“Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” is perhaps the most obscure film in the classic “Friday the 13th” series. It does not deserve that fate for three reasons: (1) It contains some of the most interesting characters in the franchise, (2) It includes some of the most creative and viscerally horrifying death scenes and (3) It alone among the “Friday the 13th” sequels works well as a standalone film. Indeed, it actually works better as its own independent story than it does within the context of the narrative established by its four predecessors.
The stage is set by a brief prologue including Corey Feldman as a young boy named Tommy Jarvis. Through his nightmare, an uninformed viewer learns everything they need to know: There is a scary person named Jason Voorhees who is ostensibly dead, but people are afraid that the slasher villain may return from the grave. He has killed before and we know that Jarvis is scared that somehow he will be able to do so again.
Some “Friday the 13th” sequels introduce the series’ premise through exposition or by simply assuming audiences are already familiar with the backstory. This one, though, is clever because it approaches it in a way that would work just as well if this was the first film in a series as the fifth. One could simply approach this as the story of a teenager recovering from childhood trauma and facing an environment in which new horrors surround him. No need to see any other “Friday the 13th” entry required.
Flash forward several years in the story and Jarvis is now a teenager (played by John Shepherd), being bounced from psychiatric hospital to psychiatric hospital.
I have a soft spot for films set in psychiatric hospitals. Part of the reason for this is personal — let’s just say I’ve been there, done that — and part of it is because it allows for us to meet characters who feel like real people rather than stock archetypes. When movies set in psychiatric hospitals are done right, the vulnerabilities, eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses that beset those of us with mental illnesses make the slasher film characters feel like people in a real world whose story is being told in a legitimate movie. By contrast, far too many horror films treat their characters as a pack of indistinguishable animals waiting in line to be slaughtered.
Of particular note: If you view this film as an independent story, Jarvis’ repeated visions of Jason Voorhees work remarkably well as a representation of how trauma lingers with its victims, and defines their lives, even after the actual threat has been neutralized.
The other inmates are all compelling characters, the kinds of people who could fit right into “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Girl, Interrupted.” Many of these characters have no more than a few minutes of screen time, and very little dialogue, but they still come across as distinct personalities. They include the lonely and socially awkward compulsive eater Joey Burns (Dominick Brascia), the emotionally volatile and violently angry Vic Faden (Mark Venturini), the quirky goth girl Violet Moraine (Tiffany Helm), the stuttering and insecure Jake Patterson (Jerry Pavlon), a young and horny couple that finds solace from their problems in each other’s arms (Eddie Kelso and Tina McCarthy played by John Robert Dixon and Debi Sue Voorhees) and, of course, the quietly suffering Jarvis himself. There are also great secondary characters like the flamboyantly ’80s Demon Winter (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) and his brother Reggie (Shavar Ross).
For gorehounds, the movie has some of the most creative deaths in the series including: death by a flare inserted into someone’s mouth, two classic greaser death-by-unexpected-axe-attack scenes, impaled hedge clippers through the eyes, a tightened leather belt impaling a different victim through the eyes, death in a disgusting metal port-a-potty as the villain impales the occupant through sharp spikes jammed through the walls, decapitation while riding on a motorcycle, and many others.
There is also some of the best comic relief from the entire series in the form of angry hillbillies Ethan and Junior Hubbard (Carol Locatell and Ron Sloan). They manage to be wacky in a way that, yes, fits neatly into the redneck caricature, but still feels realistic enough to resonate with audience members who know people exactly like this.
The movie is not perfect, though. Its biggest flaw is one shared by so many other films in the series: It includes a number of jump scares that occur for reasons which make no sense in terms of developing the characters or story, but obviously exist to pad out the running time with pointless tension before the actual plot itself can get going.
Spoilers follow: The twist at the ending is that Roy Burns, a paramedic who picked up Joey’s body after he was killed at the beginning of the film, snapped when he saw that the son he abandoned had been brutally murdered. Burns assumed the deceased Voorhees’ identity to conceal his involvement in the crimes, but ultimately had his own sympathetic and interesting backstory.
While this was the last “Friday the 13th” film to pull a bait-and-switch regarding the identity of its slasher villain (the first film also implied Jason Voorhees was the killer before revealing it was his mother), the one here works particularly well because Burns is — in his own way — a glowering and intimidating presence. It’s a shame that the filmmakers couldn’t have found a way to have him survive or, at the very least, be resurrected in the sequels instead of Voorhees himself. Burns would have been a worthy successor.
It is also a shame that the creative personnel did not have as much respect for the film as it deserves. Burns actor Dick Wieand said, “It wasn’t until I saw Part V that I realized what a piece of trash it was. I mean, I knew the series’ reputation, but you’re always hoping that yours is going to come out better.” Shepherd, who volunteered at a state mental hospital to prepare for his role as Jarvis, was reportedly disappointed to learn that this was a “Friday the 13th” movie. It seems that the series’ reputation at the time as cheap ’80s horror schlock prevented those involved from realizing that they were actually creating something quite special. Director Danny Steinmann even argued that the film was more akin to pornography flick due to its frequent nudity, although really that merely adds to the exploitation aesthetic that makes the franchise so much fun in the first place. It can explore serious themes while still feeling like a pulpy graphic novel.
Would I recommend “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning”? If you don’t like ’80s slasher movies, no. If you are curious about classic ’80s horror and need a gateway into the genre, though, this should be the first movie you check out.