EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning was on USA Up All Night on November 13, 1992; May 14, 1994 and January 13 and October 13, 1995.
Presenting the scummiest, vilest Friday of them all — a film packed with more kills (22!), more nudity and more drugs behind the scenes than several of the other films combined!
Years after killing off Jason, Tommy Jarvis has nightmares that the man he killed has returned. That’s why he’s in Pinehurst Halfway House, where Pam Roberts and Dr. Matt Letter (Richard Young, who gives young Indy his fedora in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) are trying to help him to get over his violent past and the death of his mother.
But are there a bunch of teens to get killed? Sure there are. There’s Reggie, Tommy’s roommate whose grandfather George works there as a cook. Plus, we have Robin (Juliette Cummins, Slumber Party Massacre 2), Violet (Tiffany Helm, O.C. & Stiggs, Reform School Girls), Jake, Vic (Suicide from Return of the Living Dead), Joey, Eddie and Tina (Debi Sue Voorhees, no relation). There’s also rich neighbors Ethel Hubbard and Junior, who want the halfway house closed down.
What follows is a bit of a mystery movie, at least for a bit. Is one of the kids the killer, like Vic, or has Jason come back from the dead? Even the end of the movie leaves that up in the air, to be honest. It’s kind of a mess, but along the way there’s a ton of blood and gore.
Danny Steinmann is the director here, perhaps better known for The Unseen and Savage Streets. Well, maybe not by most people, but by me? Of course. He also broke into movies by directing and writing the adult film High Rise and probably would have created more films in the Friday the 13th saga, but a bicycling accident and long recovery meant that this would be the last film that he would direct. The working title for this film was Repetition.