Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Directed by Danny Steinmann
- horror
- thriller
The story
Homicidal maniac Jason returns from the grave to cause more bloody mayhem. Young Tommy may have escaped from Crystal Lake, but he’s still haunted by the gruesome events that happened there. When gory murders start happening at the secluded halfway house for troubled teens where he now lives, it seems like his nightmarish nemesis, Jason, is back for more sadistic slaughters.
What it’s like
Flat, grimy daylight and sodden green woods give way to dim, murky interiors lit by weak practical lamps, with the camera mostly handheld and close in the kill sequences and loose, wandering in the quieter halfway-house scenes. The palette runs to mossy greens, cold blues and the sickly yellow of 1980s stock, and the grain is coarse and visible. Synth stings and a pulsing score punctuate long stretches of near silence, with the rain and crickets of the lake filling the gaps. The vibe is grubby, mean-spirited slasher unease, a late-night watch for fans of the franchise who don't mind rough edges. The pacing is uneven: slow, edgy build-ups to sudden, gruesome kills, with long gaps between. Emotionally it is bleak and cynical, following a damaged teenager tormented by memory and a group of troubled young people who distrust each other. Violence is frequent and graphic, with stabbings, impalements and bloody deaths shown in close detail, plus a brief nudity and sexual content, and a constant threat of cruelty. It is not gentle. It suits viewers who want old-school splatter, masked-killer dread and an unpolished 1980s look.
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