Jason is inexplicably re-animated by a bolt of lightening after Tommy Jarvis makes the lunatic decision to unearth his coffin, believing that this will cure the Jason-related nightmares which continue to plague him. Tommy escapes narrowly with his life, and swears to destroy Jason once and for all.
Meanwhile a new camp has been opened on Crystal Lake, which has been re-named Forest Green to hide its dark past. The kids have already arrived, and counselors are settling in, unaware of the impending bloodbath.
Tommy's attempts to warn local law enforcement are met with disbelief and belligerence. But the police chiefs daughter apparently has a thing for guys who come off as raving lunatics and, after falling for Tommy, teams up with him to fight Jason.
Unfortunately, Jason Lives follows down the same path as New Blood. The whole movie has a toned down feel compared to earlier installments. Jason isn't as scary, the gore is less graphic, and the suspense is gone. At the same time there is an abundance of unnecessary comic-relief in the form of superfluous cheese characters like the paintball team, and really dumb one-liners. None of it is really funny, but it serves to lighten the movie up, in other-words, to destroy the mood and atmosphere of the film.
Presumably the move away from the more serious, scarier, and more explicit, style of the first four films was aimed at making the films more palatable to a wider audience in order to keep up with the plethora of cheese-ball slasher films of the day. The real result, however, is a much worse movie over-all, and a way less profitable one. Unfortunately most slasher movie makers didn't really seem to learn any lessons from this experience in the years that followed.
As for Tommy's attempt to finish off Jason at the end of the film... really?
3 propellers to the head out of 5
Rated 18A for violence, sexual content, profanity, frightening scenes.
Watch the Jason Lives trailer.
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