Jason Voorhees (Tom Morga) is dead.
But the masked killer continues to haunt Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd), now a resident at a halfway house.
When someone begins to murder local people, suspicion turns on Tommy.
Is Jason alive? Is it a copycat? Or has Tommy succumbed to his nightmares, to carry on the Voorhees legacy?
It falls to another young boy, Reggie the Reckless (Shavar Ross) and halfway house employee Pam (Melanie Kinnaman) to solve the mystery before they become the killer’s next victims.
I watched these movies sequentially (but not in one sitting, thankfully).
I ploughed through the previous movies fairly quickly but A New Beginning was the first of these movies where I started to fall off.
There is an attempt at rebooting the series - once again, the killer’s identity is kept offscreen and is finally revealed to be a grieving parent. Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd) is traumatised by the events of the previous movie, and the movie ends with him taking on the mantle of the hockey mask.
While these elements are interesting, the movie they are in is so haphazardly constructed they get lost.
While stories have been simple in previous movies, A New Beginning feels chaotic. There is no flow to the story-telling - events happen out of nowhere, and characters make baffling choices - the hillbilly mother and son are the ultimate example of this.
The one bright spot is Shavar Ross as Reggie, who adds a welcome dose of enthusiasm and, frankly, realism, that the movie needs. It is a shame he does not get more to do.
John Shepherd’s dedication to realising Tommy’s trauma adds some degree of pathos to proceedings, but it feels out of place in this garish production.
The filmmakers largely ignore suspense, aside from a few moments (the main example is Demon Winter’s (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) death in the outdoor toilet).
Overall, the film has no momentum. To its credit, that cold, stilted quality is unique (and according to the behind-the-scenes info) the result of the filmmakers’ cocaine consumption.
In its own way, it is kind of unsettling - but it adds a layer of sleaze to proceedings which is hard to shake.
And while it has a lot of bizarre characters and weird moments, it is a bit boring to watch.
Even the reliables of the series are absent. Almost all the kills are just machete stabs, and there is little gore or blood.
Reggie’s final chase and fight with fake Jason is fine, but it all feels a little perfunctory.
An odd picture, A New Beginning’s poor reception would herald a decline in the franchise popularity that would continue until 2003’s Freddy v. Jason.
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