And the movie that showed New Line / Paramount / et al to be a bunch of filthy liars is today’s pick, so strap yourselves in good and tight because we’re rolling right along with the Friday the 13th deluxe edition set, today featuring Friday the 13th Part V, A New Beginning.

Despite the fact that Jason bought it, and big time, in the previous installment by way of a machete and the entire left half of his head, somehow he’s managed to pull himself back into the land of the living.  But it’s apparently taken quite some time to do it as this installment features a fully grown up Tommy Jarvis, who must be at least six years older than the previous iteration.  And he’s been sent to the Pinehurst Youth Development Center, a place for troubled teenagers built, stupidly in retrospect, on the former grounds of Camp Crystal Lake (unless I’m gravely mistaken).    Naturally, a house full of kids is like a gigantic neon sign to Jason Voorhees–perhaps it reads “Target Rich Environment”, or maybe just “All You Can Kill Buffet”–so it doesn’t take very long before kids start turning into mutilated corpses.  Sometimes the corpses aren’t even Jason’s doing!

But anyway–newcomer Tommy’s got a pretty good idea why this is all going down, but not surprisingly, no one really believes him.  There’s even some reason to believe that Tommy himself might be behind it.  So now, the question remains–is Jason back?  Or has Tommy’s encounter with the lunatic mass murderer left him entirely too scarred?

Okay, sure–as slasher movies go, even as installments of Friday the 13th go, this is not the best installment.  They paint themselves into some really fantastic logical fallacies, like claiming that Jason Voorhees’ body was cremated after the fourth installment, which would pretty much make it impossible for Voorhees to come back.  And yet come back he will, for several more rounds.  Taking the focus off Jason is also a particularly faulty maneuver–for crying out loud, the guy MADE the franchise.  From two on, it’s been Jason at the helm of the killing.  To suggest that anyone else is involved is weak sauce, to say the least.  Plus, watching Tommy Jarvis fight is like watching an action movie.  How did he pick all this up?  He’s throwing around guys twice his size like it’s nothing at all!  Of  course, in the LAST one he was a ten year old fixing cars like it was nothing, so I guess he’s just a really superadvanced kind of guy.

However, there’s still plenty of action and horror-driven killing to be had here.  Those hoping for a bloodbath will not be disappointed.  But there’s a lot lost in this one–this new beginning really gets off on the wrong foot.  But that’s almost all right, as future installations will be just fine.  In fact, some of the best Friday the 13th action is yet to come, with parts six and eight through eleven waiting in the wings.   No, A New Beginning isn’t the best of the lot.  In fact, it’s probably among the worst of the lot–even though it’s not terrible, and definitely not unwatchable, but rather merely sub-par.  If you factor in the last ten minutes or so this sucker slides easily into quite possibly THE worst of the lot, because the ending actively hurts the viewer.

That’s really the best way to sum it up.  Friday the 13th Part V, A New Beginning is plenty watchable, with more than a few good thrills and lots of bloodsport and even a few good laughs along the way just for spice.  It’s definitely not the best the series has to offer, but it’s hardly bad.