Review: Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning

Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd) is now a young man, but his big tussle with zombie-like killer Jason Voorhees has left him severely disturbed and pretty reticent to engage in any form of social interaction. He is sent to a kind of halfway house for all kinds of troubled youngsters somewhere out in the woods of Crystal Lake. Oh, that’s a good idea. Shortly after brooding Tommy’s arrival, a chubby guy named Joey (Dominic Brascia) gets an axe to the back from another troubled resident. Although the youthful offender is taken away from the premises by authorities, the killing doesn’t stop. Who could be responsible for the murders?

It’s among the least popular films in the series, but I think this 1985 film from director Danny Steinmann (writer-director of “Savage Streets”) and his co-writers David Cohen (writer-director of something called “Hollywood Zap”) & Martin Kitroesser (co-writer of “Part III” of this series) is probably the third best in the original series behind “The Final Chapter” and “Part III”. Given not many people like “Part III” either, your mileage may differ. Wildly.

We open with a fun scene including a brief cameo by Corey Feldman as young Tommy, to make sure Jason’s really dead, and then a bunch of stupid dumbfucks dig up the corpse for shits and giggles. Yeah, he’s not dead, the mask is covered in maggots, and Tommy better run but sadly he’s too paralysed by fear. Unfortunately, it turns out to be just a dream, kinda ruining the fun a bit and we are now several years ahead in the timeline. The opening titles are funny though, with the hockey mask bursting through the title design, turning around and heading toward the camera as if to put the hockey mask on the audience.

Tommy was an interesting messed up kid played by an interesting kid actor in Corey Feldman last time. Here he’s an interesting messed up young man played by a pretty uninteresting actor in John Shepherd. That’s a shame, because the film isn’t entirely worthless, though I do understand why many people dislike it. You see, this one’s a bit different from the usual “Friday the 13^th” film. Like the much-maligned (and deservedly so) “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”, this film decides to stray from the formula a tad. Oh sure, it’s still just youngsters being killed one-by-one. That much hasn’t changed here. However, the setting and the disturbed characters add a little something out of the ordinary, albeit not done well at all. It’s also something a little too close to a sub-par version of “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” for my liking. It’s still enough to keep this one above the tedious subsequent films and the first two empty-headed slashers…but barely.

I won’t get into spoilers or anything here, all I’ll say is that while Jason Voorhees is indeed still here, some of you may not like his participation in this film all that much, if at all. I don’t even particularly like it myself on the whole. I appreciate the effort, but the execution is pretty far off for me, including a boring Final Girl. In fact, the script’s treatment of characters here is pretty poor. Several characters – important ones – disappear for far too long stretches. Meanwhile, I know some people may not like the Sydney Lassick-esque work of Dominic Brascia as Joey, but I think he deserved at least to stick around a bit longer given he was a little more than your standard horny young Jason victim. So that was a shame.

For me the real problem is that the film is too loud and obnoxious, with several comedically-inclined characters too many. Every cutaway to foul-mouthed Ethel (TV veteran Carol Locatell) and screaming idiot Junior (Ron Sloan), or the cops is an unwanted eye and ear-sore. That goes double for Billy (Bob De Simone) and waitress Lana (Rebecca Wood-Sharkey), too. They’re not needed and they’re not wanted in a film that already has too many characters.

On the plus side, with Feldman only appearing in the prologue, we do get a fine juvenile performance by Shevar Ross as a troubled kid. You’ll likely remember Ross as Arnold’s buddy Dudley from “Diff’rent Strokes”. He’s a scene-stealer and you also instantly worry for the poor kid’s safety. I also thought veteran bit-player Miguel A. Nunez’s idiotic Soul Glo-sporting delinquent Demon was hilarious. Demon, who is the no-good but well-meaning older brother of Ross’ character is only in the film for a minute or two, but of all the comedic elements in the film, he’s the least egregious and annoying. Speaking of annoying, that final scene really ought to have been shafted. It’s dumber than a box of rocks.

It’s not a very good film, but none of these films are very good. Or even good. It’s not crap, is what I’m saying. Yep, small praise. Actually, small praise probably overstates it too. You could do a lot worse? Yeah, let’s go with that. This one is the franchise’s “Dream Warriors”, and obviously doesn’t hold a candle to that excellent “Elm Street” sequel, but yes you could do a lot worse.

Rating: C