Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Slash and Burn

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

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This one just annoyed me. Of course, fans rate it one of the worst of the series, because it followed a film called "The Final Chapter," but its awfulness stems from more than that. All the characters are flat, bland caricatures, from the fat kid who eats too much ice cream to the punk girl who always has her headphones on and the cop that snorts cocaine on his night off. When Jason shows up to hack these idiots to bits, we just don't care much. The violence is very tame, but there's at least some solid nudity. In what might have been a good idea at some point, Jason doesn't actually show up in this one; it's all in the mind of the kid from the previous film, Tommy Jarvis (now played by John Shepherd). Tommy is dropped off at a remote, rural mental hospital, which is run like a farm, with patients coming and going as they please. If only someone had put some thought into who these people were. Corey Feldman appears in a brief cameo, revising his character from the previous entry. This was director Danny Steinmann's last film to date.

DVD Details: Paramount has released a super-deluxe DVD, timed to coincide with the DVD release of the new 2009 series "reboot." It comes with a director & cast commentary track, a "look back" featurette, part two in a series of fake "reports" about the Jason attacks in Crystal Lake. There's also "Lost Tales from Camp Blood Part V," which I didn't watch all the way through; it looks like a fan film. There's also a trailer.

With: John Shepherd, Marco St. John, Melanie Kinnaman, Anthony Barrile, Suzanne Bateman, Dominick Brascia, Todd Bryant, Curtis Conaway, Juliette Cummins, Bob DeSimone, John Robert Dixon, Corey Feldman, Jere Fields, Tiffany Helm, Richard Lineback, Carol Locatell, Ric Mancini, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Corey Parker, Jerry Pavlon, Shavar Ross, Rebecca Wood, Sonny Shields, Eddie Matthews, Ron Sloan, Caskey Swaim, Mark Venturini, Debi Sue Voorhees, Vernon Washington, Chuck Wells, Dick Wieand, Richard Young
Written by: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen, Danny Steinmann, based on a story by Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen
Directed by: Danny Steinmann
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 92 minutes
Date: June 12, 2009