If anything can be said about “Friday the 13th,” it’s a serial horror franchise if ever there was one. The series’ first released in 1980, filmmakers cranked out another one every year since, leading to this, “Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning,” released in 1985. If the original was a reinvention of a relatively burgeoning slasher genre, other entries to the franchise were refreshing to horror fans, if not wholly original. “Part V” would serve as the middle brick to a three-layer ‘Tommy Jarvis’ arc; and while this film is likely the weakest link of the three, it’s still a fitting answer for a “Friday” film while being scary and ‘80s themed throughout.
“Part V” follows Jarvis – who most will remember from the previous installment, played by Corey Feldman; a boy who watched his friends and mother die before brutally hacking the maniacal Jason Vorhees to death – as he attempts to finish out a stay at a halfway house and re-enter society. He’s played by an actor named John Shepherd, known for a host of TV movies, most notable “Quantum Leap.” Honestly, not much acting is required from Tommy this time around; he’s more or less mute from severe trauma, a ball of anger wound up in self-help meetings and calming techniques who you just know has something that needs to come out. It’s played well though, and Shepherd, without much to work with, is pleasing to watch.
The film ads a number of additional characters, who are, this time, little but cannon fodder. At the forefront is Matthew Letter (Richard Young), the compassionate head of the halfway house, joined in his task by Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman). There’s a number of other patients at the halfway house, who are too numerous to count but, quickly, include: a shy yet strange young man, a sullen and gruff adolescent that loves to chop wood and grunt, a jokester, a nurse; and, in the vein of ‘80s thrillers, a few hyper-sexualized young women. “Part V,” dissatisfied with this array of victims for Jason throws in a few others – a couple passerbys, a foul-mouthed woman and her son living in the woods, a hunter, a young boy and his brother, and a paramedic who plays into the plot in key ways.
While I could talk about these in more detail, I won’t for two reasons: first, true to form the deaths are still creative, and for those who have not seen the film I will not give them away. Second, even a brief examination of the fate of one youth named Joey and the above mentioned paramedic would all but give away the ending for most. Suffice to say that this time around the character development is sparse, and the body count is high. Jason is back, without much in line of a backstory, and is played by Tom Morga, who has an extensive career as a stuntman (not to be scoffed at; Kane Hodder, another stuntman who is one of the better-known Jason actors, popularized the character and still garners much attention for such on the convention circuit).
Melanie Kinnaman and Shavar Ross in “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” (Paramount Pictures, 1985).
What “Friday the 13th Part V” has going for it is that while the plot suffers, director Danny Steinmann still keeps a focus on the suspense over gore that separated ‘80s thrillers from many horror films of today. One sequence of Jason sneaking upstairs to a would be victim amidst a raging lightning storm is one of the film’s more suspenseful bits, and another as Jason taunts and attacks one unlucky youth using an outdoor bathroom stall is one of the film’s best. Unlike some of the series’ later films (such as the abysmal “Jason X”) the stalking and kills are creepy and filmed with an air of seriousness, not simply used as chopstick. In one scene a victim leans down to pick up a dropped lipstick off the ground and we see Jason standing silently in the background, an axe resting at his side. Are these not the reasons we go to horror movies in the first place?
Of course the film is not without fault. Chiefly, we don’t really get to know any of the characters well enough to care about them, and many of the more likable ones are dispatched early on. Likewise, Tommy is much more fleshed out in the previous film “The Final Chapter” and the continuation, “Jason Lives.”
“Friday the 13th Part V” follows the pick ‘em off motif horror seekers are looking for, but not much else. It’s a clear choice for those desiring for a Jason marathon this October; but if you’re looking for better films, the always iconic “Friday the 13th” or even its 2009 reboot are probably better options.
– by Mark Ziobro
