Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives review.
Jason does comedy. And he does it extremely well.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Directed by Tom McLoughlin
Written by Tom McLoughlin
Starring Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Kerry Noonan, Renée Jones, Tony Goldwyn and C.J. Graham
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives Review
1986 is the year that horror started poking fun at itself. Sure, there were horror-comedies before then…but this year saw an avalanche of movies that went for the funny bone while they went for the throat. I’ve seen Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives lumped in with later meta-horror movies like Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and Scream. While the movie has something to say about the innate humor involved in the genre…it’s not making it the point. It plays its commentary for laughs…clever observations always pointed at itself. I think it gives the movie the wrong kind of credit to label it as such.
And Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives deserves a ton of credit. It’s a really funny movie. It does so while managing to never lose sight of the importance of delivering the Jason slasher movie everyone expects. It contains one of the better, more urgent, plots in the franchise. Memorable characters with quick witted responses litter the story. Jason, in zombie form for the first time, is as unstoppable and efficient as ever. It just happens to be a comedy.
For its part as a Jason Voorhees movie…we’re finally back at camp! Jason murders camp counselors for the first time since Part 2 (and the last time ever). That’s right…Jason murdering camp counselors has been a plot exactly two times in 12 Friday the 13th movies. Whenever someone tells you this series repeats itself…remind them that Jason has been to space and Manhattan. He fought Freddy Kreuger and a telekinetic teenager. He’s been in a body swapping movie and, once, was a paramedic pretending to be Jason Voorhees. Hunting down camp counselors? Twice. His mother did it once too. Even the remake doesn’t have him killing camp counselors.
We’ve gotten off track. It’s just nice to see the series give us the thing it’s unfairly known for once again. This time…it raises the stakes by filling the camp with children. The only Friday the 13th movie to do so. The town has changed the name of the camp to Forest Green and reopened it. Which should have been safe to do as Jason Voorhees legit died at the end of Part IV. Unfortunately (or…fortunately if you enjoy good Jason movies) it didn’t stick.
Tommy Jarvis is back to face off with Jason for the final time. Played here by Thom Matthews, Tommy’s quest to stop Jason once and for all gives Jason Lives a momentum lacking in most of the installments. Why does he need to stop Jason? Well…that’s a funny story. Young Tommy hacked Jason apart in Part IV. In Part V we are told Jason was cremated. It appears neither of those things were true because Jason is just chilling in his coffin as worm food…not hacked apart and not ashes.
One interesting sidenote…Part V begins with Tommy having a nightmare that he witnesses two men dig up Jason’s grave. He watches as Jason comes back to life. Flash forward to Friday the 13th Part VI…and Tommy is the man who digs up the grave and inadvertently resurrects his monster. Way to go. It’s a fascinating thing. I don’t know if it was done on purpose…but it’s a fascinating idea, nonetheless.
Tommy gains a love interest along the way in Megan (Jennifer Cooke). She’s our default final girl…but it’s really Tommy’ s movie. Despite that…Cooke is still one of the better final girls in the franchise. She’s smart and resourceful. Brave and funny. Her relationship with her father, the town sheriff, is more interesting than we usually get. It’s a shame she doesn’t have a larger role in the plot because she nails everything she’s given.
Despite Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives reputation as a comedy…it features some memorable kills as well. The sheriff is bent backwards, the heart is punched out of TV’s Horshack, there’s a triple decapitation… The movie doesn’t skimp on blood. Just ask poor Paula. Some of the kills are played for laughs. Most are the violent Jason that we know and love.
So, yes. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is a comedy. There are sight gags and one-liners abound. Some of it is silly. Frankly, some of it is stupid. But there are a lot more hits than misses. It’s a self-aware movie that knows you’ve seen five of these movies already. I’m not sure the series ever got back on track following the lampooning and buffoonery that in Jason Lives…but it probably was done with great installments either way.
The legacy of Friday the 13th Part VI probably lies in its position as the Jason movie your horror hating friend is most likely to enjoy. What makes it stand out, even more so than its comedic take, is that there is an honest to goodness great Jason movie underneath the jokes. Tommy’s urgency and inevitable showdown drives the action (and comedy) forward. A great script and game actors keep a fun tone even though there is a masked killer literally slashing his way through the nonsense. While it may not be the best Jason movie ever made…it sits comfortably near the top.
Over thirty-five years after its release, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives remains as entertaining as ever. The later arrival of movies like Scream does nothing to dull its effectiveness. If anything, this example of a franchise that knew exactly what it was ten years before Kevin Williamson dissected it adds to its legacy. Of all the odd situations Jason Voorhees found himself in during the long-running series…comedy is the one he faired best in. Because director Tom McLoughlin and company never forgot that you have to give people the thing they want most…even if you want them to laugh along with it.
Scare Value
Tom McLoughlin and company make a comedy out of the Friday franchise…but still deliver one of the best Jason movies ever made. Zombie Jason is born and faces off with his arch nemesis Tommy Jarvis. Tommy’s mission gives the movie an inertia that many entries in the series lack. It’s also deeply stupid at times in the name of a laugh. Clever dialog and fun kills make this a crowd-pleasing installment in the Jason canon. One that was years ahead of its time.
4/5
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives Links
Streaming on Max
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu and Amazon
Buy the Friday the 13th collection on Blu-Ray from Amazon
2 thoughts on “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives Review”