After hitting it big financially with The Final Chapter Paramount Studios simply had to pimp out another sequel. This baby, 1985's A New Beginning is probably right up there with Jason Takes Manhattan as being the weakest entry in the series. Actually, at least part eight starred the real Jason, so I guess the impostor angle gives this one the nod for shittiest film in the series. Of course, this is the infamous "fake Jason" entry who will be called simply FJ for the rest of this review. Having an impostor to the main character is closely akin to the "it was all a dream" formula which is always the laziest and shittiest way to rip off your audience. Paramount Studios to audience, "Hey, thanks for the cash assholes....now fuck off!"

Tommy Jarvis, now a teenager, is shipped off from the loony bin to a remote halfway house for troubled teens named Pinehurst. He doesn't say much, has a bit of a temper and suffers from some serious Jason flashbacks. It seems that every fifteen minutes Tommy is having a Jason hallucination of the big guy standing over him with a bloody ax, all the while his cries of "die, die, die" from the end of part four play on in his head. He also wigs out and beats up his fellow roommates fairly often, after which he looks at his hands in horror and storms off all melodramatic like. Whatever Tommy. The place is ran by a suave young doctor type, his hot little assistant Pam (who you just know the good doctor is banging), an elderly black cook, and the cook's ever annoying grandson named Reggie. More on this annoying little fuck later on. The rest of the teens/Tommy's roommates are simply there for FJ to kill in the usual assorted ways. For "troubled teens" they are all rather uninteresting and you'll cheer FJ on for sure as he does the body count bop throughout the flick.

Wow. I think it's been about, oh, maybe ten to twelve years since I've last seen this one. I remember as a kid not caring for it all that much, and my opinion hasn't changed over the years. I guess the main point that bugs me is simply the concept of having a "phony" Jason. In the film, the killer is a paramedic who apparently goes nuts after his long abandoned son is axed to death out at Pinehurst by another patient. He picks up Jason's old MO and starts murdering people in various Jason like ways. Now, how he could abandon his son for his whole life and then go nuts after seeing his chopped up corpse makes, well, no sense. You abandoned the little guy, remember? Abandon All Logic Ye Who Enter Here. Fuck me. Director, and I use the term loosely, Danny Steinman throws a few red herrings throughout the film as to who the killer may be, but he may as well have not even bothered. Those who have never seen the film will know who FJ is right away. Oh, and we know this Jason is fake because he has blue streaks on his hockey mask instead of red ones. Duh. Actually, even though FJ is really human, he apparently has superhuman Jason strength and can throw people through windows, lift em' up via the old one arm choke and take all sorts of punishment, just like the real McCoy. He also must have watched the previous four films, because how else would he know how Jason walks and likes to strew dead victims all over for potential victims to find? Now, I know this is a "movie" and all but damn...this is some seriously stupid shit.

On the gore side of things, the kills are all rather boring and run by the numbers. Flares through the mouth, machete impalement's, hedge clippers to the eyes, blah, blah and blah. The gore is non-existent as the bastards at the MPAA were sure to ruin the only cool thing this one may have had going for it. By now the characters in the series has truly devolved to be nothing more than soulless young things for the killer/Jason to kill. I know that's always been the case, but it seems that in the previous four films, annoying as they were, there was at least an attempt to develop Jason's would be victims. Not so here. The only person I sorta had any interest in was the character of Pam (Melanie Kinneman) and that's just because she's super hot. I mean, c'mon, with those tight jeans and boobs-through-a-wet-t-shirt? Who wants to see her killed? One individual I did want to see killed, quite desperately, was that of "Reggie the Reckless". Now, I typically can't stand child actors, but this little dude was ultra-annoying and just when I thought FJ had him, he would slip away. Damn.

In summary, A New Beginning is anything but. It's simply a film made to cash in on the title, with zero effort put into it. At least the previous sequels felt like the filmmakers actually tried, and though often dumb and formulaic, they were fun. This one is not. Piss on it.