Years after the events of the previous film, Tommy Jarvis is moved from his psychiatric hospital to a halfway house. Unfortunately for him, a series of murders starts to take place around the property.

I remember hearing about this film when it was due to start filming and thinking it might be like an episode of Oprah with survivors and relatives of those murdered by Jason coming together to reminisce and heal. There would be a lot of flashbacks and a healing circle.

In actuality, when I finally saw the film on video circa 1988, I hated it. Spoiler alert- the killer isn’t Jason! But the clues for this were there from the start, namely the generic mask on the US poster and the blue rather than red markings on ‘Jason’s’ mask within the actual movie.

But on watching it recently it does have some things going for it. The kills are extra painful (the film was cut massively by the MPAA but the filmmakers knew they would do this and made the kills way longer and gorier than they needed to be. The MPAA were basically cutting away the excess. What a great idea by the director!), the characters are interesting (we even get a Goth!) and the series wasn’t stagnating but willfully evolving. The influence of MTV can be seen, for better or worse.

But there are downsides too. Some of the characters are irritating as hell (the hillbilly mother and son, the chocolate chomping Joey). And Part 5 just doesn’t feel like a proper entry into the series but more like an aside. This would be rectified with Part 6 with the real Jason returning and an Alice Cooper theme song to let everyone know about it.

Is it a terrible film? No. But it’s not a film I’m rushing to see again in a hurry.

2.5 out of 5 stars