Welcome to the Kill Count where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies.
I’m James A. Janisse and today we’re looking at Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, released in 1985 as the FIFTH installment of our beloved Friday the 13th series.
That’s right, the last body from The Final Chapter wasn’t even cold before Paramount decided to cash in on some more Jason Voorhees and bring the series back from its proclaimed end.
The problem was, they definitely killed Jason in the fourth one.
Like. Killed him real dead.
You’re not supposed to come back from… that.
So they decided to try a new direction with this one.
Not in terms of content, really – it’s still naked teenagers getting brutally murdered
but they left Jason dead in an attempt to kick off having new villains in the series.
Really should’ve learned from the third Halloween movie that you don’t mess with a horror series like that.
But, perhaps correctly anticipating a backlash from the lack of Jason, they definitely upped the body count and nudity in this one.
So let’s take a trip to the loonie barn and get down to the kills.
The first pair of kills is right off the bat when some stupid kids in some stupid hats dig up ole Wormeyes
That's my new nickname for Jason – I think it’s really gonna stick.
He thanks them with his machete.
First he impales Neil in the stomach. No, his name is never said in the movie, but the internet knows all.
Then Jason stabs Les, right in the neck with a screwdriver.
Why was Jason buried with a screwdriver? Who the fuck knows.
Watching from the woods is Corey Feldman
and Jason actually looks pretty damn creepy as he stalks toward Tommy, who screams and then wakes up and is a HOT GUY!
That’s right, those first two kills were just a dream but on this series, I’ll probably count imaginary kills.
Or maybe not. I dont know, it doesn’t matter guys, please don’t leave comments yelling at me.
But, yeah, Tommy’s grown up to be this jock with glasses and he’s headed to a farm for the mentally ill.
What’s wrong with the people there? I can’t really tell, except one dude has a stutter, I guess
But that guy also makes a lot of sense
"You don't s-s-set a place for a dead person"
Good call, guy.
The farm’s run by Matthew Letter, who totally has a bromance with the sheriff,
and his assistant Pam Roberts, a pretty lady who gets creeped on by Billy the van driver.
"Anytime, doll"
Dude also looks at porno mags on the job because literally everyone in these movies, especially this one, is driven entirely by sex.
Tommy meets Reckless Reggie whose dialogue consists entirely of things
old white guys imagine black kids say on the street.
"Man, you are one scared cat!"
"YO MAN!"
"Gotta split, catch you later if there is action"
And we meet all the other eventual victims including hillbilly neighbors, Reggie’s grandpa George,
and all the insane asylum kids who just happen to all be attractive teenagers.
All except Joey, I guess, a guy who loves chocolate even at the expense of clean sheets.
Joey also gets SURPRISE AXED in the fucking BACK by this dude Vic.
Vic could probably take Jason too, shit, look at that guy.
Instead he gets pissed at Joey for being annoying and chops both his chocolate bar and his spine in half,
giving us the 3rd kill of the film.
This gets Vic arrested, disappointing those of us who wanted a Vic vs Jason finale.
That would be awesome!
Joey’s body is tended to by a couple of paramedics
One’s your average asshole from these movies,
"Bunch of pussies..."
the other is Roy Burns, who acts totally normal and not suspicious at all as he stares into a fadeout.
We then meet perhaps the most inconsequential characters I’ve ever seen in these films, a pair of greasers having car trouble.
Look, I don’t know why they’re here other than to die, but they definitely do that!
Vinny gets a roadflare in the mouth while he’s fixing the car, showing everyone that people can make decent jack-o-lanterns too.
Save a pumpkin, use a greaser.
Then Pete comes back from poopin in the woods with bunnies to give an extended improv scene in the car.
"Come on now... Come on everybody, this things staring,
come on motherfucker.
Fix the fucking car!
Come on.
You fucked up again... asshole."
Pure poetry.
He then gets his throat slit with a machete.
It’s a shame, really, I think that guy had a wildly successful freestyle career ahead of him.
The cops find their bodies and Roy acts totally natural and not saying anything suspicious at all.
"What the hell's going on here."
"You talking to me, Sheriff?"
"Huh?"
"I thought you was talking to me."
Smooth.
Next we find out just how hot Tommy is – I wasn’t lying – and that he also can bust a foo', if need be.
Bah God, that man had a family!
A check in here, a check in there, and now we’re meeting this chick at the diner who’s introduced just in time for some real gratuitous nudity.
She’s getting picked up by that pervy driver guy, who must be really funny or something,
and he dies when the killer who’s totally not Roy Burns slams an axe into a cantaloupe painted like his head.
I don’t- oh, OH that’s? That’s supposed to be his head. I see, sorry. I guess that was his head, guys.
Lana, the waitress, gets one last bump in before getting an axe to the stomach about 40 minutes into the film.
You’d think someone would live a little longer after an axe to the gut,
but according to these movies it’s downright humane how fast people die from it.
At this point, buckle up, because it’s time to start killing all those characters we met in the first act.
First, there’s the really dirty dude who had just one scene before with Ethel.
He ends up in the woods creeping on naked teens then turns around and gets stabbed in the stomach with a knife.
Along with the greasers, this guy has to be one of the most tangential characters ever.
He’s just there to be a statistic.
Then of course, there’s the naked teens he was spying on. And they’re, like, REALLY naked.
The girl Tina just has these really long voyeuristic shots of her lying there naked by herself.
It’s only a little sleazy until you find out director Danny Steinmann started his career making porn. Then it’s really sleazy.
Her death is cool, though – the killer stabs her in the face with some garden shears and then slams them shut.
It’s done off screen but we see her right afterward when Eddie finds her body.
That is one gruesome sight.
Get it, gruesome SIGHT? She doesn’t have eyes anymore. It’s funny.
Her paramour Eddie, who inexplicably had to go wash up in the middle of forest sex,
"I gotta go wash up." "Okay, sure."
comes back to find her dead and gets his head crushed by a belt and a stick.
Definitely one of the most unique kills in the series and downright painful, too. Memorable all around, really.
Reggie, Pam and Tommy take the truck to go see Reggie’s brother Demon so there can be another character to kill.
Oh! And look, he has a girlfriend, I didn’t know there was a two for one deal going on.
After Reggie leaves, Demon gets hit by some enchiladas
"Oh, it's them damn enchiladas!"
and runs to the outhouse.
He and his girl Nita sing a romantic poopin duet
[Singing]
which is a romantic twist on all the poopin going on in these movies. Nevertheless they wind up dead.
Demon finds Nita with her throat slit, and her pulse oddly active for a dead person. Just look at it go...pulsing away
then Demon himself gets impaled with a spike through the siding of the outhouse and takes a good while relishing in his death scene.
Hey, it’s your big moment, Demon, might as well milk for all its worth.
Meanwhile the angry redneck neighbors are all riled up because Tommy raged out and beat up Junior,
not only with some solid punches but also a fucking leg drop. Look at that! My god!
Junior rides his dirtbike around a frustratingly small loop several times in anger before getting decapitated by a cleaver.
I won’t say that’s the best fake head ever made, but I will say it’s better than Paul’s exploding head in part 3.
Good job, A New Beginning, you cleared a very low bar.
Then Ethal gets a cleaver in the face through the window, causing her, in turn, to kill the tomato she's holding,
Reminds me of the banana snuff murder in The Final Chapter – these guys love to kill their produce.
Oh, and people. People like Ethel. Hell of a character, I’m sure she’ll make a hell of a stew.
Now we’re an hour in and Jake, the stuttering guy, gathers up his courage and comes on to redhead Robin
"I-I wanna...make love with you"
She responds to him in the way every guy loves to hear.
[Laughter]
He wanders upstairs in rejection then gets a cleaver to the face! We later see his body when Robin discovers it in her bed.
Guess you wound up there anyway, right Jake? Haha but he’s dead so it doesn’t count.
Robin herself is the next to go but only after getting naked and wandering around topless because, again, sleazy porn director.
She’s killed with the by-now very familiar stab through the bottom of the bed treatment.
This marks the third time they’ve done this kill in just five movies, and NONE have matched the awesomeness of the original with Kevin Bacon.
Oh yeah, there’s also this alternative chick Violet who’s actually a really sweet break dancer,
and we know this because we watch her dance for an uncomfortably long time.
She gets killed too, slammed up against the wall and stabbed in the gut with a machete.
I’m noticing that despite the high body count, a lot of the action occurs offscreen or in lame looking close-ups. Kind of a bummer.
From here we arrive at the final girl circuit. Running the course this time, ladies and gentlemen,
"Its Pam"
That’s right! Pam Roberts. Let’s see how she does when she’s up against a fake Jason Voorhees.
Pam checks all the boxes – she makes sure the young kid is safe
"Get up! Get up!"
she runs around in the rain in a white shirt, she finds bodies of all the victims.
Thing is, usually those bodies are of people we’ve already seen killed but this time they use the opportunity to add new corpses to the count.
First she finds that douchey paramedic with his throat slit. You’ll be forgiven if you didn’t recognize him,
dude was barely in the movie and finding his body here really has no impact. I mean, aside from giving us this wonderful scream from Reggie
[Wicked scream]
Then she nearly runs into Matthew Letter, pinned to the tree with a knife through his head.
Looks like you just got a promotion, Pam. Way to lean-in.
Finally she has a corpse thrown at her through the window, a Final Girl Circuit staple, and sees that it’s Reggie’s grandpa George.
Looks like he’s, uh, missing his eyeballs. What you doing with those eyeballs, Roy.
Collecting eyeballs for some reason? That's weird!
Pam’s circuit comes to a head, as many of these do, in a barn.
Not a very original finish, Pam, but there is something to be said for being traditional.
She fights Jason with a chainsaw which is pretty freakin sweet and Reggie screams from the rafters until Tommy shows up to save the day.
How’s he do? Not great, Bob – he get his ass kicked way faster than you’d expect.
Remember this guy? What happened to him?
Instead he’s down and out, leaving Reggie and Pam to fight the killer on their own.
Reggie does a flying tackle that knocks the killer out of the barn window, and before he can take them down with him,
Tommy resurfaces and cuts off his arm with a machete.
The Jason wannabe then falls down onto some farm spikes, which is their technical name, and his mask peels off revealing that he’s holy shit
it’s ROY BURNS! No way! Wow. What a totally unexpected yet satisfying twist to this movie.
The wrap up comes from Matthew Letter’s bro, the sheriff, explaining everything to Pam
Apparently, Roy was Joey’s dad and snapped when he saw his son’s body. He then modeled his kills after Jason
because, well because, really, they needed another Friday the 13th movie.
Speaking of which, this one ends with yet another fake death when Pam goes to check on Tommy in his hospital bed.
He roids out and pulls a machete out of nowhere and sticks her in the gut with it, making Pam the final kill in this movie.
Only not really, because this is a Friday film so we should’ve known this was all just a stupid fucking dream.
Tommy wakes up from it and sees a vision of Jason in his hospital room – the real Jason, not Roy Burns, notice the red marks on the mask.
Then he gets all creepy and the movie ends with him maybe actually killing Pam? Or maybe he was gonna fix her some lunch.
Whatever. This thing’s finally over.
Let’s do the numbers on this sleazy, dirty, nasty film.
There were 22 deaths in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, although not all were from the Jason imitator Roy Burns.
Two were from Jason himself in a dream sequence, one was from scary Vic, and dream Pam was killed by dream Dreamy Tommy.
Gender breakdown is 15 guys, 7 girls, much more imbalanced than the previous 4 films.
And with a run time of 90 minutes that’s a kill every 4 minutes on average. Damn.
The Golden Chainsaw for coolest kill is gonna go to Eddie. I still feel like it could be a little bit more gory,
Like all the kills in this movie, but it still feels really painful watching Roy Burns
twist that stick around and tighten that belt.
Just ignore the fact that he twists it around two different directions.
It's..it's fine don't worry about it
Lamest kill was a little more tough. But I'm gonna give it to Violet because look at that stab!
That is seriously a pillow they are stabbing right there.
Tom Savini is rolling in the grave he made from scratch and sleeps in every night.
And that’s Friday the 13th, A New Beginning, released in 1985 to an audience very upset that the killer they spent all that time watching was just some asshole named Roy Burns.
For part 6, they made it clear that Mr. Voorhees would return, and we’ll look at that next week.
Until then, I’m James A. Janisse. This has been the Kill Count!
Hey guys thanks for watching Kill Count for Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
I know most people hate it, but I kinda appreciate how just downright nasty it is.
Younger me definitely appreciated it. And honestly, has some things going for it. Its got Ethal
Everyone loves her. And as creepy as he is, I like this Tommy Jarvis
But really I wanna know what you think, so leave a comment let me know anything you want really. I'll see you guys next week!