Review #752: 'Friday the 13th: A New Beginning' (1985)

For the first time in the seemingly endless Friday the 13th franchise, A New Beginning betrays the promise of the previous instalment of being the 'final chapter', and has a (spoiler!) non-Vorhees imposter donning the mask, doing the deranged one's good work for him. This has led to this, the fifth entry, being donned the black sheep of the series, and isn't too well-remembered by it's hardcore fans. Being only a casual viewer of a series I believe to be, up to this point, the same movie made over and over again, I have no real problem with this. It's the execution that's the problem, and the laziness of director Danny Steinmann in failing to come up with any inventive scenes of butchery, making A New Beginning easily the most forgettable so far.

Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd, and played by a returning Corey Feldman in one early flashback scene) is tormented by the events of the previous film, and has been released from a mental institution to seek peace of mind at Pinewood Halfway House. It is owned by Dr. Letter (Richard Young), and is home to various troubled and disturbed teens. After the brutal murder of Joey (Dominick Brascia) by Vic (The Return of the Living Dead's Mark Venturini), one of the home's more unstable residents, a series of brutal and unprovoked attacks ignite at the halfway house and the surrounding areas.

Chock to the brim with murders, A New Beginning should be the most easily watchable of the series. But lacking a true artist such as Tom Savini, and employing a hack like Steinmann (who only made 4 features in his entire career, including hard-core porn), the film is repetitive and plain dull. Shepherd, it's lead, lacks charisma, so we are stuck with an annoying kid (Different Strokes' Shavar Ross), who although has the energy to carry the screen-time he has, lacks the likeability of Corey Feldman and his character. The Scooby-Doo-esque mystery should add another element, but by the time the revelation comes, we've forgotten who the hell it is, and after 90 minutes of endless hacking and mutilation, I couldn't have cared less.


Directed by: Danny Steinmann
Starring: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Richard Young
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie