Nothing Stops This Undead Super-Killer

By the summer of '86, everyone knew what to expect from a Friday the 13th movie. Since 1980, the Friday the 13th films had been an annual event and - as critics were quick to note - each one had been virtually identical to the last. Despite the curve ball that 1985's Part V had thrown by having Jason Voorhees replaced by a copycat killer, all five Fridays had served up similar slasher shenanigans - each one made with the same blunt, no-nonsense approach, with any artistry reserved for their make-up FX. Given the history of the franchise, no one expected much in the way of surprises from the sixth film but in August of '86, writer/director Tom McLaughlin showed what a little extra effort could accomplish within the Friday formula.

Prior to this film, Jason had been something of a mystery. Introduced via flashback in the original Friday as a mongoloid child with buoyancy issues, his appearance at the end of that film as a moss covered avenger dragging Final Girl Alice into the waters of Crystal Lake was only meant to be a dream. But by 1981's Part 2, reports of Jason's death were shown to be greatly exaggerated. His curious upgrade from dead child to living adult never received much in the way of explanation but the impression given in the early Friday sequels was that however it was possible that Jason was up and about, he was still just a really tough dude - nearly impossible to kill but still mortal.

When Jason was slain in 1984's The Final Chapter, it seemed like an affirmation that he really was only human after all. He went down pretty decisively thanks to a machete to the head (among other grievous injuries - the machete was just kind of like that one last piece that brings the Jenga tower down) and stayed dead in A New Beginning. But Jason fans weren't having it with any copycats so the keepers of the franchise were forced to put their star slasher on the road to recovery. With Jason Lives, any further ambiguity about Jason was put to an end. From then on, Jason was no longer either some backwoods hillbilly with a knack for ignoring pain or an undead thing coughed up from Hell. Instead, he officially became a zombie.

McLoughlin opened his film with Jason's spectacular resurrection as Tommy (Thom Mathews), Jason's killer in The Final Chapter, refuses to leave well enough alone and digs up Jason's body, stabs it in the chest with an iron fence post, and then watches agape as a bolt of lightening strikes the post, sending a surge of electricity through Jason that revives his rotting corpse. Then, it's Game On.

Before Jason Lives, the series hadn't exactly been Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer but it wasn't too zany either. Like, no one would've ever thought about having Jason doing far-out things like battle a telekinetic teen or go into space. But after Jason Lives, that stuff didn't seem like such a stretch. Despite the familiar ingredients he was working with, McLoughlin made a monster movie rather than a slasher pic and after that, the latter Friday films inevitably became much more comic book. That's something that exasperated me at the time but now I'm pretty fond of even Jason Takes Manhattan.

Life's too short to hold grudges, I say.

I'm still not that taken with the nudge-nudge style of humor found here but McLoughlin did score an impressive cast of performers who were skilled across the board rather than the hit-or-miss groups that had populated the previous films - and he showed a real eye for atmospherics. This is the first Friday that didn't look cheap, the first where some thought clearly went into the visuals beyond considering the best angle to shoot the FX. Something else that McLoughlin should be commended for is how he kept his storyline moving in a way that previous Fridays didn't. By having Tommy spend the movie breathlessly pursuing Jason all while fighting the pissed off local law who are convinced he's nuts, there's a relentless pace here that the other Fridays didn't have. There's no time for any Strip Monopoly games or idle guitar strumming in Jason Lives, I'll tell you that.

McLoughlin's film, with its more mainstream sensibilities (this is dangerously close to being family-friendly), pointed the way towards a potentially more upscale future for the Friday series but no one helming a subsequent Friday pic ever ran with that. They did, however, continue the monster movie angle (Jason was once again revived by electricity in Part VIII) and embraced the opportunity to incorporate more fantastical elements. Jason Lives did it best, though, and twenty-five years later it remains the last real highpoint of the series and a great memory of the summer of '86.

Crystal Lake Countdown Day 7: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

After fandom let out a collective "Nooooo!!" at the notion of a replacement Jason in A New Beginning, the task fell to the filmmakers of Friday the 13th Part VI to restore Jason to the ranks of horror's heavyweights. Writer/director Tom McLoughlin had already established himself as someone with an affinity for fright with his 1983 film One Dark Night, a supernatural shocker about a group of college kids fending off zombies in a mausoleum. But did he have the chops to bring Jason back in style? While the simple answer is "yes", my enthusiasm for this film has always been a little muted. On the one hand, Jason Lives is the slickest, most accomplished film of the original Paramount Fridays (and, really, it outclasses the New Line efforts to date as well - not counting the remake). The pacing is great, with a story that hits the ground running and never pauses for downtime (this was the shortest Friday at the time, clocking in at 86 minutes), the cast is even more attractive than usual (hello, Jennifer Cooke!) and on the whole they show more across the board talent (including an affinity for comedy) than previous Friday thespians. Against all expectations, McLoughlin beat the odds and made the sixth Friday the 13th into a respectable movie.

But honestly, how fun is that?

While I concede that there's a lot to admire about Jason Lives, and I do enjoy it, I've always considered it a little too sanitized for my taste - it's almost the Disney version of a Friday the 13th film (no drugs! no nudity! What the fuck?). The humor is less smart than it is 'cute' (like when a young camper is seen reading Sartre's No Exit) and I'm just not the biggest fan of cute - especially when it involves my favorite slaughter series. Everything's kind of a wink and an elbow to the ribs here (like when the cemetery groundskeeper looks into the camera and says "some people sure got a strange idea of entertainment") and that aspect to Jason Lives has always rubbed me the wrong way.

But as far as getting Jason back on his feet, Jason Lives does get the job done. The pre-title sequence here in which Jason is revived by a bolt of lightening is one of the best of the series and it's a scene so good, the rest of the film has a hard time living up to it. On the whole, McLoughlin makes a good effort with the film rocketing from scene to scene with Tommy Jarvis on a mission to end Jason's rampage. I really like the use of Tommy here, the fact that he's responsible for bringing Jason back to life and that he has to become this action hero to take on Jason. This film has a momentum to it that no other Friday has (even the dialogue is fast-paced). It's no wonder that many fans regard it as their favorite of the series.


As the film that had to bring Jason back from the dead come hell or high water (the mandate from fans - no more scrubs!), the game changing element of Jason Lives is that it officially turned Jason into a supernatural being. Up until Jason Lives, the series had always kept one foot in the real world. Sure Jason kept coming back from a lot of physical harm but never so much that an explanation was needed - the guy was just a tough fuck to kill. Here, though, Jason is unequivocally dead. He's in the ground with a face full of maggots. Coming back from that isn't as simple as brushing off an axe blow to the head. McLoughlin's solution to give Jason a monster movie-style resurrection is fine, it works, but at the same time the series could never be the same after that. Jason as a murdering backwoods cretin was scary; Jason as a lightening-charged super zombie - not so much.

But as lightening-charged super zombies go, however, Jason makes a pretty good one - getting off to a great start by ripping out the heart of one-time Horshack Ron Palillo. C.J. Graham proves to be one of the better Jasons and his lean and mean style fits right in with McLoughlin's film. His Jason is a lot more hands-on with victims than past Jasons with his approach being less about weapons and power tools and more about applying brute strength (as in the film's best kill, the famous back-breaking death of Sheriff Garris). Very little blood is shed during Jason Lives, though, and this is the most splatter-lite Friday of them all. Clean-cut and eager to please, this was the late '80s pop metal arena rocker version of Jason as opposed to the hardcore headbanger that he used to be. It was kind of like seeing Van Halen become the much more vanilla 'Van Haggar' but for what it was, it worked. It's just a shame that filmmakers with the same skill and the same knack for fun as McLoughlin didn't carry on the franchise after Jason Lives, the last good Friday of the '80s.