I love the Friday the 13th franchise as a whole but by a mile Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is my least favorite movie in the whole series. Most people who love this series will put this one at or close to the bottom of their list. I have tried to watch this many times over the years and I have never been able to get over the “twist” ending that it has.
How to Download Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning was released on March 22, 1985. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review: A Failed Attempt at Reinvention
The most positive thing that I can say about Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is that it was because of this movie we got, Jason Lives, which is a real favorite of mine. The idea here was to keep the Friday the 13th franchise going, but move on from Jason…. How the heck did they think this was ever going to work?
Tommy Jarvis is a teenager and he is in a psychiatric hospital. Tommy has a lot of trauma from dealing with Jason before. Tommy is joined by a group of other patients in the psychiatric hospital and they make up our group of “teens” that will be facing the horrors that are coming.
There has been a series of grisly murders that have occurred. The sheriff thinks that Jason may be back, but there is also some doubt cast over Tommy as some think he may have fully snapped and gone insane. The idea of a crazy Tommy Jarvis I think is pretty neat, but that is ultimately not the way the franchise decided to go.
The Controversial Twist: No Jason Vorhees
Look, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is not pure garbage. There are some very gruesome kills in this movie and I do feel that the gore, violence, and sex were kicked up a notch. However, it lacks any kind of substance and while the previous four movies all were kind of the same thing, there was a charm to them, but that is missing from this movie.
A huge problem with this movie is the big reveal which I am going to spoil so spoiler alert warning right here. Are you still reading, even after my spoiler warning? Ok, here it goes, Jason Vorhees is not in this movie! That is right, it is a copycat who went insane after his child was killed and he was “inspired” by the story of Jason.
I wonder if when they wrote and made this movie if they thought this was going to blow people’s minds. I have never watched this movie and have not been disappointed when it is revealed what is really going on. It flat-out sucks, I am shocked that it never killed the franchise to be honest with you.
Final Verdict: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning’s Place in the Franchise
I do give them a bit of credit for realizing their massive mistake as they rectified this by bringing Jason back for the next movie which is awesome and one of the best. I guess the gratuitous amount of violence and sex may make this fun for some people. However, when I do a Friday the 13th series rewatch, I tend to skip this one as I truly do not like it.
