Sometimes, good ideas just don't produce the desired results. In the early days of the slasher film genre, the killers were still mortal. Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise met his apparent demise at the end of Halloween II and Jason Voorhees was finally killed off at the end of Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter. The producers of the Halloween series tried to go in a whole new direction with the third installment, but it was not the success they hoped it would be. The Friday The 13th team would not try anything so drastic in carrying on without Jason.
Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning was intended as the beginning of a trilogy with a different killer. The character of Tommy Jarvis from the previous film in the series would return and carry the series forward. These plans, however, would soon change as the reaction to this film was similar to that of Halloween III. People wanted Jason, and this film didn't have him. Not the real Jason, anyway.
Conceptually, this movie had a few things working in its favor. There was the mystery of the identity of the new killer, and... Fine, it had one thing working in its favor. That just meant if they blew it with the reveal, that would pretty much be it. They did. It was. This wasn't a good movie. I'll stop short of calling it bad though. It's watchable, even rewatchable, and it has some good scenes and memorable characters. It's disappointing, however, thinking about what could have been.
Corey Feldman couldn't return to the role of Tommy Jarvis due to filming for Goonies, so he just did a brief dream sequence, which is how this film begins. You get a quick fake-out of Jason rising from his grave until it cuts to an older Tommy, now played by John Shepherd, waking up from the dream. This would have been quite a different film if Feldman had been able to reprise his role. Tommy would still be a kid so the question of whether or not he was the killer probably wouldn't be a major plot point. If we had a younger Tommy, the entire halfway house setting likely would have been different. They wouldn't send a 12 year old kid to a home with older teens. Right from the start, this film has a big "what could have been" cloud hanging over it. That's not to say it would have been better, just different.
Shortly after Tommy arrives at the home, the mystery part of this film is established. Who is the killer? For the better part of an hour and a half, moviegoers asked themselves that very question. The first murder occurs when the annoying fat kid is axed to death by the angry muscular kid. No mystery there, but this scene contains a hidden plot element that doesn't get revealed until the very end. It's a really weak plot element too, but more on that later.
That night, the "Jason" murders begin. The list of suspects is literally anyone who has appeared so far that isn't already dead. The only person we can eliminate for certain is the kid, Reggie, whose grandfather is the cook at the home. All the kids at the home have their various issues that landed them there in the first place, so they're all plausible candidates. The hillbilly neighbors who threaten to cut everyone into pieces make for a too-obvious choice. Then there's that one paramedic looked pretty comfortable at the grizzly murder scene that made his coworker so uneasy. Later we are introduced to Reggie's older brother, Demon (with his damn enchiladas), who could also be a suspect if he himself didn't get killed five minutes later. Of course, we're supposed to suspect Tommy above all the others.
Tommy is clearly favored to be the killer among all the possible suspects. His PTSD is caused by his encounter with Jason. He displays violent outbursts when provoked. He ran off and was nowhere to be found right before the killings went into overdrive. So with all those reasons for him to turn out to be the killer, there's no way it would be him.
It's pretty unlikely that anyone would guess who is pretending to be Jason. I had no idea even after his face was revealed. I mentally rewound the film, trying to match the face with one I had already seen. It's here we see how weak the hidden plot element from earlier was, as the Sheriff has to do a bit of exposition when speaking to the survivors. If you don't know who the killer was, stop reading now because I'm going to spoil the surprise.
If you go back and rewatch this film, they do kind of let you know that the paramedic Roy is worth considering. His look of horror at the murder scene is conspicuous for a background character. At the next murder scene, he appears to be coping just fine. Someone had to be the killer, and if they want to make it this otherwise minor character, that's fine, if anticlimactic. It's the connection to the murdered kid that's the weak part. Somehow he knew that kid Joey was his son but the kid didn't know who his dad was? The recent photo of Joey in Roy's wallet seems strange in these circumstances; I suppose he could have hired someone to discreetly take the photo, but if I have to make up reasons like that, then it's not really working. Also, why does Roy have a photo of himself in his wallet?
All the reveal really has working for it, is that it echoes the parent avenging the death of their child angle that began the Friday The 13th franchise. Unfortunately, this gets lost as you don't have much time to think about it between trying to remember who that dead guy pretending to be Jason is, and waiting to see what happens to Tommy's character in the next scene. Roy's whole story is ten seconds of exposition sandwiched between two more visually interesting scenes.
From a continuity perspective, this episode does quite well. The new beginning title fit, as it was something of a clean slate without Jason. Tommy was the only holdover character, and even though he was played by a different actor, you could believe that it was the same character, although changed from his experiences in the previous film, something with which the next film would fail miserably. Unfortunately the cliff hanger at the end doesn't get resolved in the next installment, or even acknowledged; another case of "what could have been" where what could have been is much more believable and interesting that what they ended up giving us. More on that when I critique the next film.
Even though this was "A New Beginning", this was the last film in the series that felt like the earlier installments. It's difficult to pinpoint what it is, but something about the way it was filmed or the script or the acting made it feel like it belonged with the first four installments. Beginning with the sixth installment, something changed. Once I rewatch the next one, maybe I'll have a better idea of just what it is. It feels strange to regard A New Beginning as the last of the old school Friday The 13th films, though. This was a transitional film between the old and the new, that should have been the start of the new. The direction that was attempted was a good idea, it was time to move on from Jason. When Jason is what sells tickets, however, this good idea became worthless. What could have been? Corey Feldman is still around, there's still time to restart the continuity after this episode or even the previous installment. All the cool horror franchises are doing it.