When I first saw the poster for the film, I was excited. It is a great atmospheric poster with its dark colours and the mask emanating light from it. I was also excited about the title. Jason Lives, that means that they are bringing him back to life and Roy will stay dead. Now, if only the film could have been as good and creepy as the first four, it would have been a great film. As it stands, this isn't as good as the first four but it kicks the hell out of the last three. So what we are left with is a passable entry in the series.
Jason comes back to life via Frankenstein tactics, which should make him even more powerful. And there are scenes in here that would support that theory. One being when one of his victims is bent over backwards and gets snapped in half. So his brutality is still alive and kicking quite nicely. But what this film is missing is the "feel" and the "texture" of the first four. And to be honest I can't really put my finger on it, but there is just an intangible missing from the sixth episode that was so prevalent in the first four. It's strange though, this film does a lot of things right. It has Jason lurking mysteriously in the background and it uses some decent shots. But it just wasn't that scary. It was entertaining and humorous and that is fine, but I don't want to see a funny Friday the 13th, just as I don't want to see a funny Nightmare On Elm Street.
The way Jason is killed in this one is actually quite good, because we are now starting to get into the folklore of Jason. What makes him tick and what can kill him. Having Tommy research the method of death is a good way to go. It's just too bad that they didn't just leave it alone after that. Or better yet, if they actually wanted to make a Jason Goes To Hell, have them go back to their roots and use the techniques that scared us back in 1980-84. Because now Jason is just a pale replica of what he once was. He hasn't quite eroded in this one, but he is coming close.
Friday VI is not a bad effort, it just could have been so much better. But hey, we will always have the others on tape.
