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

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

A New Beginning follows an older Tommy Jarvis, who is sent to a mental rehabilitation camp in order to assimilate back into society, but when another guy in a hockey mask comes around, killing members, Tommy is left to question if Jason is really back or if it’s all in his head. 

Part V delivers on the promise that yes, Jason is dead. Which means this is probably the starkest change in format since the series started. What follows however is some deranged experiment that certainly pushes Friday the 13th in new directions, but also leaves you with way more questions than answers. The decision to dive into Tommy’s issues a bit and explore the PTSD that leaves him catatonic for most of the film is actually a deeper touch for a series anchored in sex and murder. And it would probably have worked too, had it not been for Tommy himself, who, played by John Shepherd, is actually too good. He pushes Tommy to his limit and takes the role deadly serious (when he’s not busting out random karate shit on people) and you can tell he went super method for a role that certainly wasn’t that deep. 

As for the absence of Jason? Lucky for us, one of the mental teenagers kills a paramedics kid at the beginning, sending Roy on a killing spree that is astoundingly the biggest in the series at 22 (I think). The whodunit element was actually quite cool for most of the film, it was just the more than obvious revelation and explanation behind it that kinda left you scratching your head (guy took a chainsaw to the shoulder and didn’t utter as much as a peep). 

We get one of the more interesting casts yet, starring Dick Wieand, Tom Morga, Richard Young, Shavar Ross, Melanie Kinnaman, and John Shepherd. Like I said, Shepherd is weirdly too good in this, as he feels in an entirely different league than the rest of the cast. Newcomers Ross and Kinnaman were fun additions though, and I was really happy to see them all live in (though Kinnaman just about deserved to get offed after that pathetic crawling scene).

A New Beginning, directed by Danny Steinmann, is no doubt a fun and refreshing entry to the franchise, but in its efforts to change things up, takes enormous risks that feel like they’re bound to set up in following entries for failure, without the presence of the true Jason.

6.4/10