If you didn’t realize it, the Final Chapter wasn’t the final chapter after all (so shocked!). The Friday the 13th franchise was reborn in 1985 with A New Beginning.
The details:
- Made in 1985
- Directed by Danny Steinmann (Danny was set to direct 5 more but this fell through and then he had a horrible bike accident and couldn’t return to directing – this was his last movie)
- Written by Martin Kitrosser (who has had a long career as a Script Supervisor on many Tarantino films including Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds), David Cohen, Danny Steinmann (Victor Miller)
- Who did I recognize in this film? Corey Feldman (little Tommy!)
**SPOILER ALERT**
Let me say this upfront – this was my least favorite film of the five.
Jason was killed by Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) in The Final Chapter. We begin this new beginning with Corey Feldman (his hair has grown back since the last movie) and he finds the grave of Jason out in the woods when two grave robbers show up and dig him up. When Jason is uncovered, he is obviously alive, stabs the two guys then comes after Tommy (who is hiding in the trees). At that moment, Tommy wakes up from this nightmare (10 years later). He’s in the back of a van clearly from a Mental Health facility. Poor Tommy has spent his entire life in an asylum.
Tommy is to be reintegrated into normal life. He’s dropped off at a halfway house for mentally disturbed teens. During his first day, one of the patients pisses another off and it results in one of them killing the other with an axe. Who gives a mentally disturbed kid an axe? So that’s the 3rd kill in this movie but it’s not by Jason and seems oddly out of place.
Finally the real mass murdering begins. Jason is somehow back, alive now (after 10 years) killing people. He’s is killing everyone in sight: The hicks down the road (who are way obnoxious and over the top). The leather wearing teens who break down in the woods (who are very angry for no good reason).
There is pretty blatant nudity (of course) when two of the patients, Tina and Eddie, sneak off to have sex in the woods. Afterward Tina lays naked on the blanket while Eddie leaves to wash up in the stream. While alone in the woods, Jason kills Tina. When Eddie comes back, he’s killed (by leather strap… hm…). None of the kills really left an impression except for Tina’s. Jason uses gardening shears to gouge out her eyes.
In the end Tommy is really losing it. He’s in the hospital hallucinating again. He gets up and pulls Jason’s hockey mask from the drawer. He puts it on and is about to stab Pam… but the movie ends. So, Jason doesn’t actually exist in the world of A New Beginning and we’re lead to believe that Tommy will be the new Jason.