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Friday the 13th Part V:A New Beginning (1985)
It’s no secret to you if you read the reviews I write that I’m a fan of sleazy films. They’re bizarre, hilarious and basically are so offbeat that I can’t help but enjoy them. Another thing that I’m a big fan of are the Friday the 13th films as it’s one of the reasons I’m the horror fan I am today. So if you could possibly mix the two together, what would you have? Director Danny Steinmann’s sleazefest entry into the Friday the 13th series, Part V: A New Beginning. It’s so different than all of the other movies in the series and the fact that it’s completely un PC and doesn’t give a shit, makes it one hell of a flick. I’ve always found it to be completely underrated and pointlessly hated by fans of the franchise as well. To me it has a personality all it’s own and that’s what makes it such a cool flick.
Part V: A New Beginning features the second appearance by the Tommy Jarvis character, this one years after his first encounter with Jason. This time he’s being shipped off to a house for troubled teenagers and is obviously a few years older. He still has visions of Jason and shows symptoms that the events have effected him mentally. Almost immediately upon Tommy showing up at the facility patient murders another with an ax. From that point on there seems to be something else going on there and before you know it Jason is on the prowl again and he won’t stop killing and maiming everything along his way.
Out of all of the Friday films part V easily has the biggest cast of characters from Vic, the ax happy murderer, to Reggie the Reckless a young man who lives at the home but isn’t a patient, Ethel and Junior quite possibly the funniest two people in the entire series, and Reggie’s brother the Jeri Curl wearing Demon. Honestly that’s just touching the tip of the iceberg as far as this one goes. Basically you get a fusion of all these people and more that help make Jason’s killing rounds one of his most memorable to date.
Another thing about part V that has always stuck in my head are the special effects. Generally Tom Savini gets a lot of credit for the first and fourth films respectively and it’s certainly due. But because of that I find that some of the other films have pretty underrated special effects and this is a good example of that. The kills are inventive and pretty slick considering that many considering this a “throwaway” in the series. Mainly due to a plot point in the film that I won’t give away here, but lets just say that someone isn’t who they seem to be. Sadly enough this has added some sort of stigma to the film making it easily one of the most underrated in the whole series.
Although a lot of hardcore fans of the Friday series don’t like this film, I have to tell you that I simply don’t understand. Sure, I can see their point to being upset but not to the point where it makes it so you can’t enjoy this movie. In all honesty it’s one of the most fun slasher films I’ve ever seen. The gore is there, the non PC humor is here by the boatload, plenty of nudity and just about everything else you’d expect to see in a solid slasher film.
Finally with the release of this deluxe edition of the film we get some fitting special features on the DVD as well. This one comes with an excellent commentary track featuring director Danny Steinnman, Shavar Ross and John Shepard that won’t disappoint. Also there’s a featurette on there on the making of Friday V, as well as the continuation in the short film series “Lost Tales from Camp Blood Part 5", as well as “The Crystal Lake Massacres revisited part 5" (fake featurette about the REAL Crystal Lake murders), as well as the original theatrical trailer. This makes the film a must own for any Friday completest as it’s the best release of the fifth film in the series to date. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating - ***
-Ed Demko
