Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

This is the best Jason to watch drunk, it's almost like a Friday the 13th blooper reel. I love the singing on the crapper part, the mod chick doing the robot, the "just wanna earn a meal" guy, Crazy Ethel and Junior, Billy and Llana, that kid from Diff'rent Strokes, the stupid arse ending, and the excessive nudity.

It's a time capsule of sorts, it captures all the bad 80's slasher films in a hour and a half. Bad acting? GOT IT! Ridiculous costumes? GOT IT! Lot's of big haired women topless? GOT IT! No name stars obviously coked out of they're mind? OH THIS MOVIE HAS GOT PLENTY OF THAT! Watch it and laugh, preferably with some friends

I can already start by saying that this is just another film in this franchise. He is not the worst of the entire saga, but he is of such a low level of quality that he almost causes you depression. All the dumb choices that are made during this movie irritate in an inexplicable way. The worst part of the whole movie is in the characters, where in addition to being uninteresting, they are very forced. The actors manage to be so insufferable playing the characters that you get annoyed with them all. The way they try to act crazy becomes comical, but not in a way that makes you laugh, a humor you'd rather pierce your own eyes with than rewatch those scenes. Don't watch this movie if you're having a good day, it could ruin your day.

'Friday the 13th' may have been panned by critics when first released but since then it is one of the most famous and influential horror films, the franchise containing one of horror's most iconic villains. The film is popular enough to become a franchise and spawn several sequels of varying quality and generally inferior to the one that started it all of.

The fifth film in the series 'A New Beginning' is the most maligned 'Friday the 13th' film by critics and fans, although it has garnered a cult following and its fair share of defence over time. To me, 'A New Beginning' is better than its reputation and that it tries to do something different is laudable. Also do not think it's the worst 'Friday the 13th' film. Having said that, the disappointment is understandable. There are good merits here, but it also did fall short to me.

Starting with 'A New Beginning's' strengths, the best things about it are the as ever haunting music score and the terrific performance, both disturbing and moving, of John Shepherd. There are a few darkly funny moments, a few creepy ones and some of the death scenes are creative.

The nightmare sequences are stylish and as nightmarish as one would hope. It's a pretty decent looking film, not cinematic art (but in all honesty that can never be expected from a 'Friday the 13th' film) but not amateurish.

However, there are things that work against 'A New Beginning'. From my understanding, It is not that the film is different in the lack of Jason (this didn't bother me at all and is an insignificant issue), the more tongue-in-cheek tone and the idea it tried to introduce that irked fans, but the generally misguided way it was executed.

More problematic are the problems as a standalone. The acting is not good (Shepherd is the sole exception), Melanie Kinnaman being awful, and the clumsy and far too simple dialogue, that slips more into vulgar camp than darkly tongue-and-cheek, and the mostly annoying and dull stereotypes passing for characters fare worse (the only one to be interesting and get proper development is Tommy).

'A New Beginning' has the highest body count, and while there are some creative and unsettling deaths (others less so, hurt by gratuity and predictability) it was almost as if there were too many death scenes that gives one not that much time to compose themselves after each one. There is not enough suspense, the creepiness is too far and between and the story is thin and very hackneyed, with one of the series' silliest endings. The mystery elements don't work, being far too obvious, and neither does the identity of the killer, the killings committed by somebody that is not in it much in their real guise and doesn't have much presence.

In summation, not that bad and not deserving of its black sheep reputation but a long way from being great. 5/10 Bethany Cox

What a waste of a film. This was more like the Scooby-Doo type of movie where Fred says "let's see who this really is, behind the Jason mask". For those who have not seen this could watch it for interest, but Ii must say that it was a waste of a film. If you pay close attention to the film, the killer practically gives himself away.

That wily rascal Jason Voorhees is at it again....or is he? Yes, this is the installment in the interminable "Friday the 13th" series that thought it would be a good idea to do without its only reason for existence...the hockey-masked Jason. Though you hardly notice the loss, since you don't KNOW it's not Jason until the film's final moments, and the copycat killer dresses like Jason anyway, so what's the difference? If you've seen one axe-wielding psycho in a hockey mask, you've seen them all.

Actually, I kind of like this entry. It provides the best nudity of the series....no fewer than three gratuitous boob shots, and nice boobs they are. And it's funny, sometimes intentionally so, as when the hillbilly mom calls her dufus son a dildo, sometimes unintentionally, as when the Michael Jackson look alike sings a duet with his girlfriend through an outhouse wall while he's on the crapper.

And the filmmakers outdo themselves with the body count this time around. By the end of the movie, there's no longer time to show them being killed off. Characters you've completely forgotten about just pop up as dead bodies. But what do you expect with all that plot to get through? Compared to the other films in the series, this is practically "War and Peace," what with the murder mystery story and the Tommy Jarvis plot line, which attempts to add a sense of continuity to the middle batch of movies (o.k. so Part 6 picks up Tommy's storyline in a completely different place and with a different actor, but for a series like this that's the best you can hope for in the way of consistency).

Grade: C