Friday the 13th Part IV: Jason Lives (1986) - He Rises from the Grave!

I felt when I was watching the finale of Friday the 13^th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984) that when Feldman’s young Tommy Jarvis continued to stab Jason over and over yelling, “Die! Die!” that was the character substituting for Tom Savini, just wanting this hockey-masked Mama’s Boy to go the fuck away. I recognize that there are contingents of Friday fans who consider the fourth film the final film of the franchise. They just stop there and these four truly are the series at its most lucrative and successful. But the Powers That Be (those who were making serious coin out of this cashbox) just couldn’t let the money that was flowing cease. Even the critically (and for many fans) reviled fifth film turned a profit. So I understand how those who never intended for the franchise to ever go any further than the first film much less the fourth.

But, for me, Part 6 (“Jason Lives” (1986)) does have a special place in my heart. It was one of my “testing horrors” as a kid. When becoming a horror fan you have to start somewhere. “The Gate” (1987) was the film I popped my cherry. That was the launching pad, and Part 6 was the next step. Then came “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” (1991) and I was off and running. Eventually I was a full-fledged horror nerd by the mid 90s. So Part 6 might not be well regarded by a certain sect of Friday fans, and I get it. But I can’t help but grin all the way through it. It also has my favorite poster of the entire franchise. It wasn’t as successful in theaters so that more or less signaled the decline in popularity was setting in. But I know a few enjoyed it because Part 6 wasn’t always available when I wanted to re-rent the damn thing over and over. I would often have to go journeyman in order to find it.

It gave an excuse for Jason Voorhees to be impervious to guns and knives and all sorts of weaponry that others might want to try and use to protect themselves. When Jason is shotgunned multiple times, he dispatches a would-be hero by breaking him in half. Let’s just say a paint gun blot won’t do the trick…the poor soul who tried that out has body parts strewn all over Crystal Lake! Tom McLoughlin, opting to direct the sixth film with a lot of flash and humor, totaling abandoning realism (not that Parts III and IV were all that realistic, either…) in favor of the supernatural, torpedoing Savini’s efforts to once and for all vanquish the character that just wouldn’t stay dead, using lightning to resurrect Jason Voorhees, reawakening the maggot-infested corpse, breathing a different kind of life into a franchise that perhaps should have remained where it belonged…in the coffin of cemetery.

Instead Thom Mathew’s Tommy Jarvis can’t be content with allowing the body of Jason to remain in his grave. Nope, he has to shovel away the earth, open the coffin, grabbing a loose gate spike to hopefully pulverize the body of Jason not realizing that leaving the metal object in the corpse would draw lightning to it. Soon an eye opens, Jason emerges from the dug up grave, reaching out for Tommy who is not prepared for any of this.