The murderous Jason Voorhees is back after the less than stellar " Friday the 13th: A New Beginning" left Jason out in favour of a poorly put-together murder mystery sleaze fest that was just a body count movie. "Friday the 13th: Jason Lives," is kind of good and Tom McLoughlin brings his love for gothic horror to the story. It's taken them five movies to try and do something different, and they get it right with this installment.
Camp Crystal Lake is now called Camp Forest Green. The townsfolk are aware of Jason's killing spree and decided to change the name in hopes of opening the local summer camp, to which this film takes place for the most part. Every other scene is Jason in the nearby woods.
Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews) gets released from the halfway house and decides he is going to get rid of Jason for good by burning his corpse. "Jason belongs in Hell, and I'm gonna see that he gets there," Tommy says to his friend, Hawes (Ron Paolillo,) who has decided to tag along. Jason is resurrected by lighting as a supernatural force when Tommy finds his grave. I was going to say this is an excuse to kill more people and well most of these characters are the same old dumb teens, there seems to be a reason to like them, including the kids that Jason finds later in the movie.
Jason sets about killing anyone that he comes across. A couple lost in the woods meets a gruesome fate when they encounter Jason in the woods. This scene is clever because she says, "I've seen enough horror movies to know, any weirdo wearing a mask is not friendly." Tommy runs off and is jailed by the local Sheriff Garris (David Kagen,) who won't believe him when he says, "Jason's alive." His daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke) takes a liking to Tommy, and she helps him escape so they can save the kids from Jason.
The kids arrive at the camp, and the counsellors, Cort (Tom Fridley,) his girlfriend, Nikki (Darcy DeMoss,) friends Sissy (Renee Jones,) and Paula (Kerry Noonan) are the main counsellors although they are smarter than the previous kids, they are useless horror movie bait for Jason to hack up. Cort and Nikki get flipped over in an R. V., probably one of the cooler scenes in the movie when Jason cut the power and climbs on board. There is a lot of easter eggs here to the Universal monster movies.
Some funnier scenes involve a caretaker in the cemetery who is a drunk and spouts nonsense. He finds the grave uncovered and says, "Why they have to go and dig up Jason?" The sense of comedy does make the movie different, but a lot of ithe funny bits has to do with this caretaker. Later, when the cops show up at the cemetery, chasing Tommy, who yells "Dig him up?" The Caretaker takes a big slug of whiskey, looks at the camera and says "Dig him up? Does he think I'm a farthead?" all the kids scream "Yes" in the background before the scene transitions to them.
The sheriff discovers Tommy is telling the truth, and they attempt to find Jason down by the docks of, I guess, Crystal Lake. It doesn't take Jason long to take out the deputies. But the kids that were at the camp are just gone now? They're either sleeping when the commotion happens outside the cabins, or they skedaddled out of there after they first saw Jason.
Tommy spends most of the movie on the run with Megan while the Sheriff is convinced Tommy is the killer, leaving bodies all over the place. He's not too bright seeing as how Tommy is in jail for a quarter of the movie. His deputy is a complete idiot, there is always one, and he is the one who finds the murder scenes and calls the Sheriff.
Tommy comes up with a plan to trap Jason forever, and the only reason this movie got made was because of the backlash that "A New Beginning" got. That doesn't mean much, but this installment has its moments. There is a story here and some funny moments. The characters are okay. They tried to do some things differently while sticking to the usual garbage these movies are, and it's entertaining.
6/10.
Camp Crystal Lake is now called Camp Forest Green. The townsfolk are aware of Jason's killing spree and decided to change the name in hopes of opening the local summer camp, to which this film takes place for the most part. Every other scene is Jason in the nearby woods.
Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews) gets released from the halfway house and decides he is going to get rid of Jason for good by burning his corpse. "Jason belongs in Hell, and I'm gonna see that he gets there," Tommy says to his friend, Hawes (Ron Paolillo,) who has decided to tag along. Jason is resurrected by lighting as a supernatural force when Tommy finds his grave. I was going to say this is an excuse to kill more people and well most of these characters are the same old dumb teens, there seems to be a reason to like them, including the kids that Jason finds later in the movie.
Jason sets about killing anyone that he comes across. A couple lost in the woods meets a gruesome fate when they encounter Jason in the woods. This scene is clever because she says, "I've seen enough horror movies to know, any weirdo wearing a mask is not friendly." Tommy runs off and is jailed by the local Sheriff Garris (David Kagen,) who won't believe him when he says, "Jason's alive." His daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke) takes a liking to Tommy, and she helps him escape so they can save the kids from Jason.
The kids arrive at the camp, and the counsellors, Cort (Tom Fridley,) his girlfriend, Nikki (Darcy DeMoss,) friends Sissy (Renee Jones,) and Paula (Kerry Noonan) are the main counsellors although they are smarter than the previous kids, they are useless horror movie bait for Jason to hack up. Cort and Nikki get flipped over in an R. V., probably one of the cooler scenes in the movie when Jason cut the power and climbs on board. There is a lot of easter eggs here to the Universal monster movies.
Some funnier scenes involve a caretaker in the cemetery who is a drunk and spouts nonsense. He finds the grave uncovered and says, "Why they have to go and dig up Jason?" The sense of comedy does make the movie different, but a lot of ithe funny bits has to do with this caretaker. Later, when the cops show up at the cemetery, chasing Tommy, who yells "Dig him up?" The Caretaker takes a big slug of whiskey, looks at the camera and says "Dig him up? Does he think I'm a farthead?" all the kids scream "Yes" in the background before the scene transitions to them.
The sheriff discovers Tommy is telling the truth, and they attempt to find Jason down by the docks of, I guess, Crystal Lake. It doesn't take Jason long to take out the deputies. But the kids that were at the camp are just gone now? They're either sleeping when the commotion happens outside the cabins, or they skedaddled out of there after they first saw Jason.
Tommy spends most of the movie on the run with Megan while the Sheriff is convinced Tommy is the killer, leaving bodies all over the place. He's not too bright seeing as how Tommy is in jail for a quarter of the movie. His deputy is a complete idiot, there is always one, and he is the one who finds the murder scenes and calls the Sheriff.
Tommy comes up with a plan to trap Jason forever, and the only reason this movie got made was because of the backlash that "A New Beginning" got. That doesn't mean much, but this installment has its moments. There is a story here and some funny moments. The characters are okay. They tried to do some things differently while sticking to the usual garbage these movies are, and it's entertaining.
6/10.