After a creative high in the previous film The Final Chapter, this movie took a significant nosedive in quality. One of my least favorite films in this franchise. Why they didn't just end the franchise is beyond me, but money talks I guess. To begin, the character of Tommy Jarvis who was our heroine from the previous film and arguably the most interesting new addition, was completely destroyed in this movie both with the actor's portrayal and the way the character was written. Once again, the kills are shown from the killer's point of view, and because of this, they tried to make you think that Tommy was the new killer in the movie. They set up that possibility at the end of the previous film, where he is shown to have gone a little nuts after killing Jason. From there, we are taken to a new setting of this halfway house where a bunch of troubled kids live under psychiatric care. This would've worked had the characters been interesting even in the slightest, but only three characters even stood out which were Reggie the Reckless, his cousin Demon ("Those damn enchiladas" will always be an iconic line of his), and the crazy neighbor lady Ethel who is probably the funniest character in the entire franchise. Other than those characters, everyone else are just stock teenagers to be killed by Jason. Except here's the dumbest part, it's not even Jason! While the ending twist didn't enrage me as much as it did other fans, I just didn't think the replacement killer made much of an impact to the story whatsoever. The ambulance driver Roy Burns (who only appeared in two scenes in the entire movie) is revealed to be the Jason wannabe. This is due to the death of his son at the beginning of the film at the hands of another teen at this halfway house. Since Roy was barely a character in the film, this reveal made no impact at all. I didn't care who this person was because I knew nothing about them. Had he been more prominent in the film and actually been a part of the story, then the reveal of him being the actual killer would've been effective. The final girl Pam isn't all that interesting and spends most of the third act running away from Roy other than when she used a chainsaw against him which was pretty cool. The kill count in this movie is pretty high, however almost all of the deaths aren't even shown and instead we just see the weapon slashing at the person. On the other hand, the nudity is cranked up to 11 so if you're into that then this movie has more nudity than any other film in the franchise. This is because the director literally had directed hardcore pornography previously. The ending of the film once again sets up Tommy as the future killer and once again this is not paid off in the following film so the ending is pointless too. Overall, this is a really bad film and one you can skip over.
Review of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
