Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
Right off the bat, the sixth entry of the “Friday the 13th” franchise adds a new rule to the horror lexicon- when going to the grave of a mass murderer to cremate his body once and for all, and in a fit of rage you stab the body with a metal piece of fencing, for the love of God remove the fencing before you turn your back.
Yes, this is how the hockey-masked Jason Vorhees is resurrected in “Friday the 13th: Part VI- Jason Lives.” This was the last entry in the franchise I watched during my childhood until I- in a fit of WTF thinking- decided to catch up with him in 2002’s ill-advised (to put it lightly) “Jason X.” I’d rather consider his comeback in 2003’s entertaining “Freddy vs. Jason” and this year’s 2009 reimagining.
I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember what I thought of this when I watched it 22 years ago. It wasn’t because of franchise fatigue that I stopped watching. Maybe my mother’s worries about being obsessed with a franchise where the dead come back to life finally got to me. I didn’t even get to “Part VIII- Jason Takes Manhattan” until this year- my God, that certainly would have killed the franchise for me…metaphorically speaking, of course.
By this point, the “Friday the 13th” franchise had devolved into the “this time, it’s personal” attitude that killed “Jaws,” with “Part IV’s” Tommy Jarvis in a mano a mano battle to the death with Vorhees after his family is killed. He’s the one who inadvertently brought Jason back to life at the beginning. Now he’s trying to convince the sheriff and anyone else in earshot that might believe. Nobody does, however- by this point the town (now called Forest Green) has turned Jason into a legend. And wouldn’t you know it, Camp Forest Green is open for business, with fresh counselor fodder (and kids to boot).
Watching it again, the film inspired the riffing mechanism in my brain to go all MSTie on the film. The OD on the ’80s Cordy. The yuppies who thought it’d be a good idea to have a picnic and night. The old man who knows better about Jason (and breaks the fourth wall down to a cinder block when he addresses the audience after finding Jason’s dug up grave). The cute camp counselor daughter of the sheriff who has a thing for a jailed-up Tommy. The J.K. Simmons-looking Sheriff. “I’m not the one with the funny red nose.” “It’s just adults playing around,” which is said by one of the counselors when one of the kids at the camp brings Jason’s blood-soaked machete. Tony Goldwyn getting offed in the first scenes after Jason lives again. How the power of prayer actually gets rid of Jason (actually, it’s more the police coming to the campground). “Nobody drives this puppy but me.” “What do you think?” “I think we’re dead…meat.” “So, what did you want to be when you grew up?” Ahh, out of the mouths of babes…
Was anyone really scared at this movie…ever? True, writer-director Tom McLoughlin has more a flair for this type of material than the makers of the God-awful “Jason Takes Manhattan” and “Jason X”- which was just “Alien” with a masked killer, but it’s hard to take this film seriously with it’s “only in the ’80s” style and utter obviousness. That said, it’s still reasonably entertaining if you don’t take it too seriously. Harry Manfredini’s score is an entertaining bit of musical mayhem (same goes with the Alice Cooper songs on this film’s soundtrack). And then there’s the fact that, well, there are a lot of deliciously cheesy moments that make the film all the more oddly watchable. Yes, the series was genuinely creepier in its’ first two entries (which do rank up with “Halloween,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in the modern horror lexicon), but there is something to be said for a campier approach when done right.
Just one question, though. Did anyone ever think of decapitation when it came to killing Jason? I would think that might do it. They seem to come closest in this film, but I know better. There’s more to come.
