|
Friday The 13th Part 5: A New Beginning
[Paramount]
1985; color
Directed by Danny Steinmann
Starring: Anthony Barrile, Suzanne Bateman, Dominick Brascia, Todd Bryant & Curtis Conaway
|
|
Most Friday The 13th fans share the opinion that this sequel is the worst entry in the series, and they're probably right; particularly due to the fact Jason Voorhees isn't actually in this movie. (Although if this was not another "chapter" in the franchise and just taken as a slasher movie on it's own it could probably get a better rep—I stress could because it's still not THAT good.) Sporting the highest kill count in the series thus far, this "New Beginning" starts off in the usual FT13 fashion with a few minutes from the previous movie, in this case it's Corey Feldman as young Tommy Jarvis spying on two teens who had the bright idea to dig up Jason's grave. Of course, they are promptly killed. (Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for the boys, someone inexplicably buried Jason with his beloved machete.) Then, as Jason's about to hack apart Tommy, he wakes up—at about age 17, and as a different actor—on a bus. Yes, it was a dream sequence (in case you're keeping score, those kills don't factor into the overall body count btw, as they aren't really deaths from this movie), and teenaged Tommy is on his way to the Pinehurst Youth Development Center, a home for troubled / emotionally dysfunctional teens. On arrival he meets the guy who runs the place, his girl assistant, the African American cook and the cook's visiting grandson, as well as the other residents of the home. (Three boys, three girls.) I'll spare the majority of the details but, suffice it to say, everyone except for Tommy and two of those people will die. As is the case with so many residences housing folks with a checkered past, there's bound to be trouble with the locals. In this case it's the first substantial dose of comic relief in the series delivered via the persona of a local dirt farmer the cops refer to as Crazy Ethel and her half-wit motorcycle riding son. Of course, she'll die soon enough, and so will her boy. (Interestingly enough, it seems like a lot of the kills are done in pairs, as duos of people invariably separate themselves from the group or were paired off to begin with, leading to their eventual demise.) As Tommy begins his first full day at his new home, the resident handyman freaks out while chopping wood, hacks up a fat kid for no real reason and runs off. After the paramedics haul him off and the cops begin fanning out and looking for the handyman, characters start dying at a rapid rate. First, a pair of greaser types are dispensed with. (One with the inventive road flare in the mouth method; a new one for the series.) Then, the home's chauffeur and his girlfriend get axed. The next day, kids at the home start getting offed—and so does the crazy handyman. Eventually, the police chief tells the dis-believing mayor that the murders are the work of Jason Voorhees, which leads to… more deaths. Duh. As the body count mounts and the pool of the living grows smaller, the inevitable showdown happens and "Jason" ends up impaled on a bed of spikes. Except it's not Jason, it's one of the paramedics in a hockey mask. As fate would have it, he was the father of the murdered fat kid—thus prompting his blood-crazed murder spree. Makes perfect sense, huh? Actually it does, but not for this series. This one is for completists only.
—the Kommandant
|
|
|
Cause Of
Jason's Re-Birth:
n/a
|
|
|
|
Setting:
Pinehurst Youth Development Center
|
|
|
|
Body Count:
18
|
|
|
|
Methods Of Death:
throat slitting (4)
machete (4)
axe (2);
cleaver (2);
garden shears (2);
leather strap (1);
impalement (2);
road flare in mouth (1)
|
|
|
|
Cause Of
Jason's Death:
n/a
|
|
|
