Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

 

We’re officially at the halfway point through our F13 journey, and this is where things get a bit more interesting. I said that Part IV was the most significant F13. That was less about the film itself and more about how its few changes caused a ripple in the franchise to get to this point here, Part VI. If Part IV was the most significant for the series, Part VI is the most important for its main villain. While Part IV was mostly more of the same, tried-but-true by-the-numbers F13 movie, the death of its central villain had consequences. Part V was a curiosity as they dealt with those consequences, fumbling around trying to see if they could continue on without Jason, whether he was an integral part of the franchise, and whether continuing a surviving protagonist’s story and taking it into a psychological direction could work (hint: no, it couldn’t). They returned to the drawing board so to say, but approached the situation in a different way.

As the title suggests, Jason Voorhees is back to slash up more horny teenagers. After Part V failed to light up interest with its ‘random guy pretends to be Jason’ revelation (this movie pretty much just ignores the last film), they decided to bring the hockey-mask killer back for real this time, and they do it in pretty ridiculous style. The question then is how? By the ending of Part V they had two things: Tommy Jarvis (possibly crazy) and a dead Jason Voorhees. They remedied at least one of those things.

This might come as a surprise, but Jason Lives is actually great. This might be the very best F13 sequel actually and is easily one of my favourites. I’m talking top three easy. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s gory, it’s one of the most atmospheric and it’s just a good time overall. It demonstrates an understanding of what made Jason and the F13 movies and caters to what the fans wanted. It also shows a sense of humour about itself and some genre savvy, acknowledging the inherent silliness of F13 movies and turning it up to eleven.

Tommy Jarvis, recovering from a little stint in the mental ward, heads to Crystal Lake for closure. He wants to see Jason’s dead body one final time so he can confirm for himself that he’s really dead and cremate him so he can finally move on with his life. Things go badly when lightning strikes Jason’s corpse and resurrects him as a super-powered zombie. As a newly revived Jason goes on a murderous rampage, Tommy tries warning people, none of whom believe him due to his time in the mental ward with the sole exception of the Sheriff’s daughter Megan. As the bodies pile up, the police believe that Tommy is behind the murders and start gunning for him while Jason stalks his old camping ground.

This version of Jason is the iconic version he’s most remembered as, the hulking, invulnerable slasher. This was the first time Jason was explicitly supernatural. Before this point he was canonically human, though able to take a hell of a lot of damage, but Jason Lives sees it confirmed that Jason is now a zombie. And he’s one hell of a zombie. His eyes are sunken in, he has no lips and there are maggots in his skin. He still dons the hockey mask, and eventually gets his hands on his signature machete. He’s got a bigger, freakier appearance this time through, looking taller and larger.

Jason is also a lot more powerful this time around. He was always strong, but the decision to go supernatural with the ‘living corpse’ thing lets them go crazier with things. His first kill in the movie involves him punching a hole through somebody. He’s also impervious to pain, taking several shotgun blasts from up close (the first time he’s ever come up against a gun actually). The rest of the kills tend to be ridiculous as well (Jason decapitates three people with a single machete swing and slams a woman’s head into the side of a van so hard it leaves an impression of her face on the other side), though some veer into absurdly silly territory (like the bloodied smiley face mark left on a tree after Jason slams a guy’s head into it) but that’s all part of the charm.

Tommy is a completely different character than he was last time, played by a different actor and having a completely different personality (they basically ignore Part V completely). He’s no longer a nervous, bespectacled neurotic. This time he’s determined and strong willed. Actually, maybe a little too strong willed (upon Jason’s revival he instantly legs it to the police station, grabs a shotgun and attempts to form a posse before getting arrested). This works better for the character, since he’s more likeable and more pro-active. I do love that, upon digging up the rotting remains of Jason, Tommy angrily snaps, grabs a metal pole and starts stabbing the corpse until he starts to feel better. It’s ultimately a bad decision because, in the best sort of goofy horror logic, lightning strikes the pole and revives Jason as a super-powered zombie. Tommy is smart enough to get the hell out of dodge at this point, and does his best to try and warn people (he heads to the police station to try and start a posse).

Besides Tommy, we get two more characters that are actually more headstrong and determined than the usual slasher fodder. Megan, the Sheriff’s daughter, who involves herself with Tommy and becomes determined to try and help him stop Jason. Her decision to suddenly believe everything that Tommy says and help him out is pretty weird, especially since she’s known him for only a few hours. She even pulls a gun on one of the police officers to break him out of the police station, and then gets into a car chase with the police (the fact that there’s a car chase scene in a F13 movie at all is so strange). She’s also one of the more useful protagonists, putting herself in harm’s way to save Tommy in the finale.

The other strong character is the Sheriff, though he might be a bit too hard headed because he’s really got it out for Tommy. When the bodies start showing up he instantly thinks that Tommy is responsible. It’s perfectly understandable though; he knows kid has psychological problems, the killings only started when Tommy showed up and his story (namely “Jason’s a zombie now!”) sounds like nonsense. He uses a lot of police resources to catch Tommy, sending out patrols and setting up roadblocks. Eventually he does do good in rescuing the kids at Camp Crystal Lake, and even attempts to take on Jason. It doesn’t work 9he gets snapped in half) but this is the first time the police have properly gotten involved or somebody has even attempted to confront Jason.

The other assorted slasher victims include the camp counsellors at Crystal Lake, a corporate paintballing group and a few couples out in the woods. They’re mostly there to add to the body count and give some kills, though they add some fun (like the girl savvy to horror movie conventions acknowledging a guy in the middle of the woods with a hockey mask and a spear is bad news).

This is the first time anybody’s actually come up with a plan to kill/stop Jason. In all the others they only managed to injure/kill Jason in frantic desperation while trying to get away from him. This time Tommy actually has a plan, and it’s a pretty good one by horror movie logic. He gets a massive, heavy rock, padlocks a length of chain to it and takes it with him on a little boat to the middle of Crystal Lake. He uses gasoline to light a circle of fire around the boat and lures Jason to it. Jason attacks from the water, destroying the boat, but in the process Tommy manages to get the chains around his neck like a noose and the rock drags him to the bottom of the lake. Jason manages to drag Tommy down with him, who seemingly drowns, but Megan saves Tommy (she’s more useful than a lot of other F13 heroines). She goes out into the water and gets Tommy, taking it back to shore and resuscitating him. She even uses an outboard motor to finish Jason off, cutting into his neck with it. Good job gurl. So at the end Jason was chained to a rock at the bottom of the lake, away from where he could do any harm. How long do you think that lasted?

We return to Camp Crystal Lake (we’ve not been back there since Part II), and for the first time ever there are actually campers. A bunch of children are there, and none of them die. Not through lack of trying – at one point Jason approaches a little girl with intent to kill, but she begins praying and that wards him off. It’s a bit strange, and the only time anything like that ever happens in the entire series. The camp seems a bit smaller this time, with only a few cabins, and the lake seems really tiny and not particularly deep this time through. There’s a surprisingly good horror atmosphere here. While Jason does a fair amount of daylight stalking (as a group playing paintball unfortunately find out), most of the film is set at night. All the scenes involving a stalking Jason are pretty spooky, with dark, thick shadows and him stalking around the camp is pretty creepy.

The best thing about the movie is that it has a sense of humour about itself and the series in general, with a slightly meta understanding of the genre. None of the preceding or following films (with the exception of maybe Part VIII unintentionally and Jason X) were self-aware at all, always playing things straight. Jason Lives doesn’t, and it’s probably its greatest strength. It openly knows what its audience is expecting, and seems to take great glee in dishing it out. The kills are violent and ridiculous, the horror conventions it takes are knowingly camp and it’s full of some delightful black humour. The best part is at the very beginning, where it zooms in on a newly resurrected Jason’s eye and then does, of all things, a parody version of the iconic James Bond gun barrel opening, only with Jason swinging his machete before blood splashes across the screen and the main title appears. What else? The soundtrack is filled with songs by Alice Cooper, who even wrote the theme song for the film, ‘He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)’. It’s clear that they went in a different direction this time, and it’s definitely to the film’s credit. It’s still violent and has effective horror atmosphere, but it acknowledges the inherent silliness of the Friday the 13^th series and just rolls with it.

 

This is the only F13 movie to really properly attempt to handle the ‘Camp Blood’ stigma, which really only existed in the first movie (though barely). Crystal Lake has been renamed ‘Forest Green’ to hide the stigma, with the local police doing everything they can to pretend Jason’s massacres never happened. It’s to the point that most of the younger characters aren’t familiar with the story of Jason Voorhees, while those who are don’t want to hear of it, so Tommy’s arrival and warnings are treated as a nuisance. Also, for the first time since the original, Friday the 13^th Part VI is a Friday the 13^th movie actually set on Friday the 13^th. Think about it – the first film was set on Friday the 13^th, but the second was set a few months later, and parts III and IV were mere days after that and Part V six years later.

Jason Lives is one of, and possibly the, best Friday the 13^th movies, and just about the only one to poke fun at itself while also revelling in all the gory nonsense and tropes that it’s made up of. It’s not as serious or scary as the series initially was (or at least intended to be), but it took things in an entertaining direction that was ultimately better for the series. It understood why the F13 movies were popular and what the fans wanted, and had fun dishing it out. It took its iconic killer in a new direction and opened up all sort of ridiculous opportunities for the future. Whether those opportunities were good or not is another matter entirely.