The Rube’s Review: Friday the 13th Part 6 – Jason Lives

After being so let down by Friday the 13th Part 5, most F13 fans were done with the series. We, as a horror nation, called it quits and moved on. In fact, 1985 was the year of the zombie; we soaked our sorrows with fantastic undead movies like Re-Animator, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Lifeforce, Fright Night, Trancers, and The Stuff. It was also the year of Nintendo, MTV, time traveling Deloreans, basketball playing werewolves, and Lazer Tag. As teens growing up in the 80’s we thought we had it all and it was going to be hard for Paramount to get our attention back.

So are you ready to see the greatest horror movie trailer ever made? Well check this out:

I can tell you, this made people happy in the pants when they saw it on the big screen. Adding to the hype, it was later rumored that Jason would be a reanimated corpse (leaked via numerous horror magazines) and the film would star that kid from Return of the Living Dead, with a new song by Alice Cooper… OH HELL YA WE’RE GOING TO SEE THIS MOVIE!

So, F13 Part 6 opens with Tommy and his padded roommate Hawes, both mental ward escapees, ready to see the world… but Tommy is determined to make sure that his masked nemesis stays dead and buried. The daring duo make it to the town’s cemetery, ready to dig up the machete man and set him on fire – hey, it’s the only way to be sure. After seeing the unearthed corpse, Tommy has one his “episodes.” He grabs a wrought iron fence post and repeatedly stabs Mr. Wormfood and then – BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL! – thunder and lighting rain from the heavens and strike the impaled Jason, Frankenstein-style. Why does this reanimate the maggot-covered boogieman? Who the fuck cares?!

The newly zombiefied Jason arises to do the Lord’s work and goes on a never-ending quest to spot teenage-fucking, smoking, drinking, and all around douchebaggary… kinda like Smokey the Bear, but with an axe and ready to prove his point. Tommy splashes Jason with gasoline (fuck, why not at this point) just to have his matches’ blow out and get soaked from the unscheduled rainy forecast (God’s plan?). Hawes musters enough courage to beam him in the head with a shovel (hey, at least he tried). Jason counters with the Kung Fu five finger palm of death straight onto Hawes chest while ripping out his beating heart and slam dunking his lifeless body in the coffin.

At this point Tommy is shitting out tinker toys (wouldn’t you?) and flees the crime scene. After a close-up of our masked man’s “good” eye, he walks on screen James Bond Style and machetes his own eye to reveal the bloody credits. YAH, TAKE THAT MGM! Tommy runs to the now renamed Forest Green Police Department, where the two on-duty cops subdue the crazy-man with dirty shorts and lock him up for safe keeping. Meanwhile, Jason is on his way to pay Tommy a visit, when he nearly gets run over by lost senior camp counselors in a VW Beetle (fuck, enough with the Beetles!).

As the counselors play a game of Moo Cow Move, with the FREAK’N UNDEAD, Sir Jason stands his ground with his makeshift sword/iron rod in hand, classic YOU SHALL NOT PASS stance. The driver pulls a gun on our masked knight just to be skewered and thrown to the moon (FUCK!) while the girl is stabbed in mid scream and left for dead in a swamp puddle.

The next morning, Megan, and the other summer camp interns visit her dad the sheriff. There’s Cort (Mr. 80’s Cool… BTW who names their son CORT?!), Spunky Sissy, and Boring Paula. As Megan asks her dad to borrow a car to look for the missing counselors, Tommy warns the group about Jason, which makes Megan so wet that you could drown a puppy in her panties. The sheriff can’t take anymore of this tomfoolery about the local boogieman and agrees to escort Tommy out of town. There’s a quick scene of the cemetery caretaker bitching and a griping about refilling Jason’s grave then it’s off to Camp Crystal Lake… oh, Camp Blood… no, um, what the fuck is it called again… oh yeah, Camp Forest Green, where Megan brings the other Counselors up to speed with the Voorhees legend.

Back in the woods, Jason takes care of some big city yuppie playing paintball. Apparently Jason isn’t used to his new superhuman/zombie strength as he rips off this year’s Brookstone Machete wielding arm from “Player 1.” Then he goes all Mortal Kombat and scores a 3+ Machete Decapitation Combo against other paintballers before he continues to follow Player 5 into the woods.

As the Sheriff and Deputy follow Tommy out of town, he takes a Dukes of Hazzard detour to the cemetery. Once there, the two officers chase Tommy to Jason’s filled-in grave. Tommy struggles and the deputy pulls out his revolver equipped with the biggest Terminator-style laser scope that I’ve ever seen. Fast forward over some boring camp crap – yadda yadda – the Sheriff throws Tommy outta town – yadda yadda – drunken cemetery hand gets a tracheotomy with his own liquor bottle and a picnicking couple gets skewered – yadda yadda – a wee girl camper has a bad dream about the boogieman – yada yada – and Cort and Megan are nowhere to be found.

While Cort and Winnebago Bimbo have an all night fuck-a-thon nearby, the power goes out in the lover’s RV. Cort finds the power cord ripped out and, scared, they both decide to play it safe and take off. While Cort rocks to Alice Cooper’s Teenage Frankenstein, Jason appears and takes the Bimbo in the bathroom, crushing her head with so much force that her screaming image is vacuformed into the RV’s aluminum frame (NICE!). Cort gets a hunting knife in the ear, rolls the RV and Jason escapes the flaming wreck unharmed.

Back at the police station, the Sheriff argues with Megan about her infatuation with Tommy who he believes is going all batshit/copycat Jason crazy. The Sheriff takes off to respond to a call, leaving Megan… to do what Megans do I guess? After coming up with a plan to deal with Jason (via voodoo hocus pocus books), Tommy calls Megan for some help. Moist-pantied Megan picks up Tommy and supplies just to run into a roadblock/cockblock. Then there’s a good old-fashioned Smokey and the Bandit high speed pursuit, which involves Tommy tucking his noggin down to Megan’s no-no area, while listening to Alice Cooper’s new album. The chase ends with Megan’s dad greeting them with business end of a shotgun.

Eventually Jason makes it to the camp and cuts the phone line (why?). Sissy and Paula hear a rustling outside. Paula goes back to bed, while Sissy pulls a prank on… whoever the fuck it might be. Jason responds by pulling Sissy out of a window and twisting her head clean off. After that more boring shit happens a little girl wakes up with a bloody machete and bothers Paula – yadda yadda – Jason FINAALLLY kills Paula off screen. Megan breaks Tommy out of his cell – yada yada – Jason scares My Little Pony farts out of a wee little catholic camper. She prays for the boogieman to disappear and he does! (Power of God!).

Jason kills two extras in cop outfits, and goes after Megan’s dad. After shaking off a melee of shotgun and pistol rounds, the Sheriff bolts with Jason in chase. Megan’s dad meets his match as Jason folds him like lawn chair. With no one left to save her, Jason grabs Megan and just as Jason is about to smoosh Megans head Tommy, now on a boat (with chain tied to a heavy rock that would easily capsize a small boat), calls Jason out to the lake to end this nightmare. As Jason attacks Tommy in the water (which Tommy has set on fire?), he’s able to slip the chain around Jason’s neck. Why? We assume that if Jason re-dies in the lake that killed him as a boy, then he’ll be at peace in his final resting place.

Unfortunately Tommy drowns, but love struck Megan swims to save her new lover boy. Of course, Jason grabs her legs and tries to drown Megan. In fear, she grabs the only thing that’s next to her, the sinking boat’s motor. It takes a few tries to start it up but it starts and the powerful blades turn Jason’s face into bloody chum and snap his neck. Megan performs CPR and revives her Prince Charming. Once more time the camera peers on Jason’s sunken corpse to see his ”good” eye open and ends with another great 80’s Alice Cooper tune.

Even though this installment received great reviews, F13 Part 6 did well but not as great as it’s previous sequels, only pulling in $19Mil from a $3Mil Budget. Why did it do so-so at the box office? Possibly because there were a slew of better horror movies that came out that summer such as Big Trouble in Little China, Aliens, Maximum Overdrive, The Fly, and Night of the Creeps… or because it opened the same day as that year’s highly anticipated summer blockbuster/failure, HOWARD THE DUCK, which itself got CRUSHED by another fantastic film, Stand By Me.

For whatever, Friday the 13th Part 6 is a true favorite for all horror fans. Some say it’s due to the re-vamping of Jason to zombie status. I think it’s due to the fact that the story, even as hokey as it is, mostly resembles a classic Universal Monster movie. You have the birth of a supernatural monster (Jason) and his creator (Tommy) that takes blame for his monsters actions and does everything in his power to destroy the beast before it does harm to the innocent townsfolk… throw in some cheap thrills, decapitations, Alice Cooper tunes, and you got yourself a MOVIE!

SLASHER SCOREBOARD

FAMOUS FACES:
Tommy is played by Return of the Living Dead‘s Thom Mathews. Jennifer Cooke stared in V: The Series (80′s) and the rest went on to other TV shows and such.

LESSONS LEARNED:
Sometimes you have to just let things go. Try not spend too much time sweating the small stuff or dwell too much on digging up and setting an already dead corpse on fire.

MEMORABLE SCENES:
Jason ripping a guys heart out of their chest.
Cort explaining to boys the Indian way of deadbeat father tracking.
Triple decapitation.
Vacuformed scream.
Sheriff getting folded in half.

MEMORABLE LINES:
“Yeah, fuck you Jason!”

“Darren, we better turn around.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that any weirdo in a mask is never friendly.”

“Does your mom own a sewing machine kid?”

“Some folks have a strange idea of entertainment.” (Says the cemetery caretaker, while looking toward the camera/audience)

“Where ever the red dot goes… YA-BANG!”

“Who unplugged the cord?”
“I don’t know, Smokey the fuck’n Bear…”

“Well he picked a good day to pull this shit.”
“Whadda mean?”
“Happy Friday the 13th.”

“Come on Maggothead!”

BODY COUNT: 18