Friday the 13th Part 6 : Jason Lives

Friday the 13th Part 6
Jason Lives

AKA: Jason Lives : Friday the 13th Part 6

Tag Line : Nothing this Evil ever dies.

Friday the 13th Part 6 : Jason Lives Tommy Jarvis returns again (played this time by Thom Mathews), but so does Jason (now played by C.J.Graham). Still plagued with nightmares about Jason returning from the grave, Tommy and his friend Hawes, dig up Jason's grave so that they can destroy the body and prevent him from ever coming back. But unfortunately for Tommy and even more so for his friend, instead of finding a decaying corpse they find a very well rested Jason.

All appears to be going well, until the grave is struck by lightning. Jason then bursts out of his coffin and attacks them both. Hawes has his guts ripped out (excellent!!!) although Tommy manages to escape. Jason then dons his favourite Ice Hockey Mask and heads off back towards the former Camp Crystal Lake site.

The local police don't believe Tommy's story about Jason coming back to life and escort him out of the county. Meanwhile Jason has returned to the old camp, to find it has re-opened under the new name "Forest Green" but still, "a camp by any other name would be slaughtered just as sweetly" as the saying goes.

Numerous victims are picked off in the surrounding area, including the chief counsellors and a group of paintballers, before turning his attentions towards the camp itself. But Tommy returns, aided by the Sheriffs daughter, and together they attempt to stop Jason by returning him to his original resting place, Crystal Lake.

This is a much better sequel than Part 5, but it is far from being the best in the series. Most of the killings seem to take place just off-camera (again) and once more, there's no real sense of fear or suspense, or even gore for that matter.

Jason's killings actually make you want to chuckle more than anything and as a matter of fact, the whole film appears to have been made as a black comedy, rather than a serious horror movie. Whilst this isn't a bad thing, I think it detracts rather badly from the earlier films, which relied heavily upon combining atmosphere, with excessive amounts of blood.

But still, as far as sequels go, this isn't a bad movie and despite the black humour it still manages to fit in line with the other sequels. There's also an excellent Hard Rock / Heavy Metal score featuring songs by Alice Cooper, that accompanied Harry Manfredini's incidental music score, which is also good and probably the films saving grace.

Overall Marks : 6/10.

Other Information.

Director Tom McCloughlin previously directed the horror film "Mausoleum" (AKA One Dark Night) starring Meg Tilly. He went on to direct several episodes of the Friday the 13th TV series and continues to work in TV production to this day.
The camp used in this film was "Camp Daniel Morgan", which is located in Covington, Georgia.
The caretaker of the graveyard was originally scripted as being Jason's father, but this plot line was dropped and never used. Although it does remain in the novelisation.
The film was VERY heavily censored at the insistence of the US ratings board to avoid an NC17 certificate. Virtually every single death was shortened and trimmed of gore, most notably the death of Tommy's friend Allen Hawes (Ron Palillo) during the intro, who was to have had his guts ripped out along with his heart. There was also originally a shot showing the 3 paintballers having their heads decapitated at the shoulders and Sissy's bloody cabin interior had more blood, with guts and entrails running down the walls.
The German video is more heavily censored and misses out most of the violence that hadn't already been cut out by the US censors.
When the film was shown on BBC1 there was an additional scene included to make up the running time. After Tommy and Megan drive off, leaving deputy Rick locked in the prison cell, the scene then cuts back to Rick who's banging on the cell window calling for help and struggling to reach the keys they left behind.
Dan Bradley the stunt co-ordinator was originally chosen to play Jason, but after seeing some of the initial footage Paramount decided they didn't like his build. So the job was subsequently given to stuntman CJ Graham. The footage shot with Bradley as Jason still appears in the film during the scenes with the Paintballer's, which is why Jason's stature and eye colour are different in that segment compared to the rest of the film.
Director Tom McCloughlin kept the coffin and tombstone from Jason's grave as souvenirs, the coffin is on display at his house and the tombstone is mounted in his back garden, which constantly upsets the guy who comes to read the meter.
Fans of the Return of the Living Dead trilogy may recognize Thom Mathews who had 2 different -but similar- roles in the first 2 films. Thom is the second actor from those films to star in a Friday the 13th. The other of course, being Miguel Nunez from part 5.
The scene where the graveyard caretaker and courting couple on the motorbike were killed were added after filming had finished as they were well within budget and producer Frank Mancuso wanted to put the money to good use.