Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: Ten years after the events of part four, Tommy struggles with his fear of Jason as more teens are murdered around him.
Review: Well, you knew the last movie wasn't going to be the last, so here is a new fucking beginning! Each of these big slasher franchises have some black sheep (Halloween 3, Nightmare 2), and this is that movie for the F13 universe. It's not to say this film has absolutely nothing to do with the other films, it's simply that it breaks up the flow of events between the sequels. On top of that, this is a shitty movie that feels more like a cheap ripoff than a true followup to the previous installment despite its attempt to be innovative. I should also mention the fact that this is where the timeline of this franchise becomes unnecessarily convoluted. Okay, let's establish Jason drowned in 1957, and Mrs. Voorhees killed the two counselors in '58. In part 1 the characters refer to the incidents as "20 years ago" which means the first film may take place in 1977 or '78. But since it's more likely they were saying 20 years because it sounds more solid, let's assume the first film does, in fact, take place in 1980. Oh, but wait, the gravestone said Mrs. Voorhees died in '79 damn it! In part 2 they say that Alice disappeared 5 years ago so that puts parts 2-4 all taking place in 1984 I guess. And now, we are another ten years in the future putting this film roughly in the futuristic setting of 1994! And what a beautifully slimy and grimy vision of the future it is.
The film opens with promise as we see Tommy back from part 4, still played by Corey Feldman, trying to find Jason's grave in the middle of the woods. Eventually he finds it, but some goofballs get there first, dig Jason up, and then Jason kills those idiots. But right before Tommy is about to die, he wakes up and has transformed into some actor named John Sheperd as the 22 year old version of Tommy. Apparently Tommy is moving into some mental rehabilitation clinic in the middle of nowhere, and, from this point onward, the film goes downhill with one stupid scene after another. The story this time around is that someone is killing people while pretending to be Jason just as Tommy is having visions of Jason. Like part 4, there is no definitive main character since Tommy slowly fades into the background and only has a handful of lines all movie long; to be fair, he was meant to be the primary red herring in regard to the identity of the killer. In fact, we are given quite a few red herrings like the sheriff, the director of the clinic, etc., but it's not too hard to guess who the killer is; actually, you may be wondering why the hell they went this direction so much that you don't even pick up on who the killer is. Since the killer isn't really Jason, I'm going to refer to him as Rason as it will make sense later and so you know the difference.
We are introduced to another group of teen fodder as well as a ridiculous slew of random characters who either serve to bolster the body count or to be red herrings. Essentially this film wanted to mirror the approach of the first film but falls into the same pitfalls as the original without that shocking of a twist to the killer. If you thought the characters were one dimensional in the original F13, these people are even less developed and some only have like one or two lines before dying...and there are a shitload of characters to keep track of. I'll give you an idea of how this film rolls: some dude who looks like Duckie from "Pretty in Pink" says maybe two lines early in the film, then has maybe three more toward the end, then just dies. Simply brilliant, is it not? Oh but I thought Duckie was surely the killer! Hey, at least Duckie was meant to be more of a secondary character, but there are like tertiary characters who pop up to die out of the blue such as these "greasers"--yeah, apparently the greaser image will (did) make a comeback in 1994! Were these guys supposed to be going to a Halloween party or something? Alright, so there's a million characters and they're stupid, we get it Ryan, but do they die satisfyingly? Nope. This is one of, if not, the most heavily edited of all the F13 films. Aww, you don't like that? Tough...it's a new beginning!
In the end, the last people alive are Tommy, some chick named Pam, and some little kid named Reggie. I have to say, Rason takes one hell of a beating without even so much as a peep as he is stabbed. Comically, the way they kill Rason is by making him fall onto a spike bed. Seriously, a spike bed?! Oh yeah, I always keep one around on the off chance I have to throw some guy pretending to be Jason into it! It turns out Rason was some guy named Roy who wanted to mask his kills by posing as Jason. We see Roy a few times throughout the film as one of the ambulance drivers or he's an EMT or whatever. Roy's motive was that, at the beginning of the film, we see some kid get killed at the clinic and apparently it was his son. So he went berserk and killed random strangers around town rather than focusing on those he felt genuinely were responsible...uhh...okay. That's the best they could come up with? It's a new beginning! The film ends with Tommy at the hospital somehow thinking he is Jason, and, since some kind nurse left him a hockey mask, he poises to attack Pam as the credits roll.
I hate this movie. It tried so hard to capitalize on what made the original work, but repeated the same mistakes and added new problems. Sure, the mystery angle was decent and it was somewhat refreshing to go back to the atmosphere of the first movie, but this isn't what the F13 franchise was all about at that point. You've established a character that drives this franchise and that's, for better or worse, what the audience wants. Plus, if you're going to try something new, you have to do better than making the killer just some random dude in two scenes! The characters are even more bland than the original, the kills are weak even though there are an abundance of deaths, Tommy would have made for a better killer or even Pam (even Reggie or Duckie!), Rason's motive was stupid and contrived as was Rason himself, and just about nothing worked. It's definitely the worst F13 entry for me.
Notable Moment: When Rason is finally killed by falling onto the spike bed. I just can't get over how ridiculous of a defeat this was.
Final Rating: 4/10
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