Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives (2009)

Deluxe Edition DVD

Any series, if it's continued (or dragged on) long enough, will start to seem stale if not properly reinvented in a timely fashion. While Friday the 13th Part VI - Jason Lives isn't a god-awful movie, it just seems like there aren't many new tricks up their sleeve here.

This film is the end of the Tommy Jarvis era for the series and, in true Friday the 13th fashion, much like there is a different guy that portrays Jason in each film (with C.J. Graham donning the mask here), there is a different Tommy Jarvis here as well, with Thom Mathews picking up where Tom Shepherd left off in Part V. This film starts out with Jarvis and one of his cuckoo buddies Hawes (Ron Palilo) going to dig up the grave of Jason Voorhees so Jarvis can burn his remains and hopefully end his nightmarish visions, and such. As per the title, you can guess what happens and Jason is resurrected by a makeshift lightning rod and he continues on his killing spree. Jarvis gets away and dashes to town - now dubbed Forrest Green, to help erase the past of Jason - to warn the sheriff, Michael Garris (David Kagan) that Jason is indeed back from the dead (with a shaved head.... Sorry, couldn't resist). Naturally, Garris recognizes Jarvis' name and is convinced he's trying to relive the legend himself and has him locked up. Of course, Jason is out there and he's returning to the newly dubbed Camp Forrest Green, with a slew of new kiddie campers and counselors, including the tasty Megan (Jennifer Cooke), the daughter of Sheriff Garris, and all sorts of heck breaks loose.

Writer-director Tom McLaughlin really doesn't seem to do anything too crazy with the series here, keeping it rather straight-forward with Jason on the loose and fresh young nubiles waiting in the wings to be killed. He adds a few more elements here, like the actual kids at the camp, which we had never seen before, and it seems that McLaughlin substituted the sexual nature of these films with a more humorous nature, but I don't think that really worked too well. He even toys with the opening credit sequence, and as Jason in a mock-up of James Bond films and, instead of him turning and shooting his Walther PPK, he, of course, slashes his machete and virtual blood spills. He tries to toy around with some of the kills too, as one of the kills is Jason throwing a guy's face into a tree with a branch sticking out, and when the dude falls away, there's a bloody smiley face left on the tree. Barf. A lot of the kills McLaughlin also gives us in a rather truncated fashion, and it seems we don't see as much gore from the actual kills as normal here. Still, these are all rather minor elements of the film and, for the most part, his script, while not really deviating much from the norm, is paced nicely and sucks us into the story rather well.

The acting isn't really the greatest here, as per tradition, it would seem, but we get a few nice turns from David Kagan as the cantankerous Sheriff Michael Garris, Jennifer Cooke as his flirtacious/rebellious daughter and Thom Matthews did a serviceable job as Tommy Jarvis, though nothing outstanding. The rest of the acting is pretty bland and clich&#233d and what makes it worse is that most of their kills aren't the best here either. C.J. Graham did do a pretty nice job as Jason though, I guess, but the rest of the actors are hardly even worth mentioning, especially since most were killed off in such a matter-of-fact manner.

McLaughlin does a decent job at the helm here, with a few pretty decent kills, like the triple-decapitation that, apparently, was to be much more elaborate and still was pretty cool, but he seemed rather content with just offing most of the kids without much ceremony. This Jason seems to have even more super-strength than usual, due to his lightning revival, so there are a few other kills that are pretty cool and over the top, but, seeing as this is only 87 minutes long, he obviously didn't feel the need to add a little extra something to the kills, because it wasn't as if they were hurting for time.

Friday the 13th Part VI - Jason Lives follows the formulas of this series rather faithfully, while trying to add in a little humor here and there, rather unsuccessfully, I think. Still, it's an above-average film that brings the Tommy Jarvis era of the franchise to a close and this new Deluxe Edition will surely be welcomed by any horror buff.

We get the usual fixings we've come to expect from these Deluxe Edition DVD's, and we start out with Lost Tales From Camp Blood - Part 6, which, if you haven't been following these releases, are these little short films that tell these alternate tales of Jason and such. This one seems to come right after the Part 5 installment, with the same dude who had his eye snatched out still running from "Jason." I put Jason in quotes, since the dude wears a hoodie instead of a hockey mask. Copyrights, and such, I imagine... It's a decent little seven-minute short flick that's worth a glimpse.

The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited Part III is next and it's the last installment of this hilarious little spoof series. It's a great little nine-minute bit that talks about the events that happen in this film and it's a very nice little way to end out this humorous look at this horror series.

Jason Lives: The Making of Friday the 13th: Part VI is next and it's your pretty standard featurette. We first hear from writer-director Tom McLaughlin who talks a bit about how he first came on board, and we also hear that they wanted John Shepherd back, who played Tommy Jarvis in Part V, but he chose not to for, "personal reasons." Most of the stuff we get here is from McLaughlin and we hear some of his unique perspective on making the film and we also hear from some of the makeup effects guys and David Kagan, who played the cranky Sherriff Garris. What's odd here is that McLaughlin was saying he wanted to bring more "humor" to this film, and aside from a couple of brief sight gags, it's not terribly funny. Still, it's a nice 12-minute piece that takes you deeper into the flick.

Next up is Meeting Mr. Voorhees and this is a very interesting "alternate ending," of sorts. We get a little introduction from McLaughlin who explains that this was his original ending for the movie... that's really quite intriguing, I think. The thing is, they never actually shot this ending (I'm guessing the studios nixed it right away) and so this little two and a half minute big is just some storyboard images with the voice of Bob Larkin, who played the drunken caretaker in the movie, because in his original version, the caretaker doesn't die and plays an interesting role in the Voorhees legacy . Essentially, this would've been a little teaser clip at the end that would've introduced Jason Voorhees' father, who apparently had some sort of deal worked out with the caretaker to watch over the graves, and such. It would've been interesting to see how this would've played out in subsequent films and if this would've went through, maybe we wouldn't have had Jason in space or stuff like that. It's only a few minutes long, but definitely worth looking into.

The last thing we get here, besides the Original Theatrical Trailer, are some Slashed Scenes and these are really just all the kill scenes with maybe a little extra blood. They're pretty lame, actually, and they aren't that different from the movie and not really worth watching. They're about six minutes long total, and you won't miss much at all by skipping this.

Friday the 13th Part VI - Jason Lives is about on par with the first five films, but there's nothing really extraordinary here that sets this apart from the rest of the franchise.