As Ginny hypothesizes in Steve Minor’s Friday the 13th Part 2, mass murdering Jason Voorhees might not have been aware of mortality, be it his own or anyone else’s, until he witnessed his mother’s death. Of course, given that Pamela Voorhees’s demise is the only instance of death which her son has had the privilege of experiencing until said time, he may well not appreciate, or even realize, the complexities of temporal stature via the mortal coil. As such, we are given to assume with Tom McLoughlin’s sophomore effort, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, that the character is not cognizant of the fact that, for all intents and purposes, he should be dead, after having been thus far drowned, stabbed, and hung and bludgeoned (the latter twice over). Thus, much like Odie–who proceeds to climb trees though he’s a canine, all but oblivious to the fact that he is unable to do so until Garfield informs him of such–Jason continues on out of dogged, persevering ignorance. And for this, we’re grateful.
Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) drags his friend, Allen Hawes (Ron Palillo), to his nemesis’s gravesite in order to reassure himself that Jason Voorhees (C.J. Graham) is dead. However, once they open his casket, due to a mishap via a metal rod and a lighting storm, the killer is resurrected. Of course, Jason’s designation is Crystal Lake but will Tommy be able to convince anyone of the threat before it is too late?
McLoughlin was put to task when he was handed the responsibility of bringing Jason Voorhees back to life. If we bar the notion that the character is pitted as otherworldly from the time of his commencement in that he returns from the grave after being drowned in Sean Cunningham’s original (an idea which cannot be substantiated, only humored), the novice director’s job becomes much more daunting for he must do the impossible and make what was once (and well established as being) human now immortal. The reason that Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI’s director was instructed to shift the focus of the series after five previous installments is largely due the rising popularity of the ethereal Freddy Kruger. After Wes Craven’s charter feature rejuvenated the slasher genre and New Line followed with a sequel, Paramount felt that, in order to keep pace with the newly-minted horror icon, Jason Voorhees must be made supernatural in order to remain in the running. In so doing, plot feasibility–which had been fairly well maintained in lieu of four sequels–would be subsequently tossed aside. Thankfully, McLoughlin remains poignantly aware of the absurdity in which he is dealing and, consequently, realigns the manner and tone of his feature so as to accommodate, as well as accentuate, the franchise’s new direction. Our fresh agenda is obvious from the first frame via the aide of the largest budget of any Friday film to date as Jon Kranhouse’s cinematography flies in the face of every installment that came before in that it is refreshingly professional. Yet the signature shift for horror’s iconographic character is the atmosphere which he exhumes as well as is surrounded by–a comedic one.
Realizing that the fear of the character would be subsequently dissipated after echoing the electrified returns of many of Hollywood’s Golden Era monsters (as well as, and in lieu of, starting afresh by–as is the saga’s tradition–mimicking a preceding chapter’s opening, in this case Danny Steinmann’s Friday the 13th: A New Beginning), wisely–considering McLoughlin is forced to contend with an ax-wielding zombie (in the voodoo sense of the term verses the Romerian mode)–the director opts to approach the character with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Granted, we remain true to Friday custom as Jason shatters yet another door before entering by way of a window, yet the filmmaker mocks Friday convention by having Jason do so one right after another while, instead of tossing the requisite body through a window, the corpse misses its mark as our killer is obligated to retrieve his victim (lest he violate serial killing etiquette). However, in contrast to what came before, there is no nudity as nary one stabbing occurs from under a bed for McLoughlin seems to be too caught up in the lunacy of the moment to bother conferring with his Friday the 13th checklist.
Hence, what would at first would seem to be a continuity oversight–in that Tommy is all but insane at the close of the previous entry as he now appears steadfastly levelheaded as he tries to alert people to the ensuing danger–such becomes part and parcel to carefree horror mayhem, in short, fun for fun’s sake. In this respect, the director never misses his mark as the Puritanical moral code is wholeheartedly eschewed for the second occasion in a row (i.e. Jason’s m.o. is “kill anything that moves” while the Final Female all but rapes her newly appointed beau). However, whereas Steinmann did so with substantive itinerary in hand, McLoughlin does so because he is cognizant of the fact that to posit such at this venture, considering the surroundings and circumstances, would be a vain gesture indeed. As such, humor comes first and foremost as Crystal Lake is retitled “Forest Green” so as to disassociate the town from its bloody past. We can assume such is enacted with an eye on tourism but we are unable to ignore the fact that said lake now betrays its former title as its muddy waves nevertheless perpetually lap the shore, that is, until the director needs them to become a pristine blue once more so as to shoot aquatic action. Along with the renaming comes the most recent instance of a collective stupid enough to open a camp despite two murder sprees which haunt the area, therefore begging that such inanity be rewarded with death so as to purify the human gene pool. Moreover, what can be said of a killer so powerful that he accidentally tears off limbs and arms without intending to do so as he, before punishing RV fornicators, pauses to observe the undulating vehicular home as he tilts his head to the side as if appreciating a centerfold spread?
Considering the venue has shifted from the staunchly serious to the not-so-staunchly-serious, the director also affords himself the opportunity to insert wry critiques while nevertheless including a few naughty ideas knowing that derivative sequels will be taken with a grain of salt. When–as genre protocol demands–the aforementioned RV refuses to start, Nikki (Darcy DeMoss) stops to turn on the battery supply so that the otherwise doomed characters can make their getaway. As McLoughlin carries over the thematic motif of the family, blood as well as surrogate, from the previous two installments–for no other reason than the fact they are there–actual children appear for the first time, in all places, a summer camp. With this outrageous concept at his beck and call, the director issues us Billy (Justin Nowell), who is stranded under his bed as Jason pillages souls nearby, who inquires to his friend, Tyen (Tommy Nowell), “So, what were you gonna be when you grew up?”
But it is by way of his youthful characters that the filmmaker posits some underdog ideas which, if they appeared in either a charter feature or one with less levity, they might well not go undetected or be as flippantly discharged. As such, McLoughlin incorporates atheistic themes within his film, the first of which is cleverly witnessed in a young girl named Nancy (Courtney Vickery) who is told to pray when something scary is in her midst. Sure enough, as Jason ambles toward her, Nancy does as she’s told and, before he descends upon her, the noise of a car door slamming forces the killer to shuffle away. It is not often we are permitted to witness the Non Causa, Pro Causa fallacy at such exquisite work. Such an impish concept is reinforced in the wry instance of a copy of “No Exit,” a play by French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, a Nobel prize winning writer who was an outspoken advocate of disbelief. Also, and equally mockingly, is Martin–the caretaker of the cemetery which houses Jason’s body–who ironically grumbles, “Why’d they have to go and dig up Jason? Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment.”
Yet, and perhaps due to the fact that Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI is the first feature in the series to be solely written and directed by one person, the film is admirably consistent when circumstance demands. For example, instead of arbitrarily having Jason enter the water as Joseph Zito did two movies prior, McLoughlin only permits such in order to logistically quell his villain-cum-anti-hero (admit it, you were cheering for him all along before McLoughlin gave us the go ahead with a clean conscious) considering the substance is the figure’s Achilles Heel and, at this, only after his nemesis goads him into so doing. As such, a prior scene, which–due to the manner in which it is presented would suggest it to be an establishing shot but later threatens to be all-but-forgotten–has Tommy thumbing through a book of occultism. Yet, with this, we realize that this is the means by which our protagonist learns of the need to take his rival back to the famed locale. Thus, with ample evidence of a competent hand behind the camera, it should come as no surprise that McLoughlin includes a sardonic self-aware quip via none other than his wife, Nancy, who plays Lizabeth, “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly” before he, equally facetiously, has fictional Nancy affirm, “It [Jason] was real . . . just like on tv.”
Why do audiences and critics like Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI so much seeing as it is often cited as the best installment within the whole of the franchise? Perhaps because we come to respect the director, Tom McLoughlin, who does us the courtesy of admitting surrender when the battle is over and, nevertheless being obligated to remain on the battlefield, instead of running another–now futile–drill, does handstands so as to, not only pass the time, but highlight the absurdity of the requirement. Hence, he cannot be entirely faulted for the feature housing the largest budget of the Friday films to date while still being the first in the series to gross less than 20 million at the Box Office. As such, his work continued the monetary slump which began with Joseph Zito’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, thereby insinuating that, long before McLoughlin, audiences were silently signaling that Jason’s time had come and gone. With this, we compliment the director in that, instead of beating the proverbial dead horse, he knowingly winks and nods by opening his feature with the highly inappropriate (ergo, most appropriate) homage to James Bond, before presenting a scene in which night and day sway to and fro within a matter of seconds. Considering only Ed Wood, sans a gaggle of financially-conscious backers looking out for their three million-dollar investment, would unintentionally house such a cinematic faux pas, I leave it to the reader to ascertain whether the cinematic boo-boo was an oversight.
Trivia tidbit: The original script contained scenes involving Jason’s absent father.
-Egregious Gurnow
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- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
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- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
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