“Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” is the fifth installment of the Friday the 13th franchise. Released in 1985, it’s the fifth installment in the Friday the 13th franchise, and the first installment since the first movie to not feature Jason Voorhees as the killer. This time, it’s a copycat killer, who isn’t Jason, but does have the same outfit, a hockey mask, and a bloodthirsty taste for killing. I’m not going to say who it is because I don’t want to spoil it, but I’ll tell you this: The movie makes it pretty obvious who it is.

This time, Friday the 13th becomes not only a slasher, but also a little bit of a mystery movie as well.

Fans didn’t like this new concept, though, and neither did critics. The movie has a 4.8/10 on IMDb, a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 16% on Metacritic, and 84% of Google users said they liked it.

Now let’s get this out of the way, one of the biggest reasons why people didn’t like it was because Jason wasn’t the killer, but, in my opinion, that’s a really dumb reason to dislike this movie.

Another reason that this movie didn’t do so hot was because drug usage wasn’t exactly uncommon on set, meaning it probably affected how the cast and crew performed.

Other than that, though, this movie is pretty much the same song and dance in terms of a Friday the 13th movie. The only difference is that nudity scenes are more frequent and longer in this movie. This might be because director Danny Steinmann started his career making pornographic films. Gross.

Now, what’s good about this movie? Well, for starters, this movie has a higher body count, coming in with a solid 22 kills! Nice! That’s always a plus in my book! 

Another thing about this movie is that it DOES feature Tommy Jarvis, including Corey Feldman, who played Tommy in “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter”. This time, however, Tommy has grown up, and he’s been traumatized by his experience with Jason and has nightmares and hallucinations of Jason returning. Oh yeah, he’s also not afraid to beat the crap out of someone who messes with him, I should probably mention that.

A final thing about this movie is that it does something no other Friday the 13th movie has done before: the killer dies and doesn’t come back. Now yes, arguably, Jason WAS originally intended to die at the end of “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter”, but since he comes back in “Friday the 13th part 6: Jason Lives”, I’m going to safely say that, while Jason did in fact die in the Final Chapter, he does in fact come back. The killer in this movie, however, does in fact die and doesn’t come back.

I personally have a soft spot for this movie because it was the very first Friday the 13th movie I ever saw in its entirety. Again, it may not be a fan favorite like “The Final Chapter” or “Jason Lives”, but “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” will always be one of MY favorites!