it up even more than this one and the ‘Scream’ franchise dabbled with it a little; there is a good movie to be found in that idea…we just need a clever writer and director to pull it off.

Memorable Quotes

Ethel: “Don’t you come near me Sheriff, I’m warning you…I got a bomb on me…”

Demon: “It’s them damn Enchiladas.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

The other ‘Friday the 13th’ movies, ‘Body Count’, ‘The Burning’