Halloween may have opened the door to the slasher films of the ’80s, but it was Friday the 13th that set the table upon which these ripoff films would feast. It took some time for the franchise to find its voice, and when it did it devolved into self parody over the span of only a few movies. There is a sweet spot in the series, and it is noticeable.
Here, now, is the definitive ranking of the Friday the 13th franchise, scrutinized and analyzed and… who am I kidding, I just watched these things and ranked them based on what I liked. And along the way, I added a few tidbits of information where it was warranted. Enjoy… or get mad. It’s up to you.
8Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
The first four entries into the Friday the 13th franchise made, on average, about 25 times their budget. Labeling the fourth film as The Final Chapter had to have felt disingenuous even back in 1984. Whatever the case, A New Beginning happened just a year later, and somehow young Tommy (Corey Feldman from Part IV) appears to be a thirty-year old, um, teenager. Feldman was originally supposed to reprise his role, but The Goonies got in the way of that, so he had a cameo dream sequence instead, making this the first film in the series to not have a ten minute prologue from the previous entry.
The action here takes place at a halfway house that has to be the most violently unstable halfway house in all of human history. The mentally-challenged member of this group of teens is axed to death by another fully-adult looking “teenager” in the most gratuitous and disgusting act of violence in a franchise full of disgusting gratuitous violence. The difference this time was the lack of cheeky creativity. Not to mention the fact it has no bearing on the story and doesn’t even involve Jason.
In fact, very little of A New Beginning involves Jason. When he shows up, Tom Morga does a decent job with the action. It’s just so late, and everything preceding Jason’s appearance is a disjointed, tonal mess. Some characters are here for the comedy, others for the psychotic murder, and none of it is half as entertaining as The Final Chapter just a year earlier.
