Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: The Bloody Thumb Review
STATS
1985, 92 Minutes rated R
Worst Tag Line in Friday the 13th History: If Jason Still Haunts You, You’re not alone
PLOT
Tommy Jarvis, is not a well man. His incident with Jason has left him How shall we say, mentally unstable? Images of Jason haunt his sleep when he dreams at night. Vision’s of Jason haunt Tommy’s mind day and night.
Homeless. Shuffled from institute to institute, never staying longer then a few weeks. This is Tommy’s reward for stopping Jason. This is the life that he now must lead.
Enter, Pinhurst. Pinhurst is a mental help facility for troubled Youths. Troubled, and sometimes violent youths. Toss into that mix of mental turmoil a young and confused Tommy Jarvis, truly a recipe for disaster.
As is often the case, one act of violence begets other acts of violence. Every thing quickly tumbles into a cesspool of death. The cause?
None other then Serial Killer Jason Voorhees. Seemingly, Some how the Long Dead killer is back stalking the waking world.
In the end, Who will survive. Who will be the last one standing when the mask finally falls to the dirt.
CAST
John Shephard is Tommy Jarvis. Usually at this point I launch into all the really interesting things in the history or their Career, but their really isn’t anything interesting in John’s Career, so I’ll just skip it and talk about the weather instead. How bout that weather then? Yeah, me too. Let’s move on.
Yah know… None of the these guy’s really did anything of note. So we are just going to list them instead of getting into each and every one of them…
Melanie Kinnaman …. Pam Roberts
Shavar Ross …. Reggie
Richard Young (I) …. Dr. Matt Peters
Marco St. John …. Sheriff Cal Tucker
Juliette Cummins …. Robin
Carol Locatell …. Ethel Hubbard
Vernon Washington …. George, Reggie’s Grandfather
John Robert Dixon …. Eddie
Jerry Pavlon …. Jake
Caskey Swaim …. Duke Johnson
Mark Venturini …. Victor J. ‘Vic’ Faden
Anthony Barrile …. Vinnie
Dominick Brascia …. Joey Burns
Tiffany Helm …. Violet
Richard Lineback …. Deputy Dodd
Corey Feldman …. Tommy Jarvis at 12
CREW
Danny Stienman directs this Magnum Opus. He also received writing credits on this film. Other movies directed by Danny Stienman include Savage Streets, The Unseen and High Rise.
Martin Kitrosser and David Kohen also get writing credits on this one. Martin you may remember from Friday the 13th part 3-D. David oddly enough is no relation to the Cohen who helped write Friday the 13th part 4 Go Figure.
FUN FACTS
Corey Feldman was originally set to play the part of Tommy Jarvis again, but couldn’t due to the filming of the film Goonies. The movie was then completely re written to accommodate a different, older, actor.
The British Video version of this film cuts out all topless girls, while the German version leaves in the topless girls, but cuts out the acts of Violence. Huh, no acts of violence? Hardly seems like a Friday the 13th film to me.
Tommy speaks 16 words throughout the coarse of the film. 5 in the first half hour. 7 total by the half way point. In the last half he speaks two more times. One a 7 word sentence (his longest in the movie) the other only two words. No, that doesn’t count flash backs to young Tommy. Don’t ask me why I counted Tommy’s words For the life of me I do not know.
NOT SO FUN FACT
After expelling the Enchilada from his Gluteus Maximus, Demon does not use any Toilet Paper.
MISTAKES
When Tommy, Pam, and Reggie are going to see Demon they pass the same rocks several times.
When the cop is explaining to Pam “about Jason and the Killer”, he shows her some newspaper clippings. One of them has a photograph of Jason with his hockey mask on. Wow. That photographer deserves a raise.
Through out the movie several of the weapons that have just been used to kill someone, are pulled out of the body and remain clean.
SUMMATION
Okay. First off, I would like to start off with a complaint. Don’t worry, this won’t be anything at all like Part 4’s psychotic “Polo Shirt + Jogging Shorts” Rant. This is a rant of different kind.
In my opinion, their was one, VERY important thing missing from this movie. THE FRIGGEN LAKE!!!! This is a Friday the 13th movie!!! It’s about Campers!!! Even when it’s not about Campers, we at least see a lake in the movie!! Hell, we even saw a Lake in Jason X!! The closest we get to a lake in this film is when the one guy goes and rinses his willie in a over blown mud puddle!
That may seem like a pretty silly complaint to most people, but not to me. The Lake is part of the identity of a Friday the 13th movie. Water is very important to the mythos of the series. If it wasn’t for water, we wouldn’t even have a series. First off, all the actors and directors would have died of dehydration without water.
That last bit was a joke.
But my point still stands. Water is very important to the Friday, and Jason mythos. It was water that created Jason. Without water, Jason ceases to be Jason. He becomes something else. I know that’s the whole point of the movie, trying something a little new.
My second complaint is the outfit and over all look of Jason. Maybe I’m just spoiled by the wonderful job Kane Hodder always does in the later film, but the Jason in this film is slightly, well, unimpressive. He’s smaller then the other Jason’s, and his outfit is closer to a Michael Myers type then what we usually see Jason in.
Again, I understand, something new and different was what this episode was going for. Personally though, I think it failed in these two points.
The “Home for Mentally Unstable Kids” setting could have been used to a greater degree. We had an opportunity for a plethora of fun and interesting new characters. Instead we got the Horney Teens, The Stutterer, The Punk Girl, and the Do Gooders. Add onto that Demon, the token Black guy and his token Black Girl friend.
Just for good measure, and just in cast that cast of tired stereotypes isn’t good enough for you, lets toss in the Red Neck Neighbor women and her Red Neck son. *sigh* One side note about the lady who lives next door though. She reminds me so much of a friends mother that it just kills me every time I watch this film. I laugh my ass off the whole time she’s on.
Other then that though, I enjoy this outing into the world of Crystal Lake. It’s not as good as part four, but it’s still pretty strong. Easily I think this is my second favorite sequel in the series.
Why do you ask, is this my second favorite sequel, when I just complained more about this film in the series then any other? Wow, er… Um… Good question.
I guess I do give this movie some credit for actually attempting to do something new. The attempt may have been flawed and misguided, but it was still there. It’s one of those “thought that counts” type of moments. Or at least it is to me anyway.
This film also gains a little credit for reusing Tommy Jarvis. It’s nice for once in the series to have a recurring character other then Jason Voorhees.
It’s really difficult in this instant to put into words the good things about this movie. I suppose part of it is that this film really makes no excuses. It’s not trying to be anything more then it is. The fifth movie in a slasher series with a dwindling budget. This movie has no delusions of grandeur. In many ways it reminds me of the drive in movies of the 60’s and 70’s. It makes no excuses, and it knows what it is.
This is a completely open and honest movie. You know from the start exactly what you’ve signed up for. Every once in awhile that type of honesty is welcome.
So yeah, go see this film if you’re a fan of low budget slasher films.
If you can only take one thing with you from this film, take this. Singing to people as they poop is just weird. All of you who have seen the movie know exactly what I’m talking about.
3 out of 5 Bloody Thumb Prints.
Nice writeup, but what are you talking about with the tagline? ‘If Jason Still Haunts You… You’re Not Alone’ is by a wide margin the classiest thing the series ever came up with.
What’s better? “Jason has met his match”? “A New Dimension in Terror”? “This is the one you’ve been waiting for”?
The only one better is “I (JASON) New York!”, and that was attached to an even worse film!
Wait a minute… is there an inverse relationship between the films’ quality and the quality of their taglines?
Hmmm…. this could take some research…