Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Danny Steinmann
Produced by Timothy Silver
Screenplay by
  • Martin Kitrosser
  • David Cohen
  • Danny Steinmann
Story by
  • Martin Kitrosser
  • David Cohen
Based on Characters
by Victor Miller
Starring
Music by Harry Manfredini
Cinematography Stephen L. Posey
Edited by Bruce Green
Production
company
  • Georgetown Productions
  • Terror, Inc.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • March 22, 1985 (1985-03-22)
Running time
 92 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $2.2 million
Box office $21.9 million

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (also known as Friday the 13th Part V) is a 1985 American slasher film directed by Danny Steinmann, and starring Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, and Shavar Ross. It is the fifth installment in the Friday the 13th film series, after The Final Chapter (1984). Narratively, A New Beginning departs from the Camp Crystal Lake setting and Jason Voorhees-themed mystery of the previous four installments and instead acts as a psychological horror film set at a fictional halfway house, where an adult Tommy Jarvis—who, as a child killed Voorhees—begins to fear again as a new series of brutal murders have been occurring by a new hockey-masked assailant. The film features a cameo appearance from Corey Feldman, who portrayed Tommy in the previous film.[1]

The frequency of graphic violence and blood is expedited in A New Beginning, with the film featuring a high number of on-screen murders. Aside from its gore, the film has also become known for its explicit nudity and sex scene,[2] as well as frequent drug use. Peter Bracke's book Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th details that behind the scenes, the production was plagued with hardcore drug use.

Shot in California in 1984 on a budget of $2.2 million, A New Beginning was released theatrically in March 1985, and grossed $21 million at the U.S. box office, making it the second poorest performing film in the Friday the 13th series at the time with a steep decline from the previous two entries. The film was initially going to set up a new trilogy of films with a different villain for the series. However, after A New Beginning's disappointing reception from fans and steep decline in box-office receipts from The Final Chapter, Jason Voorhees was brought back for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and has been the main antagonist in every entry in the series since. In addition to weak box office returns, most critics gave the film negative reviews. In later years, much like the series in general, the film has obtained a cult following.[3]

Plot

A few years after the demise of mass murderer Jason Voorhees, the youngest survivor Tommy Jarvis awakens from a nightmare of him witnessing two grave robbers digging up Jason Voorhees's body. Jason rises from the grave and murders the grave robbers before advancing towards Tommy. Upon arriving at Pinehurst Halfway House, a secluded residential treatment facility, Tommy is introduced to director Pam Roberts and Dr. Matt Letter. In his assigned room, Tommy also meets Reggie, a boy whose grandfather, George, works as the kitchen cook. Other teens introduced are redhead Robin, Goth Violet, shy Jake, short-tempered Vic, and compulsive eater Joey. The sheriff brings in two more residents, lovers Eddie and Tina, after catching them having sex on neighbor Ethel Hubbard's lawn. Ethel Hubbard and her son Junior show up and threaten to have the house closed down if the teens do not stop sneaking onto their property.

Later that day, Vic kills Joey with an axe and is subsequently arrested. The body is discovered by attending ambulance drivers Roy Burns and Duke. Roy is saddened by the death, but Duke believes that the murder was a harmless prank. That evening, greasers Vinnie and Pete are murdered by an unseen assailant after their car breaks down. The following night, Billy and his girlfriend Lana are killed with an axe. Panic begins to ensue, but the mayor refuses to believe the sheriff's claim that somehow Jason Voorhees has returned.

The next day, Tina and Eddie sneak off into the woods to have sex. Ethel's farmhand Raymond is killed while spying on the pair. While Eddie leaves to go wash off in the creek, Tina is murdered. Eddie returns to find her dead and is also killed. Meanwhile, Tommy and Pam accompany Reggie to visit Reggie's brother Demon and his girlfriend, Anita. While there, Tommy gets into a fight with Junior and runs off. After Reggie and Pam leave, Demon and Anita are murdered. At the Hubbard farm, Ethel and Junior are both killed as well.

Pam leaves Reggie at the halfway house to look for Tommy. After Reggie falls asleep, the killer enters and murders Jake, Robin, and Violet. Reggie awakens just as Pam returns before they discover the dead bodies in Tommy's room. The killer, revealed to be wearing Jason's hockey mask, bursts into the house and chases them out into the rain after discovering the bodies of Duke, Matt, and George. Pam rushes toward the barn, chased by Jason, but he is struck by a tractor driven by Reggie. They run into the barn and hide as Jason comes to find them. Tommy comes shortly after and believes Jason to be a hallucination until he is attacked. Together, they get Jason to fall out of the loft window, and he is killed upon landing on a harrow below. The killer is revealed to have not been Jason, but was Roy Burns all along.

At the hospital, the sheriff tells Pam that Joey was Roy's son. After seeing him slaughtered, Roy lost his sanity and adopted Jason's identity to kill everyone at the house, apparently blaming them all for Joey's death. Tommy, after waking up from a nightmare, has another hallucination of Jason, but he faces his fears which makes Jason's hallucination disappear. He hears Pam approaching and throws his bed through the window to appear that he has escaped. When Pam rushes in, Tommy appears from behind the door and seemingly attacks her, wearing Roy's hockey mask and wielding a kitchen knife.

Cast

John Hock appeared as Jason Voorhees in the opening dream sequence because Morga was unavailable when the scene was shot. He also performed the stunt where Roy fell off the barn.[4]

Production

The hockey mask design used in A New Beginning.

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning was cast under a fake title, Repetition, and many of the actors in the film were not aware it was a Friday the 13th installment until after they were cast in their roles.[5] Among the unaware cast was lead actor John Shepard, who spent several months volunteering at a state mental hospital to prepare for the role, and that he felt "really disappointed" to discover that Repetition was actually the fifth entry in the Friday the 13th series.[5] Actor Dick Wieand stated that "It wasn't until I saw Part V that I realized what a piece of trash it was. I mean, I knew the series' reputation, but you're always hoping that yours is going to come out better", and director Danny Steinmann stated that he "shot a fucking porno in the woods there. You wouldn't believe the nudity they cut out."[5]

According to the DVD box set Friday the 13th: Return to Crystal Lake, Corey Feldman was only able to make a cameo appearance in the film as a result of his involvement as an actor in The Goonies, which was released the same year as A New Beginning.[6] Feldman filmed the inserts of his cameo on a Sunday, as that was his off day of shooting his other film, and the footage was shot in the backyard of his family's home in Los Angeles with a rain machine.[7]

The film is the only entry in the Friday the 13th film series to feature a hockey mask design with two blue triangles pointing downwards, as opposed to the more common variant of three red triangles, with the lower two pointing upwards.[8][9]

Soundtrack

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Soundtrack album by Harry Manfredini
Released January 13, 2012
Genre Film score
Length 48:30
Label La-La Land

On January 13, 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition 6-CD boxset containing Harry Manfredini's scores from the first six Friday the 13th films. It sold out in less than 24 hours.[10]

Release

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning opened on March 22, 1985, on 1,759 screens. The film debuted at number 1 on its opening weekend with a gross of $8,032,883, beating the teen sex comedy sequel Porky's Revenge, the biopic Mask, Berry Gordy's martial-arts action musical The Last Dragon and the Disney dinosaur fantasy Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.[11] By the end of its theatrical run, the film would earn $21,930,418 at the domestic box office, placing it at number 41 on the list of 1985's top box office earners. The film faced competition throughout the first half of the year against horror releases Cat's Eye and Lifeforce.[11]

Critical reception

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 16% of 19 surveyed critics, both contemporaneous and modern, gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 3.2/10.[12]

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune criticized the film for a perceived lack of originality, writing: "The new film is not really new. The same killer—a guy wearing a hockey mask and wielding a machete—still haunts a bunch of youngsters, mostly the inmates of a mental hospital," and added that there "is little suspense."[13] Variety wrote: "The fifth Friday the 13th film reiterates a chronicle of butcherings with even less variation than its predecessors."[14] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "It's worth recognizing only as an artifact of our culture."[15] A review in the British film journal Films and Filming was critical of its redundancy in comparison to the previous sequels, with the review noting: "The woods are really spooky...especially when there's one of those giant thunderstorms (and boy! Does that Pam look great in a wet blouse!). And wait till you see what happens when Jason traps this one poor guy in a porta-loo!"[16]

Henry Edgar of the Daily Press wrote: "If you like the others in this series, you'll like this one. If you didn't, stay away. Jason has his own followers, and he seems willing to continue the bloodshed forever."[17] Steve Davis of The Austin Chronicle criticized the film's redundant violence, noting that the film consisted of the "Same screaming, same endless chases, same breasts, same blood, same axe, same lack of explanation, same ending primed for another sequel. Is there a pattern emerging here? In short: same as it ever was, same as it ever was."[18] Scott Meslow of GQ called the film "the bloodiest, most deranged" installment in the series, noting its total of 22 murder sequences.[5] Leonard Maltin awarded the film no stars, writing: "A clever title (after... The Final Chapter) for more gore galore, as gruesome and disgusting as ever."[19]

Writing for Slant Magazine, Jeremiah Kipp wrote: "There’s more plot than usual, involving Jason survivor Tommy Jarvis wondering if the pileup of corpses can be blamed on Jason, a copycat, or himself. But Agatha Christie this ain’t. The tone is crude, raunchy, and leering, with kill scenes combined with more nudity than usual."[20]

Home media

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning was released on LaserDisc in 1986,[21] and on VHS in 1994 by Paramount Home Video.[22] Paramount released it in the United States on DVD on September 25, 2001.[23] In 2009, Paramount reissued its Friday the 13th films on DVD in "Deluxe Editions," reissuing A New Beginning on June 16, 2009.[24] This release featured several newly-commissioned bonus materials, including an audio commentary and interviews with the cast and crew.[24]

On September 13, 2013, Paramount and Warner Brothers co-released the Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection Blu-ray box set, featuring each of the twelve film in the franchise;[25] this marked the first Blu-ray release of A New Beginning.[26] Paramount and Warner reissued the film as a standalone double-feature Blu-ray paired with Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives in 2014.[27]

References

  1. ↑ Bracke 2006, p. 120.
  2. ↑ TV Guide Staff. "Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning". TV Guide. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  3. ↑ Bracke 2006, p. 122.
  4. ↑ Parker, Jason (December 23, 2010). "The Jason Acting Duo Of 'A New Beginning'". Fridaythe13thfilms.com. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Meslow, Scott (May 13, 2016). "The Bloodiest, Most Deranged 'Friday the 13th' Movie". GQ. Retrieved October 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Miller, Mark L. (June 13, 2014). "FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved March 25, 2013.
  7. ↑ Farrands, Daniel (dir.) et al. (2015). Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Blu-ray)|format= requires |url= (help). Image Entertainment. ASIN B00YT9IS1G.
  8. ↑ Clark, Sean (February 13, 2009). "[13 Days of F13] The Masks of Jason Voorhees!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  9. ↑ Parker, Jason (March 22, 2016). "NECA To Release Replica "Roy" Hockey Mask From 'Friday The 13th: A New Beginning'!". Fridaythe13thfranchise.com. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  10. ↑ "La-La Land Records: Friday the 13th". La-La Land Records. Archived from the original on January 15, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  11. 1 2 "Friday the 13th - Part V". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Friday the 13th, Part V - A New Beginning (1985)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  13. ↑ Siskel, Gene (March 25, 1985). "'Friday the 13th — A New Beginning'". Chicago Tribune. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Review: 'Friday the 13th – A New Beginning'". Variety. 1985. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  15. ↑ Canby, Vincent (March 23, 1983). "Friday the 13th A New Beginning (1985)". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  16. ↑ "Friday the 13th – A New Beginning". Films and Filming. Hansom Books (364–366, 368–375): 40. 1985.
  17. ↑ Edgar, Henry (March 30, 1985). "Bloodbath resumes in yet another 'Friday 13th'". Daily Press. Newport, Virginia. p. D2 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ Davis, Steve (April 5, 1985). "Friday the 13th: Part V - A New Beginning". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved October 13, 2017.
  19. ↑ Maltin 2008, p. 496.
  20. ↑ Kipp, Jeremiah (June 12, 2009). "Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning Film Review". Slant Magazine. Retrieved October 13, 2017.
  21. ↑ Pratt 1988, p. 123.
  22. ↑ Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (VHS)|format= requires |url= (help). Paramount Home Video. 1994. ASIN 6300214656.
  23. ↑ Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (DVD)|format= requires |url= (help). Paramount Home Video. 2001. ASIN B00005NG6D.
  24. 1 2 McGaughy, Cameron (June 8, 2009). "Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (Deluxe Edition)". DVD Talk. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  25. ↑ "Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection". High Def Digest. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  26. ↑ "FRIDAY THE 13TH THE COMPLETE COLLECTION Coming to Blu-ray, 9/13". Broadway World. June 11, 2013.
  27. ↑ Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning / Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (Blu-ray)|format= requires |url= (help). Paramount Home Video; Warner Home Video. 2015. ASIN B012BYDK90.

Works cited

  • Bracke, Peter (2006). Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (First ed.). London: Titan Books. ISBN 1845763432.
  • Maltin, Leonard (2008). Sader, Luke; Clark, Mike, eds. Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-452-28978-9.
  • Pratt, Douglas (1988). The Laser Video Disc Companion: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Laser Video Discs. New York: New York Zoetrope. ISBN 978-0-918-43286-5.
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