Review

Tommy Jarvis, having disposed of Jason Voorhees in the previous movie, is getting over the trauma of seeing hot babes slaughtered by the manic goalie. Of course some trauma could also be laid at the feet of Crispin Glover’s chicken dance but let’s not muddy the waters here. Tommy is still hallucinating about Jason and is on heavy meds so he doesn’t turn into Corey Feldman.

Since he is only partially psychotic, Tommy has been sent to the Pinehurst Youth Development Centre, a sort of outreach working ranch that seeks to re-introduce troubled youths into society. Let’s just say Pinehurst isn’t exactly a beacon for those seeking the means to cure what mentally ails young people. Pretty soon after Tommy arrives, Tina and Eddie are brought back to the centre having been discovered rooting on a neighbour’s property. Well at least Tommy gets an early introduction to Ethel and Junior, the local redneck land owners. If out of wedlock sex isn’t bad enough, can’t believe I just said that, Vic, who is clearly about a stone’s throw away from being a psychopath, is out the back cutting up wood. Vic has a rather large sharp axe. Vic doesn’t like Pinehurst and takes his frustrations out on the obnoxious Joey, much to audience’s relief – that fat kid was really annoying. After the “love you with an axe” moment, Vic is dragged away to whatever fate the court system is going to hand down and Tommy is left with anger management issues.

Following Joey’s demise, it seems the spirit of Jason Voorhees has been resurrected as pretty soon people are turning up dead. Is it Jason back from the dead? Is it the drifter imitating Jason? Is it Tommy breaking under the stress of country living? If you answered no to all those and then pointed out who was imitating Jason then you are part of the other 99% of the audience who picked the shock resolution lumbering over the horizon.

Gosh, Paramount was really on a roll with F13th movies through the 1980s, mainly due to the feminist movement picketing theatres and certain film critics launching major attacks on the franchise. You just can’t buy that sort of advertising, and Paramount rode the wave through eight profitable movies. As stated elsewhere you just can’t fight city hall or stop studio executives when they get a roll on. A New Beginning is one of the most hated of the F13th sagas amongst fans, mainly because it has a fake Jason Voorhees. Come on, big guy in hockey mask, about every female actor going topless, a whole bunch of kills going down, how exactly does this movie differ in quality from any of the others post Part 2? This is cinema cannon fodder aimed at entertaining the masses and catering to the intellectually-challenged horror movie viewer. The franchise has never exactly been top shelf and for sure there are worse movies in the series than the one I just sat through. Because we have to, let’s break it down and then put it back together. This review may be slightly disjointed as I have a “honey do” list to get through and will be popping out to get some stuff done while writing.

Fake Jason pretty much just does Jason with no discernable change to issues with sexed up teens

Director Steinmann actually opens his movie in pretty good style, which isn’t something you can say about most of the films in the franchise. Admittedly my R4 DVD copy didn’t bother with the niceties of a menu or extras or anything but leapt straight into the action. Tommy Jarvis, circa the last movie, is visiting Jason’s grave at night during a thunder storm. Guess he’s checking out that his handy work did the business. Interrupting the reunion are two teens out to dig up old Jason’s body because they have victim tattooed on their foreheads. Surprisingly, given the bad weather around these parts, they don’t concrete enclose or bury coffins deep in the ground. In fact it looks like they throw some mulch over the top of the casket, call it a night, and head down the local bar. Having unearthed Pam’s little boy, the victims are dumb struck, well until Jason makes them pay for disturbing his rest. Jason then advances on Tommy who is hiding out in the bushes, raises his machete, and swings that sucker down! Bam, an older Tommy wakes up in the back of a car transporting him to Pinehurst. Effective opening that doesn’t muck around and gets straight to the point, after all Jason only really does one thing and that’s the basis of the franchise. Added bonus here is the younger Tommy Jarvis is played by Corey Feldman who hadn’t at that tender age learnt not to appear in more than one F13th outing, look what happened to Adrienne King’s career friends and neighbours. Well at least Corey had one of the Frog brothers waiting in his future.

For anyone versed in their F13th lore, director Steinmann spends the rest of the movie rolling out F13th ideas from previous movies, oh and topless chicks. We get a spring loaded cat going down. Now, you know in Friday the 13th Part Two how some feline hating member of the cast simply threw a cat onto the set for a sudden shock scene (and I’ve still get $10 saying it was Steve Miner)? Well in the current movie they really launch the fur bag into the action. The poor creature is hitting warp factor nine as it slams into a table, and I’m betting they didn’t have to induce all that screeching via an extra can of Pal. You wouldn’t get away with this sort of thing in the modern era; some sticky beak PC authority would be all over you like Michael at a Myers family reunion. We also get the ever popular dead body through the lounge room window, as our “final girl” runs around screaming. Always a classic scene in this franchise, they just don’t do it often enough, or one might add with the right irritating character. There is of course the requisite thunder storm and torrential rain going down as things come to a head and Jason decides enough is enough, let’s deal with these bozos. Oh and before I forget, there is also Vi’s – wait for it – robot dance, that reminded me of Crispin Glover dancing up a storm in The Final Chapter. Is this like becoming a recurrent theme or something? Hey, if you don’t dance then you aren’t no friend of mine. For those who can’t get enough of Jason crashing through doors without bothering to open them, the big fella has one in store for your entertainment. Oh, and we get lots and lots of boobs, also a theme very much in keeping with the previous movie. Before I forget, our final girl for the evening, obvious from scene one and running a few more miles on the clock than your normal example, does manage to fall over as Jason chases her because you know chicks in high heels and serial killers go together like Linda Blair and pea soup. Ladies, if planning on spending a night in the woods then wear sensible shoes, just a suggestion here.

Anyone else note that the Demon character – yes, that’s the character’s name – was sporting a Michael Jackson jacket? I didn’t know the fiend of the day care centre had that much of an impact on fashion trends to be honest.

One aspect of A New Beginning that I really enjoyed was director Steinmann’s almost fanatical belief that he could pull off some comedy. I always support the underdog in most things, and Steinmann’s attempts here are way in the back of the pack but at least he’s giving it a go. We get the comedy duo of, shudder, Ethel and Junior, cause the franchise needed a pair of foul-mouthed inbred rednecks. We get Reggie, aka Reckless, cause the franchise needed an irritating kid. For good measure, we also get a whole bunch of minor characters adding local “colour”. At one stage I thought the odious comic relief would come in the form of the atrocious Joey but Vic saved us all there from further torture. A nice touch was a “stop the slaughter” news article on Vi’s wall just prior to Jason deciding to enter the dance competition. Okay it was about whales or some other large sea kitten but it still worked.

I’m running out of room here so let’s mention a couple of things the Director gets right, ramble on about the actors, and pull stumps. For the sharp eyed and bushy tailed the hockey mask this Jason wears has different colours to the hockey mask “the” Jason normally sports, or at least did in the last couple of movies in the franchise. Subtle touch there and it kind of works for movie geeks I guess. Besides the opening scene that works in a “flashback scene we aren’t expecting” sense, Director Steinmann nails one other shot, and since we’re talking a F13th movie here that’s a pretty good batting average. Towards the end of the movie, Jason is looking to finish off the irritating Reggie and “final girl” in name only Pam. This all goes down in a barn, and if you wonder if the building isn’t situated somewhere near Higgins Haven then you aren’t alone. The Director gets a reference in to Friday the 13th Part 3. While Jason looks to let his machete do the talking, Tommy, absent for about fifteen minutes of the movie’s prior running time, arrives at the open barn door. This answers two questions: Tommy isn’t the new improved Jason now with snazzy blue striped hockey mask, and yes, the Director was stupid enough to think people didn’t already know who the pseudo Jason is from about five minutes into the film. Tommy comes full face with his worst nightmare, since he didn’t have the misfortune to spend quality time with Joey, and you can see Tommy is still confused as to whether or not this might be a hallucination brought about by his post combat trauma. For some improbable reason Pam doesn’t pull her top off at this stage, further confirming that yes, the Director is aware of the dramatic impact he has going down here, and quite possibly he forgot there was one female cast member who didn’t strip down. Either way it’s a good shot composition making you wonder if the Director wasn’t bound for higher honours.

The ending of A New Beginning remains one of the more confusing F13th scenes ever to be committed to film. Well okay, besides Pam not following Final Girl dictates and canoeing out to the middle of Crystal Lake. Clearly the indication is that Tommy, traumatized beyond endurance, is going to take up the Voorhees family business in any future movies, but where exactly did he get the hockey mask and knife from? From memory they aren’t the usual equipment one finds in hospital rooms, private or otherwise. Since Jason pops up again in the next instalment and Tommy is still trying to finish him off the final scene in this movie makes exactly zero sense.

John Shepherd (Tommy) surprisingly rocks the house down as the post combat teen who went up against Jason and survived. You can regularly believe that Shepherd is an older version of Corey Feldman’s Tommy. Melanie Kinnaman (Pam) sort of proves all those hours and money spent on acting school paid off when it comes to a slasher epic, i.e. not much in the way of any actual acting required. Shavar Ross (Reggie), let’s not even go there. And finally Tiffany Helm (Violet) worked in her sort of new wave fashion.

Gentlemen you may just want to ensure the remote’s freeze frame is working prior to watching the movie, as A New Beginning is filmed in boob-a-rama! Yes, lots and lots of topless chicks, naked chicks, and thankfully a fully clothed Ethel. The ladies get ... nothing really.

Our old friend Harry Manfredini drops the score on us again and pretty much is up to his normal high standards. I would have liked a tad more of the ki ki ki ma ma ma going down but Harry had other ideas for the movie and hey, he just might know what he's’ doing.

What Would Rob Zombie Have Done Differently : Danny Steinmann, while showing he knew a thing or two about making a slasher movie, clearly missed a golden opportunity to nail things when Junior is zooming around the backyard shouting that Tommy really hurt him. Firstly, Junior needed to drop about twenty or so f-bombs in the five minutes the scene runs, secondly – and more importantly – Junior needed a hot sister who rushes out of the shower to see what’s going down. Now this might be just me but I would cast Sheri in that role. Of course, the whole scene would be set to Steppenwolf’s version of “Born to be Wild” cause Junior is on a motorbike and all.

A New Beginning is sort of an F13th greatest hits wrapped in a non-unique setting with plenty of topless chicks. For some of us that’s about as good as it gets with Friday night viewing. The movie isn’t held in high regard by the legions of franchise fans apparently because it doesn’t have the “real” Jason in it. Sorry, if that’s your assessment of what makes a good movie then stick to shoes done up with velcro, you will only be confused by shoe laces and all that tying them up malarkey. While acknowledging that the movie isn’t anyone’s idea of quality cinema it still delivered about what you would expect from a F13th movie.

The movie made around $22 million in North America and I guess half that again internationally. Have no figures for the rest of the world but am basing it on normal horror movie splits, in other words I could be wrong. This was clearly profitable for Paramount as three further movies, be still my beating heart, were made before the Studio canned the whole idea. Not surprisingly, Paramount buckled under fan pressure and resurrected Jason Voorhees after going down the Tommy Jarvis insane in the left brain path.

If you dig on some Friday the 13th cheese then dial into A New Beginning as it delivers exactly what you are after viewing. You have a hockey masked killer, plenty of boobs, and some real bad scenes coming at you. For best enjoyment get a group of friends together, a slab of brews, and some nachos. It might not feature the real Jason but at least we get Reggie the Reckless. If only Joey could have been in a few more scenes.