Written By: Jase Marsiglia
SPOILER ALERT! Jason Voorhees is dead.
While many like to chide the fourth Friday the 13th movie's The Final Chapter subtitle, a suggestion that "the buck stops here," despite no fewer than eight subsequent films in its wake, there's still truth to it. Jason is dead. A nasty "whack-and-slide" machete to the dome seemed to actually be enough to stop the seemingly un-killable killer before Tommy Jarvis (a young Corey Feldman) saw his fingers twitch and picked up the machete to go full ham on him to ensure he would not be getting up.
And it did work.
Jason, as we knew him, was definitively, unmistakably dead.
But the best-laid plans of murderers and madmen can always be disrupted by the looming specter of box office returns, and The Final Chapter was a cash cow. While the aptly subtitled A New Beginning, the fifth in the franchise, pissed off a wide swath of the series' fan base by forging ahead with a Jason "impostor" (time may tell on this one. It's not yet converted the number of naysayers who eventually came around to Halloween III: Season of the Witch), it still made enough money to warrant a sixth film from Paramount and proved that people weren't nearly as exhausted with the series as the studio thought, or hoped, rather.
But one thing was abundantly clear: Jason needed to come back.
If Paramount wanted to satisfy the demand, they were going to have to listen to the fans and somehow bring their infamous, critic-proof slasher back from his grave.
Let's glaze over the fact that someone out there went to the trouble of digging a plot and chiseling a modest, but likely expensive, county-funded tombstone for a notorious mass murderer (though there are theories about the local boozy gravedigger that I'll let you research), but that's exactly where Tommy Jarvis (now played by The Return of the Living Dead star Thom Mathews) and his buddy Allen (Ron "Horshack" Palillo, of all people) find him.
Despite Allen's wise apprehension, Tommy, laser-focused on ensuring Jason is truly dead, digs up the maggot-riddled corpse and uses an iron bar from the cemetery gate to stab him repeatedly. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm rolls in, lightning strikes the iron, and like Frankenstein's monster, Jason is jolted back to life and, well... Jason Lives!
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
⭐️⭐️⭐️
One Dark Night director Tom McLoughlin writes and directs this sixth chapter in the franchise and injects a lot of much-needed humor, action, gothic charm, and character development into the mix, all sorely missing from the overly sleazy, mean-spirited and, frankly, rather obnoxious previous installment.
In a lot of ways, Jason Lives takes the series back to basics, but McLoughlin knows that repetition was what eventually led Paramount to off their slasher two movies earlier. From the moment Jason strides across the screen and slashes a bloody slice down the frame with his machete in a send-up of the traditional James Bond opening, you know you're in for something vastly different from what came before. There's a triple decapitation with one swing, a head smashed into a tree that leaves behind a perfect "Have a Nice Day" smiley face, a fourth-wall break by a boozy gravedigger, a sly American Express joke for anyone who remembers the old slogan, and even a couple of terrified kids hiding beneath their cabin bunk, with one grimly asking his friend, "So... what were you going to be when you grew up?"
And let's not forget the RV sex scene set to Felony's "(I'm No) Animal" that was meant to be a quickie with Nikki (the always gorgeous Darcy DeMoss) but winds up becoming an endurance challenge.
This all sounds silly, and it is, but before you worry that the Friday the 13th series has suddenly gone Airplane! on you, rest assured McLoughlin isn't poking fun at the franchise. He's having fun with it.
Jason Lives benefits greatly from its humor, and none of it is meant to make Jason, or the franchise by extension, look stupid. That's never the intention here, nor is McLoughlin trying to steer the series into broad comedy the way the later Universal monster films eventually paired up with Abbott and Costello.
Jason Lives is still a Friday the 13th movie through and through, complete with a high body count, a new undead and seemingly unstoppable Jason (as if he was easy to topple when he was alive), and a handful of new characters who add a welcome dash of wit to a franchise that, good or bad, often treated its cast as simple archetypes existing solely to meet the sharp end of whatever Jason happened to be wielding. But Mathews gives the grown-up Tommy Jarvis an intensity that constantly teeters between grounded and hysterical, never coming across as some full-blown nut job, just a guy permanently wrecked by one horrific night from his childhood who, despite his best efforts, winds the machine back up again.
He's really the franchise's first genuine male protagonist, and anyone who loved The Return of the Living Dead already knows Mathews is a terrific actor who navigates horror with remarkable ease.
The short-lived career of Jennifer Cooke, appearing here in her final theatrical role before retiring, deserves praise as well. As the rebellious daughter of the town sheriff (played wonderfully by David Kagen), she's feisty, funny, and effortlessly charismatic. Cooke has an uncanny ability to take even simple dialogue and inject it with a playful, flirtatious energy.
She's far more than just a cute counterpart to Tommy. She holds her own, leads one hell of a car chase, and has absolutely no problem shoving a guy's head beneath the steering wheel so she can handle business herself, while simultaneously challenging Molly Ringwald for the title of "Best Crotch Cam Shot" of the '80s.
And lastly, you can't discredit C.J. Graham as the new Jason.
He's imposing, surprisingly quick for a dead guy, and when he's angry, he certainly knows how to paint a room red or knock three heads clean off with ease. While he doesn't quite exude the raw hatred and simmering rage Kane Hodder would bring to the role beginning with the next film, Graham makes Jason feel genuinely lethal despite now being an undead monster.
He's also the only Jason to this point who displays an oddly amusing sense of confusion over what he's witnessing.
Whether he's cocking his head at a severed arm he's holding, staring down at the splat from a paintball that just hit him, or wondering why an RV parked alongside the road keeps rocking so rhythmically, there's an almost dog-like curiosity to Graham's Jason that gives the character just enough personality without sacrificing an ounce of menace.
One might assume Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives marked the end of the franchise's meaner, perhaps sleazier era, and that its self-aware humor would alienate longtime fans.
Instead, time has been incredibly kind to this sixth chapter. Audiences embraced it, and even critics, however begrudgingly they might admit it, seemed to appreciate the fresh approach. It offered something for viewers who believed there was little left to do with the franchise, while also delivering exactly what fans wanted most: their favorite hockey-masked maniac back where he belonged.
Even 40 years later, Jason Lives remains one hell of a good time at Camp Crystal Lake.
Bring on the s'mores.
HOME VIDEO
We've never, and likely will never, live in a world where the Friday the 13th films aren't readily available. They've been released on virtually every home media format imaginable. If you're looking for the definitive collection, however, the 2020 Scream Factory Deluxe Edition Box Set remains the gold standard thanks to its exhaustive collection of bonus features and deep dive into each individual film.
As I did in my review of the original Friday the 13th, I'll only cover the features specific to this installment and point you toward where to find them in this massive boxed set.
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives begins on Disc 7, which includes:
- ALL-NEW HD remaster
- ALL-NEW 56-page collectible essay booklet featuring archival still photographs
- ALL-NEW Limited Edition (7,000 units) 36" x 24" lithograph featuring the box set's new artwork
- ALL-NEW audio commentary with actors Thom Mathews, Vincent Guastaferro, Kerry Noonan, C.J. Graham, and Cynthia Kania, moderated by Crystal Lake Memories author Peter Bracke
- ALL-NEW audio commentary with writer/director Tom McLoughlin and filmmakers Adam Green and Joe Lynch
- ALL-NEW TV spots
- ALL-NEW still gallery
- ALL-NEW BD-ROM featuring a vintage Fangoria magazine article
- (Archival) Audio commentary with writer/director Tom McLoughlin
- (Archival) Audio commentary with writer/director Tom McLoughlin, actor Vincent Guastaferro, and editor Bruce Green
- (Archival) Lost Tales from Camp Blood: Part 6
- (Archival) The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited: Part III
- (Archival) Jason Lives: The Making of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
- (Archival) Meeting Mr. Voorhees
- (Archival) Slashed Scenes
- (Archival) Theatrical Trailer
The carnage continues on Disc 15, the first of two supplemental discs, with the following extras:
- ALL-NEW Friday the 13th Playing Card Gallery
- ALL-NEW Location Featurettes
- (Archival) The Friday the 13th Chronicles: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
- (Archival) Crystal Lake Victims Tell All!
- (Archival) Jason Forever: Q&A with Ari Lehman, Warrington Gillette, C.J. Graham, and Kane Hodder
- (Archival) Friday the 13th Artifacts and Collectibles
Finally, Disc 16 rounds out the celebration of Jason Lives with:
- ALL-NEW music video: "The Man Behind the Mask" by Alice Cooper
- ALL-NEW Alice Lives: Alice Cooper and Friday the 13th Part VI
- ALL-NEW Legends Never Die: Tom McLoughlin at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
- ALL-NEW Life, Death and Jason Voorhees: Interview with Director Tom McLoughlin
- ALL-NEW Jason Was Here: Friday the 13th Parts III–VI Locations Then and Now
- (Archival) Trailer Reel
There's plenty here to satisfy longtime fans, making the box set worth every penny. And honestly, it's about time Alice Cooper's iconic music video finally found a proper home in one of these releases.
BITS 'N' PIECES
Traum-A-Meter:
2 out of 4
Aside from one victim's off-screen death that leaves an entire room splattered in gore, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives keeps the violence surprisingly playful, leaning more toward cartoonish excess than outright brutality.
That said, there's still no shortage of implements: a triple decapitation, a neck snapped with ease, a heart ripped from a victim's chest, and the film's showstopper: a poor guy literally folded backward at the waist until his spine gives out.
Today's Jam: "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna was sitting atop the charts the weekend Jason climbed out of his grave.
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