Friday the 13th A New Beginning is the fifth film in the franchise and one of the worst of the bunch. The series can easily be broken down into trilogies. The first three follow Jason’s origins while the next three follow his battle with Tommy Jarvis. Tommy Jarvis was a well-developed character in the film’s fourth entry but falls flat here in the fifth film.

Friday the 13th A New Beginning forgets all the lessons it learned from the fourth film and makes an almost unwatchable film. The movie lacks any fun, makes bizarre character choices, and is the easiest to skip when rewatching the franchise.

Tommy Jarvis Returns

Cory Feldman portrayed Tommy Jarvis in part 4 but is replaced here by newcomer John Shepherd. Shepherd does his best with the role but the film makes some bizarre choices with the character. The film turns him into a violent PTSD-ridden shell of a man rather than a formidable foil to Jason.

Friday the 13th A New Beginning starts with a brief flashback to Tommy witnessing Jason being resurrected from the grave. The film then jumps five into the future with Tommy being played by Shephard and on his way to a halfway house for mentally unstable youths. The first of the film’s biggest sins.

No Care for the Unwell

Friday the 13th hasn’t necessarily been a series known for taking care in its portrayal of heavy themes but this film takes that to a whole new level. The patients at Tommy’s halfway house are portrayed in such an odd manner. None of them steer directly into mentally insane tropes, but that makes their presence even more confounding.

There is really no rhyme or reason given for why the teens exist in this halfway house. One girl seems to be there simply because she’s semi-goth, while the rest of the teens are merely normal horny teenagers. The only characters who seem to have legitimate issues are disposed of fairly early. Not by Jason, but by each other.

Jason Takes A Backseat in Friday the 13th A New Beginning

Jason doesn’t get the first kill in A New Begining. Technically speaking, Jason doesn’t get any kills. Even though the film begins with Jason’s resurrection, the movie plays with the trope and mythos of Jason in hopes of creating a new killer for the series. The film is purposefully opaque, with the audience unaware of who the actual killer is. Tommy seems like a good candidate due to his proclivity for violent outbursts, but the movie quells that at the end by having Tommy and Jason square off a second time. After this confrontation, the film makes another reveal. Jason wasn’t the killer, it was a revenge-driven EMT whom we saw for two minutes at the beginning of the film.

The idea of ridding the series of Jason and creating a new killer was a novel one. But it’s an idea that rarely materializes well. The Halloween series attempted the same thing three years earlier with similarly poor results. The twist here though makes the entire film feel worse. There is no real foreshadowing, no aha moment with the reveal. There is just a strange twist that doesn’t recontextualize the film. It only makes the entire movie feel out of place in the franchise.

Tommy vs Jason

After this reveal, Tommy is once again back in the hospital. Tommy has been acting strange the entire film. He barely talks and is comically quick to display acts of violence at even the smallest of infractions. The film ends with him donning the mask and attacking Pam, A New Beginnings final girl, with a knife. It’s supposed to be another twist but feels even more out of place given the earlier twist.

The original intention was for this film to spawn a new series of Friday the 13th films with Tommy wearing the mask and becoming the killer. This idea was quickly dismissed due to the film’s reception and it’s for the best. Friday the 13th doesn’t need to be a believable series. Jason is immortal. He kills teenagers. That’s what the film needs. Adding in themes of PTSD and ever-rotating killers only muddys a film series predicated on an unbelievable premise. When you try to ground a series like this the result rarely works out. And it certainly didn’t here.

The Failure of Friday the 13th A New Beginning

Many claim Friday the 13th A New Beginning to be the worst in the franchise but it was almost much worse. The Friday the 13th series has never been one to shy away from gore or nudity but the film that was shot was almost unwatchable. The film’s director, Danny Steinmann, stated that he basically went into the woods and shot a porno. The editing team cut out a ton of nudity but the film is still littered with random bare chest shots that are totally out of place and do nothing to advance the story.

The Friday the 13th franchise is not cinema mastery. But it doesn’t need to be. The series needs to feature teens getting killed in entertaining ways until the killer is finally bested by a pure-hearted final girl. There is nothing wrong with breaking these rules, but when you try to add heady themes into a sloppy script, the result is a mess. Friday the 13th A New Beginning tries to be a movie dealing with PTSD in between scenes of coke-snorting teens and out-of-place nudity. It’s a bizarre film in an already bizarre franchise.