It’s exactly what I feared, the same premise from the first four films done again. Yet Friday The 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives couldn’t be more fun and original! It has all the warts and boils of the first four but presented through a more satirical and comedic lens.

Tommy Jarvis (played by Return of the Living Dead’s Thom Matthews of all people!) returns to Jason’s grave so he can be sure that the monster is dead. After unearthing the coffin however, a bolt of lightning strikes the corpse, resurrecting it. With local law enforcement dismissing his story as delusion, Tommy has to stop Jason himself and lay him to rest.

What I Was Expecting

I only knew two things about Jason Lives. One was its iconic opening scene, the other was its apparent meta satire. The latter I learned from a video by Renegade Cut on A New Beginning.

This revelation got me excited for Jason Lives. I thought ‘you never know,’ I could be in for a horror comedy on par with The Cabin in the Woods. I just had to see.

What I Got

Ok, surprise surprise, Jason Lives isn’t Cabin In The Woods but maybe it set up the cultural landscape where something like Cabin could be made.

As I said at the beginning, it’s just like any of the previous Friday The 13ths but viewed through a satirical lens. This lens manifests in the dialogue, through lines and remarks that criticise slasher tropes, and in the editing, where we hear or see one thing and then cut to something that contradicts or mocks what we just saw.

The result is a very self-aware slasher film, which is a lot more entertaining than one that takes itself seriously. The talky bits aren’t boring or cheesy but legitimately funny as characters make comments that you’ve probably made while watching the previous films.

One big highlight for me is that the film features a group of camp counsellors and we actually see them counsel! We see a summer camp full of kids that these adults have to supervise and look after. If you watched any of the gory bits from the first two, you’d think that the characters were just high schoolers camping out, not legal guardians for children over summer.

Not everything in Jason Lives is presented through a satirical lens. The film gets serious, particularly towards the end, yet it’s still a good watch. While not as flawed and interesting as he was in A New Beginning, Tommy Jarvis is a relatively engaging protagonist. You certainly side with him as he fails to convince the police that Jason has returned. He’s not a passive character, he’s a lone troop fighting in his own little war against an unstoppable enemy, all the while trying to avoid those who want to prevent him from completing his mission.

Overall, Friday The 13^th Part VI is easily the best film in the series I’ve seen so far. It’s adorable satire, good characters and depiction of camp counselling make it a fun and well-made ride.

I give Friday The 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives a strong 6 out of 10.