Among the rogues gallery of horror film slashers, Jason Voorhees is arguably one of the greatest to ever do it. The Friday the 13th franchise has now surpassed 40 years of existence and forever permeated pop culture worldwide. Among the twelve iterations of Friday the 13th, the very best one to come out lies right in the middle: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, released in 1986.
Why is it the best? It has impressive kills, great music, and well-timed humor. Jason is such a beast in this movie! With Part VI, writer/director Tom McLoughlin took the lore built from the previous five films and created the most fun you’ll ever see in this franchise. Additionally, this was such a crucial turning point for the series.
We have the return and (for the moment) final appearance of hero Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews), having busted out of his mental ward and, understandably, still traumatized from the previous installment’s events, Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter and Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, respectively.
He is on a warpath for closure as the film opens. After Tommy digs up Jason’s grave and desecrates the remains with an iron fence post, lightning strikes the site. Jason is resurrected, and we unknowingly enter the supernatural era in the Friday the 13th series. From Jason’s first appearance in Part 2, he was given a platform of quasi-plausibility. Jason is no longer the wild bush man here but now a sinister revenant.
Moving on down the series after Part VI, Jason fights off a telekinetic hero named Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) in Part VII, and he is resurrected again in Part VIII so he can catch a boat to Manhattan. He also eventually goes to Hell, space, and Elm Street. My point is that the series is now locked into the new Jason mythology. They couldn’t unbake this cake until the 2009 reboot.
Structurally speaking, this entry is pretty formulaic, as it should be. I will not be rehashing the plot here, save for a few moments here and there. If you’ve seen any Friday the 13th film, the rundown usually plays the same each time. Jason comes back and slices and dices his way through the new crop of bodies that have populated his territory. I sometimes feel Jason isn’t so much a serial killer, just a terrified man lost to nature with protective instincts that can only be expressed with violence. Just get off his lawn, man.
Jason is also robotic in this film, tying back to the supernatural element I just referenced. He doesn’t walk like he used to before, echoing more of The Terminator here. I could drone on about Jason and his new swagger just as the day is long. C.J. Graham plays the eponymous villain, predating the legendary Kane Hodder, who donned the famous hockey mask four times.
Friday the 13th Part VI is not what I would call a great movie. Because how could it be? Slasher movies know their place, and that’s why we enjoy them. But Jason Lives strides the paradoxical line of being better than it needs to be. It actually is ranked second best in the series behind the original Friday the 13th, per Rotten Tomatoes. Tom McLoughlin’s script is sneaky and smart; he digs into the mythos of Jason and Camp Crystal Lake just enough to expand the scope without dragging the runtime.
Thom Mathews plays a handsome yet neurotic Tommy Jarvis, and his motivation throughout the film never falters. After being locked up by the cops for appearing as a threat to public safety, Tommy grows a convincing relationship with the flirty Megan (Jennifer Cooke), the sheriff’s daughter. I assume it was mostly because she was in her rebellious and bad-boys phase. She also gives Tommy someone to fight for besides himself.
Jarvis also grows a relationship with the sheriff, albeit not very pragmatic. Sheriff Mike Garris (David Kagen) is one of those pain-in-the-ass characters I respect. He doesn’t suffer corruption like Mayor Vaughn from Jaws or pretentious snobbery like Walter Peck from Ghostbusters. Sheriff Garris has a job to do and a line of ethics he follows. He is a man of the community. He painstakingly reminds Tommy why Crystal Lake was renamed Forest Green.
I especially appreciated his tenacity in keeping the children safe towards the film’s end. Had this not been a Friday the 13th film, Tommy and Sheriff Garris probably would’ve made nice at the end of the picture and gotten a beer together. Most of the counselors die, as you’d expect. But McLoughlin’s writing gives the sheriff, his Deputy Rick Cologne (Vinnie Guastaferro), and a few counselors time to breathe and grow.
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And this movie is funny. But the humor isn’t set in with gags and goofiness. To be fair, the paintball sequences had a few gags that worked very well. But for most of the film, McLoughlin laced in many clever one-liners and had his actors deliver them with perfect timing and nuance. Sometimes, it’s not even dialogue that cracks me up; it’s the subtle eye movement or gesture. There’s even a decent fourth-wall break with one character.
“Wherever the red dot goes, you bang!”
Jason Lives is also very violent. There are some generic kills (from my research, these deaths were added to pad the body count) to include the couple on the motorbike or the counselor Paula (Kerry Noonan) getting slashed off-screen. But Darren (a then-unknown Tony Goldwyn) getting launched over Jason’s shoulder like a laundry bag was fun.
There is also a triple beheading, a man getting folded in half-backward, and a girl named Nikki (Darcy DeMoss) getting her face pressed into the side of a moving RV (my personal favorite of the film). But the violence is just enough without being either gratuitous or watered-down.
Jason Lives isn’t without its critiques. The big one for me is Jason dutifully returning to the water to attack Tommy, even though the water is his Achilles’ heel. It is also the only installment that does not feature nudity. And while I appreciate why the latter is disappointing to some, I feel that Jason Lives is better without it anyway.
There is one sex scene between the aforementioned Nikki and her lover, the dopey Cort (Tom Fridley), where Tom McLoughlin could’ve snuck in some bare skin. But I’m happy he didn’t. That quick scene actually had a few funny moments, but adding T & A to it might have compromised the pacing and timing of the humor already written within.
In the 35 years that have passed since the film’s opening, I have yet to hear anyone comment on how Tommy Jarvis is actually the main villain in this film. In the scope of ethics and morality, should Tommy be held accountable for all of the deaths in this film? I’m not here to decide for you. But it begs the question, who’s to blame if you play with fire and you get burned? You or the fire? These burning (no pun intended) questions add to the richness of McLoughlin’s Friday the 13th sequel.
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With every franchise entry, we get new ways to see people die with whatever weapons Jason can get his gnarly hands on. We get treated to tidbits of mythos and rewarded for our time and money with blood and mindless fun. I do not doubt that both hardcore and casual fans of the franchise have a select favorite film of the group. That makes the franchise as a whole so enjoyable; the sum is greater than its parts. Yet, each part adds a fun new layer.
Jason Lives is the pinnacle of everything great about this series. There are strong characters that actually matter to me; they all come well-developed with depth and humor. The soundtrack featuring Alice Cooper has a lot of catchy tunes that I still find myself humming along with. Jason is at his most formidable (at this point in the series), and we get a satisfying conclusion to the Tommy Jarvis arc.
The lore of the urban legend that is Jason of Camp Crystal Lake is a fun set piece for a scary movie. Tom McLoughlin knew that. You can tell by how much gratification he had making this. It kept me smiling the entire time.
