Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

The film opens on a rainy night. A 12-year-old Tommy Jarvis walks through the woods to a graveyard, where two men are digging up the body of Jason Voorhees. Jason rises from the grave, kills both grave robbers and raises his machete over Tommy. Then a teenage Tommy wakes up in the back of a van. It was a nightmare. Five years have passed since Tommy killed Jason, and the memory has kept him moving from one psychiatric hospital to the next.

Tommy is taken to Pinehurst Halfway House, a rural home for troubled teens run by Dr. Matt Letter and his assistant Pam Roberts. The residents include the couple Eddie and Tina, the stuttering Jake, the punk Violet, the serious Robin, the overeater Joey and the short-tempered Vic. Young Reggie lives there because his grandfather George is the cook. Their neighbor Ethel Hubbard hates the place, mostly because Eddie and Tina keep sneaking onto her land to have sex, and she arrives on a motorcycle with her slow-witted son Junior to threaten everyone. Matt tells the kids to stay on the property.

While Vic is chopping wood, Joey keeps pestering him. Vic snaps and hacks Joey to death with the axe. The police arrest Vic. One paramedic, Duke, jokes about the body, while another paramedic, Roy Burns, looks shaken by the death.

That night the killings start. Two greasers, Vinnie and Pete, break down on a back road. Vinnie gets a lit road flare shoved into his mouth, and Pete's throat is slashed from the back seat. The next night, Pinehurst worker Billy waits outside a diner for his girlfriend Lana, a waitress. He takes an axe to the head, and Lana is killed with the axe when she comes out. Sheriff Cal Tucker starts to wonder if Jason is back, and suspicion falls on Tommy, who keeps seeing visions of Jason and gets into fights with the other residents.

Eddie and Tina slip into the woods to have sex. Raymond, a drifter Ethel hired to clean her chicken coop, spies on them and is stabbed. While Eddie washes off in the creek, Tina is killed with a pair of shears driven into her eyes. Eddie comes back, finds her and is killed when a leather strap crushes his head against a tree.

That evening Pam and Tommy take Reggie to visit his older brother Demon, who lives at a trailer park with his girlfriend Anita. Junior shows up on his motorcycle and taunts Tommy. Tommy fights him, then runs off into the woods. Pam and Reggie leave to look for him. Demon and Anita are murdered after they go. Junior rides home and is decapitated. Ethel is killed in her kitchen with a meat cleaver swung through the window.

Back at Pinehurst, Pam learns that Matt and George are missing and goes out to search, leaving Reggie with Violet, Jake and Robin. Reggie falls asleep. Jake is killed with a meat cleaver to the face, Robin is stabbed with a machete through her mattress, and Violet is stabbed in the stomach. Reggie wakes as Pam returns, and they find the bodies. A hockey-masked killer who looks like Jason comes through the house after them.

Pam and Reggie run into the woods and find Duke dead in his ambulance, then the bodies of Matt and George. Reggie hits the killer with a tractor, and Pam holds him off with a chainsaw before they climb into the barn loft. Tommy arrives and faces the killer, is cut by the machete and passes out in the loft. The killer pulls himself up and grabs Reggie's leg. Tommy wakes, takes the machete and cuts into the killer's hand. The killer falls from the loft onto the spikes of a tractor harrow and dies. His mask comes off. He is Roy Burns, the paramedic.

At the hospital, Sheriff Tucker identifies Roy as Joey's father. Losing his son drove him insane, and he took his revenge on the town while dressed as Jason. Tommy sees Jason one more time in his hospital room, faces the vision, and in a nightmare stabs Pam. When the real Pam walks into the room, the window is smashed and Tommy is standing behind the door in Roy's hockey mask with a knife raised.

Story notes

• An older Tommy Jarvis is sent to a rural halfway house, where a new series of murders begins.
• The hockey-masked killer is ultimately revealed not to be Jason Voorhees but paramedic Roy Burns.

Release & Reception

Paramount opened the film on March 22, 1985, in Los Angeles and New York, on 1,759 screens. It was number one that weekend with $8,032,883, ahead of Porky's Revenge, Mask, The Last Dragon and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. Boxoffice reported about $4 million more the second weekend and $2.5 million the third.

It finished with $21,930,418 domestic and ranked 41st for 1985. That was a solid profit on a $2.2 million budget but a steep drop from Part III and The Final Chapter. It also went up against Cat's Eye and Lifeforce that spring.

Critics were hard on it. Rotten Tomatoes lists 12% from 81 reviews and Metacritic gives it 16 out of 100. Gene Siskel said it lacked originality and suspense. Variety said it had even less variety than the earlier films. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it worth noticing only as a cultural artifact. Leonard Maltin gave it his lowest rating. Slant's Jeremiah Kipp said it had more plot than usual but a crude, leering tone. Looking back in 2016, GQ's Scott Meslow called it the bloodiest and most deranged entry and counted 22 murder scenes.

Fans were angry that Jason was not the killer. The poor reaction, along with the falling grosses, led Paramount to drop the planned new trilogy and bring the real Jason back in Jason Lives.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: IMP Awards — Friday the 13th: A New Beginning poster archive.

Cast

Crew

Production

The Hollywood Reporter announced on June 27, 1984, that the fifth Friday the 13th film was being written. The story came from Martin Kitrosser and David Cohen, and director Danny Steinmann shared the screenplay credit with them. Tina Landau received an additional dialogue credit. The Final Chapter had been sold as the end of Jason, so the plan here was a copycat killer and a new direction for the series built around Tommy Jarvis.

The film was cast under a fake title, Repetition. Many actors did not know it was a Friday the 13th movie until after they had the part. John Shepherd spent several months volunteering at a state mental hospital to prepare for Tommy, and later said he was disappointed to learn what Repetition really was. Dick Wieand said that seeing the finished film made him realize how bad it was, even though he knew the series' reputation going in.

Corey Feldman was making The Goonies at the same time, so he could only do a cameo. He shot his inserts on a Sunday, his day off from The Goonies, in the backyard of his family's Los Angeles home with a rain machine.

Tom Morga played the masked killer in most scenes and Jason in Tommy's hallucinations. John Hock played Jason in the opening dream because Morga was not available when it was shot, and Hock also did the stunt of Roy falling from the barn.

The picture was shot in Southern California in 1984. AFI reports that filming was completed in January 1985. Ranch co-owner Cathryn recalled that the main location was picked from photographs she had sent to the California Film Commission. She said the production spent about three months there: a month dressing the ranch, a month shooting, and a month taking out what they had built. Her family lived on the property the whole time.

On the 2009 DVD commentary, Steinmann said he was told to deliver a jump every seven minutes. He has also said a lot of nudity was cut out of the film.

Peter Bracke's book Crystal Lake Memories describes heavy drug use behind the scenes during the shoot.

Ranch co-owner Cathryn recalled that the location was selected through photographs she had supplied to the California Film Commission. Her family remained on the property throughout the production.

Cathryn described three months of activity at the ranch: a month to dress the location, a month of shooting, and a month to remove the production’s additions.

Filming locations

• A family ranch in Southern California (co-owner Cathryn, interviewed in 2011): Pinehurst Halfway House, the barn and nearly all of the film. The owner said the barn loft and Pam's tool shed were built for the film, her son's room became Violet's room and her daughter's room became Robin's. The production also set up its office and workshop on the property.
• Feldman family backyard, Los Angeles: Corey Feldman's rainy graveyard inserts, shot with a rain machine on his day off from The Goonies
• Southern California locations included Rancho Rosita in Camarillo, Franklin Canyon and Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir in Beverly Hills, and The Rock Store on Mulholland Highway for the diner sequence.

Effects and makeup

Martin Becker led the credited special makeup effects team. The crew included Kathryn Miles Logan, Earl C. Ellis Jr., Larry S. Carr, David B. Miller, Louis Lazzara, Anton Ruprecht, David Nelson and William Scott Strong. Reel EFX, Inc. handled physical effects with coordinator Frankie Inez.

Contact sheets published by Fridaythe13thfilms.com show the unedited stages of Pete's throat-slash effect. Debi Sue Voorhees said Tina's makeup took forever. Once her eyes were covered she had to be led around the set, and the fake blood burned her eyes.

For the tractor crashing into the barn, the crew made three breakaway barn doors out of balsa wood, painted and aged to match the real ones. The ranch owner also recalled that the front window of the main house was taken out and replaced with three breakaway window sets for the shot of George's body being thrown through the glass. They were made of balsa wood with fourteen panes of candy glass.

Ron Sloan said a camera was mounted on the motorcycle handlebars for Junior's death. A harness and cable pulled him backward as the cutout blade met his neck, and the footage was run in reverse to sell the decapitation. He also sat through a long mold session holding a scream for Junior's prop head, and later got the head back after another production had reused and damaged it.

Martin Becker headed the credited special-makeup-effects work with a large practical team that included Larry S. Carr, Earl Ellis, David B. Miller, Louis Lazzara, David Nelson, Anton Ruprecht and William Scott Strong; Reel EFX handled physical special-effects work.

The production built and photographed gore appliances for material that was subsequently reduced by the MPAA. Surviving contact-sheet imagery preserves unedited stages of Pete's machete-throat effect, and Debi Sue Voorhees later recalled the lengthy blinding/blood makeup used for Tina's death.

For the tractor entrance, the crew made three balsa-wood breakaway barn doors, painted and weathered to match the originals. The barn loft and Pam’s tool shed were added specifically for the film, according to the ranch owner.

The ranch owner recalled three replacement front-window assemblies for George’s body-through-the-window scene, each using balsa wood and fourteen panes of breakaway sugar glass.

Ron Sloan recalled a camera mounted on the motorcycle handlebars for Junior’s death. A harness and cable pulled him backward when the cutout blade met his neck; he said the footage was reversed to create the decapitation illusion.

Sloan recalled holding a screaming expression during the lengthy mold-taking session for Junior’s prop head. He later recovered the head after it had been reused and damaged for another production.

Props and costumes

Roy's main hockey mask has two blue chevrons pointing down on the cheeks instead of the usual red ones. It was a quiet hint that the killer was not Jason. The masks were vacuum-formed from the Part IV hero mask, and four different masks show up on screen.

Louis Lazzara sculpted a full face based on the Part IV Jason design, but it only ended up on screen as a hooded cutout.

Roy wears spruce-green coveralls and beat-up brown leather work boots. His weapons include a machete, a double-bit axe, hedge trimmers and a meat cleaver. The dream and hallucination Jason wears an olive work shirt and grey khaki pants.

Louis Lazzara based the masked-killer head appliance on the Part IV Jason design, but Roy Burns' hero hockey mask deliberately breaks the Jason pattern with two blue cheek chevrons. The production masks were molded from the Part IV hero-mask lineage and several distinct masks appear on screen.

Roy's killer wardrobe is built around spruce-green coveralls and heavily distressed brown Field n' Forest work boots. His weapon package includes a Collins Model 127 machete, double-bit axe, hedge trimmers and Dexter 5289 meat cleaver; the hallucination/grave Jason uses the older olive work-shirt and khaki silhouette.

Production artifacts

Scripts and documents

The killers

Roy Burns

Played by

Dick Wieand (unmasked); Tom Morga and John Hock (masked)

Motive

Revenge. Roy was the father of Joey Burns, and Joey's axe murder at Pinehurst drove him insane. He dressed as Jason and killed his way through the town and the halfway house.

Death

Tommy cuts his hand with a machete and he falls from the barn loft onto a tractor harrow, dying on the spikes.

Victor 'Vic' Faden

Played by

Mark Venturini

Motive

A Pinehurst resident with a violent temper. Joey's pestering set him off while he was chopping wood.

Death

Arrested by the police after killing Joey. He survives the film.

Jason Voorhees (dream and hallucination only)

Played by

John Hock (opening dream); Tom Morga (hallucinations)

Motive

A figure from Tommy's nightmares. He kills the two grave robbers in the opening dream.

Death

Not physically present. Tommy faces the vision in his hospital room and it disappears.

Deaths

Neil

Played by

Todd Bryant

How

Stabbed in the stomach

Where

Cemetery, in Tommy's opening nightmare

By

Jason Voorhees (dream)

Les

Played by

Curtis Conaway

How

Stabbed in the neck

Where

Cemetery, in Tommy's opening nightmare

By

Jason Voorhees (dream)

Joey Burns

Played by

Dominick Brascia

How

Hacked with an axe

Where

Pinehurst Halfway House grounds

By

Vic Faden

Vinnie Manalo

Played by

Anthony Barrile

How

Lit road flare shoved into his mouth

Where

Back road where his car broke down

By

Roy Burns

Pete Linley

Played by

Corey Parker

How

Throat slashed from the back seat

Where

Inside the car on the back road

By

Roy Burns

Billy Macauley

Played by

Bob De Simone

How

Axe to the head

Where

In his car outside the diner

By

Roy Burns

Lana Ardsley

Played by

Rebecca Wood-Sharkey

How

Axe to the chest

Where

Outside the diner

By

Roy Burns

Raymond Joffroy

Played by

Sonny Shields

How

Stabbed in the stomach

Where

Woods near Ethel's farm

By

Roy Burns

Tina McCarthy

Played by

Debisue Voorhees

How

Shears driven into her eyes

Where

Clearing in the woods

By

Roy Burns

Eddie Kelso

Played by

John Robert Dixon

How

Head crushed against a tree with a leather strap

Where

Woods

By

Roy Burns

Anita Robb

Played by

Jeré Fields

How

Throat slit (off-screen)

Where

Trailer park

By

Roy Burns

Demon Winter

Played by

Miguel A. Nunez Jr.

How

Impaled through the back

Where

Trailer park

By

Roy Burns

Junior Hubbard

Played by

Ron Sloan

How

Decapitated while riding his motorcycle

Where

Ethel's farm

By

Roy Burns

Ethel Hubbard

Played by

Carol Locatell

How

Meat cleaver swung through the kitchen window into her face

Where

Her kitchen

By

Roy Burns

Jake Patterson

Played by

Jerry Pavlon

How

Meat cleaver to the face

Where

Pinehurst Halfway House

By

Roy Burns

Robin Brown

Played by

Juliette Cummins

How

Machete pushed up through the mattress into her back

Where

Her top bunk at Pinehurst

By

Roy Burns

Violet Moraine

Played by

Tiffany Helm

How

Machete to the stomach

Where

Pinehurst Halfway House

By

Roy Burns

Duke Johnson

Played by

William Caskey Swaim

How

Throat slit (off-screen; body found in the ambulance)

Where

His ambulance in the woods

By

Roy Burns

Dr. Matt Letter

Played by

Richard Young

How

Stabbed in the forehead (off-screen)

Where

Near Pinehurst; body found during the chase

By

Roy Burns

George Winter

Played by

Vernon Washington

How

Eyes gouged (off-screen); body thrown through a window

Where

Near Pinehurst; body found during the chase

By

Roy Burns

Pam Roberts (dream only)

Played by

Melanie Kinnaman

How

Stabbed in the stomach

Where

Tommy's hospital room, in a nightmare

By

Tommy Jarvis (dream)

Harry Manfredini wrote the score, with Jack Tillar as music editor.

La-La Land Records put the score in its limited 6-CD Friday the 13th box set on January 13, 2012. The original tapes were thought to be missing at the time, so this film's music came from the sound stems. The set sold out in under 24 hours.

In 2018 La-La Land reissued the score in a 2-CD set paired with The Final Chapter, using the 2012 master.

On September 10, 2024, La-La Land released The Ultimate Cut, remastered from the original tapes, with cues not heard or not used in the film.

• Waxwork Records complete remastered A New Beginning soundtrack on double LP with Impostor Jason-themed colored vinyl.

Home Media

• 1986: LaserDisc, Betamax, VHS and CED releases.
• 1994: VHS reissue from Paramount Home Video.
• September 25, 2001: first DVD from Paramount.
• June 16, 2009: Paramount Deluxe Edition DVD. Anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, new 5.1 mix. Extras: commentary with Danny Steinmann, John Shepherd, Shavar Ross and Michael Felsher; New Beginnings: The Making of Friday the 13th Part V (10:40) with Steinmann, Shavar Ross, Dick Wieand, Tom Morga and Tiffany Helm; Lost Tales from Camp Blood Part 5 (6:22); The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited Part II (9:43); theatrical trailer.
• September 13, 2013: first Blu-ray, inside Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection from Paramount and Warner Bros., with all twelve films.
• 2014: standalone double-feature Blu-ray with Jason Lives from Paramount and Warner.
• February 2018: Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection DVD box set from Paramount, covering the first eight films.
• October 13, 2020: Scream Factory Friday the 13th Collection Deluxe Edition Blu-ray box set. 1080p, 1.85:1, DTS-HD MA mono and 5.1. Three commentaries, including a new one with Adam Green and Joe Lynch; the 2009 extras; TV spots; stills, posters and lobby card galleries; and Fangoria articles viewable on a computer.

• NECA Ultimate Part 5 Dream Sequence Jason 7-inch scale action figure.
• NECA Friday the 13th Part 5 hockey mask replica (SKU 39703), released in July 2016. A hand-painted 1:1 resin mask with the blue chevrons and adjustable straps.
• La-La Land Records score CDs: the 2012 six-film box set, the 2018 Parts 4 and 5 set, and the 2024 Ultimate Cut.

The catalog

• Official trailer — Paramount+

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Press & Promo

Effects

Props

Merchandise