**This review contains major SPOILERS**
After well and truly offing Jason with a few dozen machete blows to the head in Part 4, the so called 'Final Chapter', producers realised that there was still money to be milked from the cash-cow and so green lit the next instalment, 'A New Beginning'. However, this time the formula is mixed up a bit; we now have a copycat killer instead of Jason and also our first recurring character (that doesn't get killed off before the opening credits at least) in Tommy Jarvis. He is now a young adult and played by a below-average-even-for-the-genre John Shepard.
After a dream sequence (yawn) the film starts with Tommy being transported to a halfway house of sorts, after spending years in institutions he is now ready to start making the transition to normal life. However, when horny teens left, right and centre start turning up dead, Tommy realises that his battle with Jason may not yet be over and he stands up again to fight the hockey masked maniac.
Danny Steinmann directed the picture and from looking at his resume I can see this was the last film he ever had any creative involvement with. I'm not the least bit surprised. His direction is utterly uninspired, the stalk scenes are boring and redundant, drag on for what seems like an eternity and the pay offs (kills) are for the most part rather dull. Elaborate deaths scenes are the driving force behind this franchise, however almost all the kills seem extra tame after the especially brutal Part 4 (with the exception of the garden shears to the face – nice) and the MPAA hacking it to bits can't have helped much either.
The acting is generally what you'd expect, nobody really stands out and there is nothing even approaching a memorable character but the cast manage to keep from embarrassing themselves. As mentioned, John Shepard is a pretty poor lead, probably the worst of the first 5 films.
I have to give the filmmakers credit for trying to go in new directions and not just re-hashing the Jason formula and there are moments when it feels like we are going to get to see a truly tortured, complex character in Tommy Jarvis. I get the feeling, especially from the "shock" (ie, utterly predictable) ending that the producers were really ready to move the series forward and leave Jason dead and that is worthy of praise. However, the film too often slips back into silly slasher territory and with direction as dull and kill scenes as tame as this, that simply isn't good enough.
Obviously the series was never known for its' high art but this is the first one that I consider truly bad. It still made money though and another sequel was soon in production. You just can't keep a good cash-cow down...
After well and truly offing Jason with a few dozen machete blows to the head in Part 4, the so called 'Final Chapter', producers realised that there was still money to be milked from the cash-cow and so green lit the next instalment, 'A New Beginning'. However, this time the formula is mixed up a bit; we now have a copycat killer instead of Jason and also our first recurring character (that doesn't get killed off before the opening credits at least) in Tommy Jarvis. He is now a young adult and played by a below-average-even-for-the-genre John Shepard.
After a dream sequence (yawn) the film starts with Tommy being transported to a halfway house of sorts, after spending years in institutions he is now ready to start making the transition to normal life. However, when horny teens left, right and centre start turning up dead, Tommy realises that his battle with Jason may not yet be over and he stands up again to fight the hockey masked maniac.
Danny Steinmann directed the picture and from looking at his resume I can see this was the last film he ever had any creative involvement with. I'm not the least bit surprised. His direction is utterly uninspired, the stalk scenes are boring and redundant, drag on for what seems like an eternity and the pay offs (kills) are for the most part rather dull. Elaborate deaths scenes are the driving force behind this franchise, however almost all the kills seem extra tame after the especially brutal Part 4 (with the exception of the garden shears to the face – nice) and the MPAA hacking it to bits can't have helped much either.
The acting is generally what you'd expect, nobody really stands out and there is nothing even approaching a memorable character but the cast manage to keep from embarrassing themselves. As mentioned, John Shepard is a pretty poor lead, probably the worst of the first 5 films.
I have to give the filmmakers credit for trying to go in new directions and not just re-hashing the Jason formula and there are moments when it feels like we are going to get to see a truly tortured, complex character in Tommy Jarvis. I get the feeling, especially from the "shock" (ie, utterly predictable) ending that the producers were really ready to move the series forward and leave Jason dead and that is worthy of praise. However, the film too often slips back into silly slasher territory and with direction as dull and kill scenes as tame as this, that simply isn't good enough.
Obviously the series was never known for its' high art but this is the first one that I consider truly bad. It still made money though and another sequel was soon in production. You just can't keep a good cash-cow down...