If only those counsellors unloading supplies at Camp Crystal Lake had been listening to the Alice Cooper song playing on the radio, warning them about Jason: “He’s back / the man behind the mask / and he’s crawled out of his hole…” They gave you all the clues! That Alice Cooper song – He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask) – was one big reason I wanted to watch Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives (1986), because what a tune, I love it. I had also had a few recommendations (shout out to TV Hed Pe’s review) for Jason Lives as being one of the best entries in the series. I was never really into the Friday The 13th movies, considering them too grim and repetitive. I remember as a kid, being a fraidy cat about horror movies, putting myself through Jason Takes Manhattan on late night TV and finding it scary then; after that, I’ve only seen the first one in a cinema for a Halloween screening (the ending was great) and Jason X (which was wacky – I mean, they took the franchise to space). Directed and written by Tom McLoughlin, Jason Lives has a self aware sense of humour and a comic book style, all of which strikes a nice balance. It never tips over into outright parody, keeping its zombiefied eye on the prize of the franchise, which is plenty of hockey-faced Jason Voorhees stomping through the woods and dispatching everyone in his path with a variety of implements. There’s still the eerie mist of the outdoors at night and some effective jump scares. But there’s also humorous dialogue and visual gags throughout, not to mention a tongue-in-cheek reference here and there (“Karloff’s Garage And Repair”). Even just the cast of characters – from camp counsellors, random dates, corporate paintball types, booze-chugging grave diggers – have some sense of personality or something slightly engaging about them, before they are sliced and diced. I didn’t connect the himbo Tommy Jarvis hero as Thom Matthews from Return Of The Living Dead and Jennifer Cooke is an engaging, fun Final Girl. I don’t know if I’ll sit through all of these movies, but I had a good time with this one. As the gravedigger wisecracks, “People have a strange sense of entertainment these days.” Available to stream on Stan and rent/buy on iTunes. Recommended.
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