Harefooted Halloween: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

What I Liked: Holy crap there’s a bona fide plot!  Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews (The Peacemaker)) digs up Jason’s corpse because he doesn’t think he’s dead.  Ironically this brings Jason back to life via a lightning bolt.  So now Tommy must stop him again but he also has to contend with the local sheriff (David Kagen (Boris and Natasha)) who thinks Tommy is behind the recent murders.  Everyone has something to do and a motivation and all the pieces come together and wow, like a real movie.

Writer and director Tom McLoughlin (Sometimes They Come Back) added a bunch of loving homages to horror like having a scene set in a cemetery at night with thunder and lightning crashing, reviving Jason Frankenstein style with an electric jolt, a nod to occultism and giving places around town names like Karloff (Boris) and Carpenter (John).

The opening is the best thing in any sequel so far.  Great atmosphere with the eerie graveyard in a thunderstorm while Tommy digs up Jason’s plot (turns out he wasn’t cremated like Part 5 A New Beginning said).  And when they open the casket to reveal a totally disgusting rotting corpse covered in cobwebs and a mass of bugs crawling everywhere it’s fucking awesome looking.  The gothic imagery employed works perfectly, especially when Tommy uses a piece of ornate iron fence to stab Jason in the chest making it seem like he’s impaled with a huge metal cross.  Bravo.

We get some nice variety in this installment like a modest car chase, a spectacular RV crash, a unique solution to try to kill Jason and I love that the filmmakers flirted with the idea of Jason going after little children.  At one point he quietly walks through a cabin of sleeping kids and later he comes after them implying he’s gonna chop them up.

What I Didn’t Like: While Jason looks fantastic in the intro I’m not a huge fan of his design in the rest of the film.  He’s too neat and tidy and has sort of a weekend hunter look about him.  I think it’s the utility belt and gloves that mostly don’t fit.

I don’t get the James Bond reference before the opening credits where Jason turns and slashes the screen imitating Bond shooting down a gun barrel at you.  That’s…kinda weird.  There’s no other connection to James Bond that I could find.

Overall Impressions: Now we’re talkin’.  I understand why this entry either tops a lot of people’s Friday list or at least is generally considered the best sequel because it’s a giant step up for the series.  We’ve been treading water and being thrown half baked ideas since Part 3 so this feels like more of a relief than anything else.

Giving the characters purpose is the biggest improvement.  Even though Tommy accidentally brings Jason back he takes full responsibility and goes on a quest to destroy him once and for all.  Jason is slowly heading back towards Camp Crystal Lake so he has direction as well.  Some nice backstory is here too with the camp being renamed Camp Forest Green to distance itself from the murders that took place there.  In fact I think the entire town and county got renamed.  (Have no fear, they’ll retcon this in the next movie).

This is just a fun picture guys.  Yes there’s more humor inserted than you’re used to with the series but it’s so much better executed than Part 5 A New Beginning.  Well, everything is better executed.  Hell, the movie actually takes place on Friday the 13^th.  I mean that should be a no brainer for each of these but strangely some do and some don’t’.  It’s that attention to detail that makes this one stand out.  You can tell McLoughlin and co are avid horror and cinema fans and put a lot of care and respect into their film and that makes you wanna root for it.  So if you only see one of these goddamn sequels this is it.