Taken completely out of the context of the series, A New Beginning isn’t such a bad slasher film. But the fact remains that it IS part of a larger series of beloved horror movies, and suffers because of it.
Tommy Jarvis is a sad, mentally scarred little boy. At an early age, he is forced to watch his neighbors murdered, and then to top it all off he takes has to protect his sister and himself by killing the deranged psychopath himself. Tommy is then put into a mental institution for a good chunk of his life. He has to try and cope with nightmares, hallucinations and fits of anger. Tommy is almost an adult (17) when he is sent to the Pinehurst Youth Development Center “halfway house” for mental rehabilitation and the hope that he can rejoin normal society. Unfortunately, “normal” is something he will never quite be.
Upon Tommy’s arrival at Pinehurst, things start to fall apart almost immediately. The day he arrives one of the members of the house is slain by another in a pretty brutal way. Tommy attempts to befriend the only person that will talk to him Reggie “The Reckless”. Reggie is a young boy that is only at the house because his grandfather works there, and he is the boys caretaker. As the days go by, more and more of the kids start to disappear, and everyone starts to point fingers at Tommy as the only logical offender. Tommy believes he is innocent, but … even he doesn’t know what to believe any longer.
A New Beginning is part of a weird and rare subset of horror movies that would be just fine if it didn’t have any tie to the movies it was supposed to be a part of. Like Halloween 3 “Season of the Witch”. It’s an okay movie on its own, but when you set it up as a HALLOWEEN movie (you know, Michael Meyers) there is an expectation. That expectation needs to be either met or addressed and if it is not, people are upset. When there isn’t a payoff for Jason actually being Jason Voorhees people will be, and were pissed. Then there was the atrocious ending that attempted to put Jason on an entirely new path (hence the title … I guess) that was not only ridiculously cheesy and ham-fisted but wasn’t followed up on AT ALL by the next (and best) installment in the franchise.
I have a hard time watching A New Beginning simple because I know the ending and it just isn’t worth the watch. While the kills are fun and the kids earn each and every one of them (except Demon and those damn enchiladas) the rest of the movie is just, I don’t know, too much. I have to be in the right frame of mind to watch Part V. If I do watch it, I usually watch it before any of the other films. Mostly to get it out of the way quickly, but partially because it’s like the Tokyo Drift of the series and just doesn’t fit in the same way. Though… Tokyo Drift is one of the better Fast and Furious movies in the series. Yeah… I said it.
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