‘Friday the 13th: A New Beginning’: The Franchise’s Most Underrated Film

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is more than 35 years old, and the classic slasher sequel is more beloved by fans of the franchise now than ever before. Some movies are very well-received when they’re first released into theaters, only for many viewers to wonder what they were thinking when revisiting these films many years later. The opposite seems to be the case for A New Beginning, which was subjected to tons of criticism upon its initial release but has since come to be a fan favorite for many of those who love the series.

Friday the 13th Part V is directed by the late Danny Steinmann, who co-wrote the screenplay along with Martin Kitrosser and David Cohen. To his credit, Steinmann was coming into the series under tremendous pressure, tasked with creating a successful fifth installment of a popular movie franchise — but for the first (and only) time in the series, he wasn’t allowed to use the main character. The studio was dead serious when they had Jason killed off with The Final Chapter, and though Steinmann and his team had the freedom to use Tommy Jarvis or any other character from the series, Jason Voorhees was not on the table.

For his part, Steinmann sought to continue the story told by the prior four Friday the 13th films, regardless of the fact that Jason was no longer available. This meant bringing back Corey Feldman‘s Tommy Jarvis, but as Feldman was busy working on The Goonies at the time, he was only able to appear for a cameo in the film’s opening dream sequence. Replacing him in the role is the underrated John Shepherd, whose take on Tommy is that of a tortured soul haunted by nightmares of Jason ever since the day he stopped him. Giving Tommy PTSD was in actuality a clever way of including the “real” Jason Voorhees in the movie after all, as the classic Jason can be seen many times when Tommy is hallucinating.

Shepherd’s Tommy is just one of many awesome characters to appear in A New Beginning, which by far has the most interesting cast of characters of any movie in the series. That includes the heroes of the film, with final girl Pam Roberts and her little buddy Reggie the Reckless helping Tommy defeat the bad guy in the end. Many of the victims in the film are very memorable as well, from Violet the robot-dancing goth to Billy the cocaine-sniffing ambulance driver. Aside from maybe Pinehurst head Matthew Letter, there are no “normal” characters in A New Beginning, and that just might make the film that much more entertaining.

There are so many quotable lines from the amazing characters in the fifth Friday the 13th movie that chances are you’ve heard them far more times than you can count. Right away, many of us will think of poor Demon meeting his demise in the outhouse, but not before lamenting how “them damn enchiladas” brought him there… and let’s not forget the legendary “Ooh, baby!” song. The dialogue from Junior and Ethel are also always absolute gold when the two are on screen, as who among us fans of the film has never called someone a “big dildo” using the classic Ethel tone?

We certainly can’t forget about Roy Burns, the star of the show and the horror genre’s most underrated villain of all time. As Roy carries out his murders assuming the identity of Jason Voorhees, it’s easy for him to be overshadowed and go without the credit he justly deserves. So what if Roy wasn’t technically Jason – did he still not give us what we want? He was certainly no less violent than Jason, as we shouldn’t forget that A New Beginning had the highest body count in the series up to that point. Roy also gave us some very creative and interesting kills in the film, many of which would have made Jason proud. He might be a copycat, but he was damn good at what he did.

I could praise Friday the 13th Part V all day long, but if we’re taking a look back at the film, we’ve also got to address the flak. For many years, A New Beginning felt like the black sheep of the franchise for many fans, with the film enduring a variety of complaints for various reasons. Among the criticism is the notion that the film is “sleazy,” perhaps fueled by Steinmann’s previous work as an adult film director. Though the film does contain nudity, this is not unusual for a Friday the 13th movie, as most of the other installments are known for their gratuitous nudity as well.

The fact is, there’s only one sex scene in A New Beginning, and even that feels more like a sweet romance between two young lovers as opposed to the typical teenage strangers hooking up at a party like in some of the other movies. Speaking of that scene, Deborah Voorhees’ Tina and John Robert Dixon’s Eddie also have two of the most memorable death scenes from the franchise, from the hedge clippers to Tina’s eyes to the leather strap around Eddie’s head against a tree. Among those of us whom the iconic scene left a lasting impression on was musician Jon Lajoie, who recreated the moment it left him traumatized as a child when he first saw A New Beginning.

Of course, the biggest complaint of all surrounding A New Beginning was in relation to the film’s big twist ending. As we all know now, Jason is killed in the end by Tommy, Pam, and Reggie, just for his unmasking to reveal he had in fact been cosplaying paramedic Roy Burns all along. As it turns out, Roy’s estranged son getting killed at Pinehurst made something snap in the EMT’s mind, inspiring him to don his own hockey mask and carry out a killing spree as deceased murderer Jason Voorhees would have done.

Although bringing back Jason Voorhees was not an option for Steinmann, many fans still responded to A New Beginning with vitriol, feeling cheated that the man killing people in Crystal Lake was a different guy in a hockey mask. Based on this revelation alone, there were a lot of people who swore off the sequel, refusing to acknowledge its place in the Friday the 13th series. It didn’t matter that we still had Tommy Jarvis, the Harry Manfredini music, the awesome kills, and a masked maniac killing people – by God, it had to be Jason Voorhees or bust. And so began a years-long hatred for the film that was, and is, certainly undeserved.

Really, I think Steinmann should get some credit here for trying to do something different. The endings of most of the other films in the series are all virtually the same, where the final girl (sometimes along with a final boy) “kills” Jason… but is he really dead? Say what you will, but at least the Roy Burns reveal took people by surprise in a series that’s not really known for its surprises. It can also be appreciated how the twist ending calls back to the original Friday the 13th written by Victor Miller, which is the only other film to have this kind of twist ending. It’s also interesting to note the link between Pamela and Roy as grieving parents who turn to murder upon losing their only children.

We should also thank Steinmann for going with an interim killer in Roy Burns before flat-out making Tommy Jarvis the new killer. Going with Tommy as the new Jason seems like a logical next step, given the way Corey Feldman glares at the camera at the end of The Final Chapter. As Tommy is also clearly insane in A New Beginning, it would have been too obvious to reveal him as the murderer, so perhaps that was in part why a new killer stepped in for Part V. It ultimately worked out going this way in the end, as this allowed for Tommy to remain a good guy in Jason Lives, which definitely couldn’t have happened had he been the one who gouged out the eyes of Reggie’s grandfather and threw the body through a window.

At the end of the day, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is not a movie about Jason; it’s a movie about how the haunting memory of Jason continues to affect the other people of Crystal Lake, from the traumatized survivor Tommy Jarvis to the grieving father Roy Burns. Though Jason still haunts these people in very different ways, it’s clear his presence is still very strong in the area years after his death. The tormenting hallucinations of Jason stalking Tommy also help to explain why he feels it’s so important to destroy the corpse in the next sequel, Jason Lives. In other words, the moral of the story is that even in death, Jason Voorhees remains just as powerful – and deadly – as he was in life.

Fortunately, the good news here is that time has been very kind to A New Beginning. In recent years, more and more Friday the 13th fans have come around to the film, finding the enjoyment in watching it they hadn’t let themselves feel before. Some fans are even quick to admit they were originally turned off by the Roy Burns reveal, though they’ve since come to appreciate it. The great cast, unique kills, and dark humor also go a long way with earning A New Beginning a lot of retroactive praise. It’s taken over thirty years, but fans of the franchise by and large have opened up their arms to A New Beginning and accepted it as a part of the fold, a few errant haters be damned.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning definitely didn’t get the credit it deserved within the first few years after its release, but over three and a half decades later, it’s now clear most fans have come around to Roy Burns and consider him to be a part of the Friday the 13th family along with Jason and Pamela Voorhees. Very violent and yet tons of fun, the sequel is now amongst the most popular installments for fans to revisit when real-life Friday the 13ths roll around, and as a longtime fan of the film, I couldn’t be happier.

Related Article: Roy Burns Lives: Celebrating Horror’s Greatest Copycat