Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

... aka: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
... aka: Friday the 13th, Part 5
... aka: Repetition
... aka: Vendredi 13, chapitre 5: Une nouvelle terreur (Friday the 13th, Chapter 5: A New Terror)
... aka: Venerdì 13: parte V - Il terrore continua (Friday the 13th: Part V - The Terror Continues)

Directed by:
Danny Steinmann

Even though THE FINAL CHAPTER was supposed to end Jason's reign of terror once and for all in the spring of 1984, Paramount already had this in production in October of the same year and even managed to get it into theaters a mere 11 months after the previous entry debuted! The critical reception was just as abysmal as it had always been, only this time many die hard series fans were also among the disappointed; something we'll get into further detail about here in a little bit. Though this debuted in the #1 spot its opening weekend with a respectable 8 million, it's domestic box office finish was a steep drop of over 10 million from the previous two entries. Still, on a budget of around 2 million, that's still a more than decent profit and Paramount kept on going.

At the end of #4, it was strongly hinted that the evil that is Jason Voorhees had somehow passed along to survivor Tommy Jarvis, which is something this entry plays upon. After spending some time at the Unger Institute of Mental Health, the now-teenage Tommy (John Shepherd) is sent to live at the Pinehurst Youth Development Center; a tranquil transitional living facility for troubled youth whose goal is to prepare their charges ready to reenter society. Well, good luck with Tommy. Despite a steady diet of therapy and drugs back at the mental asylum, Tommy is now quiet, despondent, withdrawn and still frequently haunted by images of Jason. Despite the best efforts of Doctor Matthew (Richard Young) and compassionate assistant director Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman), Tommy also has a difficult time adjusting to his new surroundings, which isn't too surprising considering he's constantly dealing with a bunch of kooks, oddballs, obnoxious assholes and assorted crazies, both at the facility and around town.

Well-meaning but annoying ("Just fuh-get it!") patient Joey (Dominick Brascia), an orphan who's been shuffled around from home to home until being placed at Pinehurst, manages to push the already-angry Victor (Mark Venturini) over the edge and ends up getting himself chopped up with an axe. That murder then triggers a succession of other murders around town. A couple of leather clad 50s-lookin' greasers (?!) are butchered after their car breaks down and then a diner waitress and her coke-snorting boyfriend get axed. Soon, the teens of Pinehurst start disappearing themselves.

Local police, led by Sheriff Tucker (Marco St. John), look into matters but the likeliest of suspects - Jason Voorhees - can't be a suspect at all as his body has been cremated and his ashes scattered. Still, someone's copying both his look and his no-two-murders-alike killing techniques and has started anew in his place. Has Tommy snapped due to his traumatic childhood or is there another copycat murderer on the loose? And this is precisely what pissed so many series fans off. Aside from Tommy's nightmares and delusions, this film doesn't technically feature Jason at all. I would call it the HALLOWEEN III of the Friday series, except where that film really was a complete departure from the Michael Myers story line, this one plays out exactly as the other films do regardless of who's wearing the mask.

Steinmann had just made Savage Streets (1984), a gloriously trashy and crude 80s revenge flick starring Linda Blair and brings the same sleazy touch to this entry, which helps it stand out in a way. This was the highest body count yet for the series (over 20 kills) and there are many long, lingering shots of topless female cast members Juliette Cummins, Rebecca Wood and the amply-endowed Debisue Voorhees. Hell, even the finale is like the world's longest wet t-shirt contest with the otherwise reserved Kinnaman running around braless and in a flimsy, soaked white shirt during a thunderstorm.

Naturally, the MPAA forced Paramount to neuter nearly all of the killings to avoid an X rating so the camera typically cuts away before things can get too gory. Though that certainly doesn't help matters here, this at least offers up a wide variety of death scenes. Aside from the standard axe and machete murders, there's a road flare stuck in a mouth, eyes gouged out with shears, a head crushed with a tightened leather strap, a steel pole impalement in an outhouse toilet and someone getting decapitated with a cleaver while riding a motorcycle. Despite incorporating a chainsaw, a bed of spikes and even a bulldozer, this has a weakest finale of the series up to this point and the twist at the very end, which was originally meant to set up one character as the next Jason for more sequels, falls flat.

To his credit, and unlike many other actors who filtered in and out of this series over the years, Shepherd actually gives a performance here in the lead role. He's able to convincingly convey the feelings of alienation, confusion and pent-up rage, mixed with an underlying menace, that's quite effective in simultaneously making the character a sympathetic focal point and a potential suspect in the killings. Unfortunately, the whodunit nature of the plot forces him off-screen for most of the mid-section of the film. Carol Locatell also deserves special mention for her hilarious turn as the foul-mouthed, white trash Ethel; the best of many exaggeratedly repellent characters trotted out here just to get slaughtered.

The cast includes Shavar Ross as pre-teen troublemaker "Reggie the Reckless" (I suppose because Part 4 had a little kid they had to throw one in here, too), Vernon Washington as Reggie's grandpa, Dick Wieand as an ambulance driver, Tiffany Helm as a goth girl who does a memorable robot dance to the great song "His Eyes" by Pseudo Echo before getting killed, Corey Parker (Scream for Help), Caskey Swaim (Night Warning), Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) and an uncredited Tom Morga as Jason. Corey Feldman was originally supposed to star but had to pass due to the fact he was shooting The Goonies (1985) at around the same time. So he could be included, they shot a cameo role for him, used as a nightmare scene that opens the movie, which was filmed in a few hours in Feldman's own backyard.

★★

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

... aka: Friday the 13th, Part 4
... aka: Friday the 13th, Part IV: The Final Chapter

Directed by:
Joseph Zito

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982) was a huge financial success and made nearly as much as the original thanks in part to the added attraction of 3D. Producers then had to scramble to come up with another gimmick that could somehow surpass that of blood, shattered glass, yo-yo's and errant eyeballs leaping out at moviegoers. Unfortunately, the best they could come up with was knowingly taking a concept that's extremely popular with audiences and then threatening said audience with pulling the plug on that very thing they love. This is it for Jason! This will be the last time you'll be able to see him on the big screen! Better rush out now and get your tickets to this monumental event! Titling this "The Final Chapter" is now something horror fans chuckle about seeing how there were still eight more of these things to come over the next few decades.

Despite repeatedly announcing this one would be the last (which they'd already done with entry #3), of course Paramount wasn't going to just abandon a lucrative franchise until it stopped making them money. It all boils down to the almighty dollar at the end of the day and these things just kept drawing huge crowds, critics and moralists be damned. The Final Chapter had the widest release yet for a Friday film, was the #1 box office draw the week of its debut, had a then-record setting 11+ million dollar opening weekend for Paramount and made 33 million domestically in total on a budget of 2.6 million, which makes it the third highest-grossing of the original eight Paramount films. Clearly, this series wasn't even close to reaching its expiration date just yet.

Drafted to direct this time out was Joseph Zito, who had previous experience in the genre having already made Bloodrage (1980) and the slasher THE PROWLER (1981), and he brought along cinematographer João Fernandes, who'd shot Zito's other films and, probably unbeknownst to the producers at the time, otherwise mostly hardcore porn up to that point using a variety of aliases. Frank Mancuso Jr. and his production team were back and Harry Manfredini did the score once again. The biggest draw, however, would be make-up fx man Tom Savini, who had also previously worked with Zito (on the aforementioned Prowler) and gladly returned to the series as it gave him a chance to finally kill off the character he had created four years earlier. Or so he thought!

Due to the success of the previous films, some bigger names than usual and more promising up-and-coming young stars were brought on board. Former child actress and familiar TV presence Kimberly Beck was cast as female lead Trish Jarvis, while Corey Feldman, who'd just wrapped Gremlins (which went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of 1984) was cast as her younger brother, Tommy. Among the "teen" victims are Peter Barton (The Powers of Matthew Star), Lawrence Monoson (The Last American Virgin) and, most notably, the always-weird Crispin Glover and his stilted line delivery. Brought in to don the hockey mask and swing the machete was veteran Hollywood stuntman Ted White, who'd previously doubled for such stars as John Wayne and Clark Gable... and was nearing 60 years old at the time! In the Crystal Lake Memories documentary, White doesn't have very nice things to say about either the director or Feldman, whom he referred to as a "mean little devil" and added, "I couldn't stand him." White refused to receive screen credit as a result and later turned down offers to play Jason in the fifth and sixth entries in the series.

Final starts out with a flurry of clips from previous entries as a sort-of "greatest hits" up to this point. We're then taken to the scene of Jason's last massacre as Higgins Haven, where the bodies of the victims and you-know-who (with an axe planted firmly in head) are being rounded up by police and paramedics. Jason's "dead" body is shipped off to a morgue, where he quickly springs to life. He slaughters a coroner (Bruce Mahler) and a nurse (Lisa Freeman) and then high tails it back to his stomping grounds to resume his old ways, starting with stabbing a rotund hitchhiker through the throat while she eats a banana. Living at Crystal Lake now are divorced single mom Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), her teen daughter Trish and younger son Tommy, who's sort of a mini-Savini prodigy whose favorite pastime is making latex monster masks.

Renting the house next door is an unfortunate group of mostly-annoying and unlikable young folks that includes Glover's geeky Jimmy, Monoson's cocky and obnoxious Teddy, Barton's nice guy Doug, the shy, sweet and virginal Sara (Barbara Howard) and couple Samantha (Judie Aronson) and Paul (Alan Hayes). Four guys and only two girls? Seems a little lopsided, eh? Well never fear, Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More), a couple of free-spirited identical twin British bicyclists, soon come to the rescue. A party including beer, pot, sex, stag films, terrible dancing (thanks Crispin) and lots and lots of death follows.

While the dialogue is incredibly insipid this go-around and seldom funny (I didn't find the scenes between Monoson and Glover and their "dead fuck" back-and-forth banter amusing at all like some viewers apparently do) and this somehow manages to have even less of a plot than the first three, it does at least deliver on the carnage with plenty of bloodshed, a high body count (the largest up until this point in the series) and a wide variety of kills. For your money you get a hacksaw throat slicing followed by a nifty little head twist, a scalpel gutting, a knife through the neck, a machete through the stomach, a harpoon to the crotch, a corkscrew hand stabbing, a cleaver to the face, an axe to the chest, a head crushed against shower tile, a machete slowly sliding down a head through the eye socket and a great stunt where someone is thrown out of a window and lands on top of a car. This also has more nudity than the three previous films combined.

The cast includes Erich Anderson as Rob, a guy hanging out in the woods trying to avenge the death of his sister and simultaneously throwing the series' timeline completely out of whack, Paul Lukather (Dinosaurus!) as a doctor, and Tom Everett (PRISON), Wayne Grace and Larry Buchanan and S.F. Brownrigg film regular Gene Ross as cops. Kevin Yagher was a member of the make-up effects team.

There were a few cuts made to the film to appease the MPAA which included snips to the hacksaw, scalpel and impaled-while-on-an-inflatable-raft murders. An alternate ending dream sequence where Trish finds her mother dead in a bathtub was filmed but not used. While that footage is included as an extra on the DVD, there's no surviving audio for it. This remains one of the most popular, and highest rated, films in the entire series, though not one of my personal favorites due mostly to not liking the characters or dialogue all that much. Savini's work is worth watching, though.

★★