Director: Steve Miner
Cast: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Richard Brooker, Tracie Savage
Have I Seen it Before: Maybe? Don’t they all bleed together? At this point, I get more and more excited at the prospect of Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), just to get something a little bit different going on.
Did I Like It: That last sentence probably tells you everything you need to know. The best I can say about this series at this point is that they have managed to finally trip over some iconic imagery. Jason (Brooker) finally has his goalie mask*. So what? Not much of anything, really, but it is sort of a marvel that it takes three movies for a series to look like itself. If I’m going to reach for anything more nice to say, I can at least say that the film—unlike its predecessors—is no longer trying to shamelessly imitate other, better films. Even the Hermann-esque score of the first two parts is replaced by a disco riff that I can’t imagine made its way into dance venues in the late summer of 1982.
If things weren’t bad enough, the cinematography has taken a plunge. This film would have looked vapid if I was still able to see it in the originally intended 3D. Knives fly at the frame, other weapons are lunged in our faces, and even baseball bats that have nothing to do with the rest of the scene are all a prolonged practice in perspective that looks like someone just took an introductory drawing class.
All we’re left with is a dearth of tension (ingenues scream on cue, but otherwise don’t move or emote like someone facing a mortal dilemma) and mindless violences, cheaply and profitably produced.
*Although here he also sports a fashionably conservative jacket and khaki slacks. Minus the hydrocephaly and the machete, it almost reminds me of Kelsey Grammer’s fashion sense in the revised Frasier.