"Friday the 13th: A New Beginning" - Zach's Take

"A New Beginning," indeed.

What is is about horror franchise producers and trying to fix what ain't broke? Who thought that having a film where some dude dresses up as Jason as some lame twist would be better than actually having Jason?

I know I just spoiled the film for people who haven't seen Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, but it is undoubtedly the nadir of all of the major horror franchises. Just absolutely worthless. Remember that Nightmare on Elm Street sequel where Freddy didn't actually appear? No? That's because, as awful as those films became, they knew not to take out the one selling point of the whole series.

Now, some of you may be pointing out that they did the same thing for Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and I didn't rail that film nearly as hard as I am on this one. But there's a big difference between that film and this one: they didn't sell it as a Michael Meyers flick. The cover of F13:ANB clearly shows Jason's iconic mask with the subtitle A New Beginning emblazoned across it.

This demonstrates to me that despite the producer's claims that they wanted "to take the franchise in a new direction," they would not do so without first misleading people into thinking they were about to watch a Jason film. Shameless, spineless, jerkwad tactics. Also known as Marketing 101.

Aside from the massive blunder right out of the gate, is there anything redeeming about this film?

The answer is a resounding "No."

The kills are boring and completely forgettable, the script and pacing painfully dull, and the film betrays the first commandment of horror filmmaking: Thou shall not include obnoxious child characters. When kids are in a horror flick, if they need to be at all, they need to be good actors and the certainly cannot ever get grating. The reason why kid characters cannot be obnoxious and adult characters can be is simple: kids cannot be killed in horror films. It's sort of the unspoken rule. When we see the stock "jerk" character, we know that the character is doomed, and we can cheer for his demise. But not so with the snotty kids. They have to survive the film. Lousy cultural mores. People (obviously) are okay to be killed. Animals, fine (it serves to show how inhuman the killer is) but kids? Nope.

Corey Feldman is just fine in Friday the 13th: The Final Friday because he was a pretty good child actor and his character isn't in it all that much. Apparently, he was initially scheduled to star in this film, but was contractually obligated to appear in the The Goonies instead. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because not only is he the best part about The Goonies, but he could not have saved this mess if he had tried.

Fortunately for us, A New Beginning proved simply to be the beginning of the end of a Jason-less Friday film. The character was wonderfully resurrected in an homage to Frankenstein in what I consider the best of the Friday sequels (excluding Freddy vs. Jason, of course). But this? This is lazy, hack-ish money-grabbing. Avoid it.