95Iconography rising from the grave. Slasher scuzz is transformed within a Gothic zombie cemetary masquerading as laboratory, consumed with relentless carnage, all while the autumnal, whispering leaves are dissipating as slowly as the laughs. A shining example of a horror-comedy that never forgets to be scary, and one that lingers on terrifying notions in hilarious ways. Paced like a bullet, every sequence leads to the next in exponential fashion. All the audience beats hit like a bass drop. The shot of the open cabin door, the shadow of the tree branches quivering in the wind, is an all-timer.
“What do you think?”“I think we’re dead meat.”Shoutout James A. Janisse 😘 We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Part V doesn’t exist anymore, forget about it. Jason’s dead. Oh wait. Now he’s not. Lightning crashes. Maggot-covered eyes shoot open. A hulking figure rises from an unearthed grave. A man’s heart is punched out through his chest. A legend is reborn. Nightmares are refueled. A franchise is resurrected. This has always been my favorite film of the series. The best thing anyone ever did with Jason wasn’t making him supernaturally invincible, it was making him fun. Yeah, he’s still crushing skulls, twisting heads, and folding bodies in half, but he’s also slowly stalking people outside a window five feet away, matching their pace and staring them down like a cheeky little bastard. The jump scares are goofy. The pacing is perfect. The characters are people I’d actually grab a beer with. There’s self-aware meta-humor, a pleasantly non-vanilla final girl, and a straight bangin’ Alice Cooper soundtrack. It manages to be scary & violent without relying on Savini-level gore (which I do miss, though), and the scariest thing of all isn’t even Jason—it’s a little girl casually reading Sartre for fun. Oh, and the icing on the cake? The best final showdown of the entire franchise, taking place in a literal ring of fire and impermanently sending Jason plummeting back to the watery sunken hell from whence he came. Good shit, man, good shit.
A little unfortunate that it never really manages to top its all-timer opening where it playfully announces the franchise correcting course (away from Tommy or any other "mystery" killers taking up the Jason mantle, and back to Jason with a new supernatural comic-horror tone) via a rotting, maggot-covered Jason lying in his gothic grave, accidentally brought back to life by lightning hitting the piece of steel he's been impaled with like he's in a 30s Universal monster movie, and then proceeding to punch a dudes heart out of his chest and do a James Bond credit title sequence where instead of shooting a gun he slashes his machete at the screen and cuts an eyeball open... But the statement is clear: the age of Friday the 13th being tasteless schlock made by a porno director who will bluntly (or lazily) deliver the sex-and-death goods the producers wanted and call it a day is over, moving forward we're going to at least see an attempt at a sense of wit, craft, cohesion, character, momentum and maybe even an EC Comics tone somewhere between Creepshow and Return of the Living Dead. And the result is easily one of the better-looking movies in the franchise (colorfully shot by the same guy who did the underrated Hitchcock/slasher riff Olivia), featuring a number of the more impressively ridiculous kills now that Jason is a full on supernatural force walking around dishing out violent mayhem like an unstoppable Terminator (even if not as viciously gory as the Savini entries it's still hilarious to see a man folded in half), and just pound-for-pound the breeziest, funniest and most capital-E entertaining these movies ever got probably. At the very least, this one manages to find something to do in the writing of the Tommy character + the ending of Final Chapter where he goes psycho killer mode that A New Beginning just couldn't figure out, and the comedic gags land so much better in this than any of the attempts at parodying the formula that started around 3. The little girl camper reading Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit" in her bunk = LEGEND, Alice Cooper's "Man Behind the Mask" = BANGER.
