The Monthly Rag

There’s almost enough intentional humor here to make it somewhat enjoyable in places, but otherwise–more of the same old stuff. Hulking killer. Young twenty-something models playing teens. Violence. The underlying satire tries to work new magic but fails on almost all levels, leaving us with a particularly bad remake of basically the preceding movie (in this sad chronological case, part 4).

Adult Tommy Jarvis (now Thom Matthews), only survivor and destroyer of the Crystal Lake killer, returns to exorcise the ghost of his tormenter. Taking a friend and escaping a sanitarium, he digs up the rotten corpse of the deceased Voorhees, and, in what can only be a nod to the original FRANKENSTEIN, accidentally ressurects the fallen beast in a ludicrous opening. Post a James Bond inspired parody title sequence, the newly exhumed revenant returns to his turf to creatively dissect a new batch of counselors-in-training.

Done all for cheeky fun, but still pretty lame any way you slice it. Alice Cooper on the soundtrack and the random slaughter of three men and a woman out playing paintball war is a good indication of the attitude here, high camp served on a smarmy platter. It hasn’t aged well at all, moreso in fact than every other before it. The effects are either offscreen (edited by brother Paramount, likely) or rather bland, though there is one interesting scene with a sheriff being bent in half.

Ultimately, the expiration date on this runaway gravy train was up, but one could never quite underestimate the idiocy of both a cash-hungry studio and an increasingly undemanding fanbase.

"Oh wow...that came off with it..." The returning Voorhees doesn't know his own new strength in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES.