Right off the bat, Jason Lives informs that this is going to be a very silly movie. Tommy Jarvis has come back to incinerate Jason's corpse. But Jason is inadvertently brought back to life by a lightning bolt, Frankenstein-style, despite the fact that Jason is clearly rotting and probably seized with rigor mortis. This doesn't stop the hockey masked fiend, as he punches straight through one of Tommy's friends, and starts on his usual rampage. Before that, however, we get a hilarious opening title sequence, which parodies the famous James Bond title sequences. The rest of the story is standard slasher fare, with Jason hacking people up as Tommy tries to warn the police. The random interjections of humor, however, really keep this film moving.
In terms of comedy, Jason Lives derives much of its humor from being over-the-top. It could even be described as a self-referential parody under the guise of a slasher film. It manages to keep some restraint, and actually tries to be scary at times, as opposed to going all out on the laughs. Along the way, we get subtle references to Boris Karloff, former Friday producer Sean S Cunningham, and Nightmare on Elm Street's Nancy. We also get some seemingly intentional insipid exposition at the beginning, and equally bland characters. Really, the only main characters here are Tommy and his love interest, everyone else is pretty much just there to die. This really helps the film, though, because it reduces time spent on character development, and gives us more hilariously wanton carnage.
The death scenes in Jason Lives are the pinnacle of goofy and cartoonish violence in slasher films. Jason punches through people, smashes someone into a wall so hard it leaves their face imprint, beheads three people at once, and literally snaps a guy in half. The special effects for the deaths are a bit lacking, except for the aforementioned face-smash and guy-snapping, but even then it's pretty obvious how the effects were pulled off. However the special effects and deaths aren't as important, because Jason's comedic timing is killer. In a prime example, he stalks a camp counselor from behind a window, pausing when she does, and so forth, much like a cartoon. It's moments like these that make this film much more of a comedy than a slasher film.
Overall, this is a very silly and fun slasher movie. Jason Lives doesn't take itself seriously, and gives us a very tongue-in-cheek horror movie. The humor is great, and the acting is hilariously terrible. Jason Lives is right up there with Part 3 as my favorite Friday the 13th movie, although Jason Live's humor was intentional. This is definitely an improvement over Part 5, but unfortunately the series never gets better past this one. Jason Lives is not scary in the least, but you'll be laughing the whole way through.
Enjoyment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091080/
