Director: Danny Steinmann
Cast: Melanie Kinnaman, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross, Corey Feldman
Have I Seen it Before: I dunno… Maybe? The odds of me drifting to this thing for a few minutes on cable at some point in the 90s are nowhere near zero.
Did I Like It: Had I watched the entire movie, one would think I wouldn’t remember it much. I had a sort of mildly above negative reaction to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), in as much as the series had spent any number of movies wandering around a concept, only to become what the uninitiated might recognize as a movie with Jason Voorhees (here played by no one; I’ll probably get to that in a minute). As this movie opens, Feldman returns and it feels like the series will drift into a comfortable pattern.
But no. Somebody, and it feels like the Paramount brass looking out for their reliable low-risk ongoing investment have decided that their audience wouldn’t accept more entries of the series which just allow for the fact that Jason can die in one film and then reappear in the next*, so the sequel involves… some guy who wears a hockey mask. The film is supremely disinterested in any mystery regarding who has taken up Jason’ mantle, or in any kind of meditation on what Jason’s terror can do to the survivors**. It’s just interested in an array of boobs, a couple of axe and machete shots and… nothing. If those were the only things that brought you—whether enthusiastically or begrudgingly—to a Friday the 13th film, then you’ll get what you ordered from the Paramount warehouse. If you’re looking for anything else, you might want to skip the movie. If you’re looking for a lot more, you’re probably well-advised to skip the series entirely.
*The Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween series have been able to do this with far greater effect. Yes, I know. Don’t come at me with your Season of the Witch references, at the least that off-series interlude had the good sense to try and being completely divorced from the continuity before or since. None of them tried to do a sequel but forget to bring their antagonist with them.
**For a better shot at that, you’ll really have to go back to Halloween Ends (2022), a movie you all rejected and were, frankly, wrong in that assessment.