Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Jason 6: Welcome To Camp Blood! An absolute hoot of a addition to the Friday 13th franchise. As is often the way with the "Friday" sequels, you can talk to one horror fan and this is the worst of the bunch, talk to another and it's the best etc etc. There's a more airy touch here and it serves the formula well, which if the series' fans are honest, is a formula that was getting stale quite early in the chain, so any sort of new ideas or direction is most welcome. After a glorious James Bond parody opens the credits sequence, accompanied by Harry Manfredini's superbly thunderous musical score, we get long running tormented character Tommy, here played by Thom Matthews, digging up Jason Voorhees' corpse so as to make sure the evil one is dead - oh and to kill him again. Enter a glorious Frankenstein homage (cheeky steal if you like) that sets us up for another round of stalk and dismember as Jason heads back to Camp Crystal Lake, which is now called Camp Forest Green! The kills are not particularly inventive, but there's a real thud of humour about much of them. From an American Express Card to a bloody smiley face imprint, it's clear the makers have a glint in their eyes. We even get an early appearance from Tony Goldwyn, some four years before Ghost would make him a known name. Adding to the quality score, which BTW rattles around home cinema speakers lie a supernatural entity, is Jon Kranhouse's cinematography, which is gorgeous in colour lens selections. All that and you get an Alice Cooper soundtrack as well. From joyful reanimation to a suitably watery finale, this part 6 delivers more than enough to almost make you rush out to rent part 7. Almost... 6.5/10

_Jason Lives_ is the _Friday the 13th_ movie that starts injecting comedy into the franchise, which after 5 movies of more or less the same tone, is understandable. Prior entires have still had fun, but _Part VI_ has multiple, actual jokes. This bugs a lot of people, but me? Not so much. It's definitely not the high point of the franchise, but I still would never skip this one during a marathon. _Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._