The third and final installment of the Tommy Jarvis trilogy (with each movie featuring a different actor in the role) goes out with a bang.
Thom Mathews is by far my favorite actor to have played this particular protagonist in the entire series. He has a great every-man sort of quality to him, and is far more likable than the usual machete fodder that populate these kinds of films.
This Friday the 13th flick has everything you could want from one of these splatter films. To begin with, Jason is brought back to life when his grave is struck by lightning during a botched attempt to dig up his worm covered corpse and destroy it once and for all (even though in Part 5 it was said he had already been cremated…)
This Jason is played by C.J Graham who moves around with a strange gracefulness. This movie is more comic bookish than scary. Most of the kills are all played for laughs, such as a triple decapitation, or the “Don’t leave home without it” scene where a dead character’s American Express card floats in a muddy puddle.
Add to that a cast of mostly tolerable teenagers, and a great 80’s rock sound track featuring Alice freakin Cooper and you have one of the stronger installments in the series.
This may have been the first Friday the 13th movie I saw as a child and was the one that got me hooked on the series. In between Part 4 and Part 6 it appears Jason used his vacation time doing some commando training, because this movie sees him sporting a tactical weapons belt and he has pinpoint accuracy with throwing knives.
This is a far cry from the oafish lumbering “retard” who wore filthy overalls and a pillow sack over his head in Part 2.
Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives gets a three out of five: GOOD.
Vortainment 