Good concept, poorly executed.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Well, if there was any doubt to Jason being alive or dead before, this movie will put an end to that question. In this movie at least, and from then on,, Jason was definitely dead, and is now brought back to life. He's brought back by being dug up and struck by lightning, which was pretty cliche, but otherwise, I guess the movie is pretty much what you'd expect from a Friday the 13th film. Main issue I had is the literally, too dumb to even be alive police chief who seems to think someone is capable of killing another person while in jail. It as a relief at the end though. It's not a bad movie, another one full of blood and bull crap.

Directed by Tom McLoughlin, a veteran of plenty of made for TV movies and Sometimes They Come Back, as well as playing the robot S.T.A.R. in The Black Hole and Katahdin in Prophecy, this is the film where Jason became fully supernatural and it's also one of the few films in the series to get good reviews, probably due to the amount of humor throughout.The original plan was for Tommy Jarvis to become Jason, but audiences were pretty unhappy with that hint at the end of the last film. So this one begins with Tommy (Thom Matthews, Return of the Living Dead) heading to Jason's grave to destroy his body so that he can never come back. But of course, as soon as he stabs the murderer with a metal fence post, lighting strikes him and he's back from the dead - and kills Tommy's friend Alan (Ron Palillo, Horshack from TV's Welcome Back, Kotter) right away.Tommy freaks out and heads to Sheriff Garris' office and the lawman locks him up, thinking that this is all in his head. The truth is that Jason is back and he is on a rampage, killing camp counselors Darren (Tony Goldwyn, Carl from Ghost) and Lizabeth. A whole new crew of kids go looking for them and despite Tommy's warnings, they think of Jason as only an urban legend.This time, Jason is stopped by being chained underwater, but even at the end, his eyes are wide open and he's obviously ready for more.Again, this movie was a major big deal in my teenage years, particularly because it had a music video for it! "He's Back (the Man Behind the Mask)" by Alice Cooper announced that Jason had survived the final chapter.The working title for this installment was Aladdin Sane. I really enjoyed this installment, which even has a nod to James Bond in the beginning. In our movie hallway, we have several versions of the poster for this one. It's nearly a comedy in parts, but still has a great plot.

I don't think I ever saw this entry in the long running series before and was pleasantly surprised by it's tongue-in-cheek nature. This film wisely abandoned the dumb possession storyline from the prior film and brings back Jason Voorhees proper. This film also wisely returns to it's original Crystal Lake setting. What makes this film work better than others is that writer/director Tom McLoughlin fully embraces the predictable, formulaic nature of slasher films (years before Kevin Williamson did the same with "Scream") and ends up making a rather meta entry into the series. The story here picks up with the Tommy Jarvis character, this time played by Thom Mathews from "Return of the Living Dead" fame, trying to get rid of Jason's body once and for all, but ends up bringing him back to life. You can probably guess what Jason then wants to do the rest of the film. There's a lot of good laughs and also some decent suspenseful sequences and also an ending that seems to leave things quite open for many many more Friday the 13th films. Tony Goldwyn made his film debut in a small part as one of Jason's many victims and Ron "Horshack" Palillo has a small role as well. Harry Manfredini again provides the Ch Ch Ch Ah Ah Ah music.

"I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly."-Lizabeth, "Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI."Whelp, here you have it folks. Arguably the finest entry in the long-running "Friday the 13th" media franchise.Is it because it has the most hardcore, brutal kills of the series? Nope! Does it have the most bouncing bodies skinny-dipping in the water? Not at all! Does it have the most intense portrayal of psycho-killer Jason? Not a chance!No, this film succeeds as the best in the series for one simple reason: fun. It's just flat-out a fun movie. Thanks in no small part to a wickedly self-aware, satirical script courtesy writer/director Tom McLoughlin, filled to burst with savage meta-humor years before meta-humor was really a thing. Kevin Willaimson... eat your heart out! OK, I kid... I love Kevin Williamson... but McLoughlin did kind of beat him to the punch 10 years before "Scream" further revolutionized the idea of self-aware slasher-flicks.Tommy Jarvis (now portrayed by Thom Mathews in a role that more-or- less ignores the troubled Jarvis of Part V) has had enough of living in fear. He has decided to face his troubled past once and for all by digging up the body of Jason Voorhees and burning it to symbolically conquer his childhood trauma. But a hilarious bolt of lightning (in a cute nod to "Frankenstein") accidentally brings the beast back to life, now as an unstoppable "Super-Zombie!" Uh, oh. Now Tommy must team with the gorgeous daughter of the local sheriff (Jennifer Cooke) and try and stop the hulking Jason from taking out a new group of camp- counselors who are overseeing a children's summer-camp at the former Camp Crystal Lake. (Now referred to as "Forest Green.) What follows is a surprisingly hilarious and sometimes creepy mixture of laughs and thrills, in a Hellish roller-coaster ride of mayhem.McLoughlin really seems in his element with this film. While his other work has been hit-and-miss, his keen sense of postmodern meta- humor jives well with the outlandish nature of the story. Nobody was going to be able to really take Jason coming back to life after all this time seriously... so the curve-ball of having the story border on self-parody helps make it a bit more appetizing and easier to digest. And thankfully, it lends to a general feeling of freshness throughout the whole film. We've seen this movie before five times... but not quite like this. Seeing characters acknowledging the outlandish nature of events, punctuating dialog with witty and humorous cutaway gags, and making Jason's kills less brutal and more Looney-Tunes-esque is just great fun and both a nice compliment and contrast to the previous films.It also helps that this film has some of the best characters and performances since Part III. (I still love you, Shelly!) Thom Mathews makes for a fun new Tommy Jarvis, who is both troubled but also very proactive, in a nice contrast to mopey-Tommy from the last film. Cooke is adorable and spunky as our lead heroine Megan, and though she doesn't serve much outside of a general love-interest who occasionally gets in on the action, you still really like her and root for her. David Kagen eats up the role of the grumpy Sheriff who is gruff but has a soft-spot for his kid. And even the generic Camp Counselor fodder characters portrayed by actors such as Kerry Noonan and Renée Jones are surprisingly likable. This film thankfully eschews the standard cliché of having to define characters exclusively by singular quirks, and everyone feels a bit more grounded and realistic. They're all more-or-less decent people, which helps us actually care when Jason starts knocking them off.Add to that a really effective score by series composer Harry Manfredini, some really good cinematography from DP Jon Kranhouse and some really slick visual direction, and you just have a good, solid, fun time all around. There's no sore thumbs in the production either in front of or behind the camera. They all work together to generate a well-oiled machine of madness that I can't help but love.I'm somewhat shocked to be giving this such a high rating, but I have to. "Jason Lives" is a 9 out of 10 as a horror fan. It's phenomenal entertainment, and it's self-aware sense of humor may even win over a few non-fans as well.