​Listen up, you beautiful band of gore-hounds and celluloid junkies. We need to talk about the red-headed stepchild of the Crystal Lake lineage. No, I’m not talking about the one where Jason takes a boat to Manhattan and spends eighty percent of the runtime on a floating bathtub. I’m talking about 1985’s Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning.

​For decades, the consensus was that Part V was the ultimate betrayal. “It’s not Jason!” they cried into their overpriced movie theater popcorn. “Who is this paramedic guy with the blue stripes?” Well, sit down, shut up, and grab a chocolate bar, but don’t let Vic see it, because in the cold, flickering light of 2026, A New Beginning isn’t just a sequel, it’s a 9/10 that tears through its runtime with a wild, unhinged energy no other Friday the 13th film quite matches. It’s mean, it’s weird, it smells like outhouse enchiladas, and it’s time we gave it the respect it deserves.​

The Shepherd of Silence and the Buffet of Victims​

We start with Tommy Jarvis. After Corey Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis hacked Jason’s face into hamburger with a machete in The Final Chapter, Tommy didn’t just go back to playing with monster masks. He went Full Metal Jacket on his own sanity.

​Enter John Shepherd. Shepherd plays Tommy with an intense and quiet vibe that suggests he might snap and kill everyone in the room if someone accidentally drops a spoon. He doesn’t talk; he just vibrates with PTSD. He’s shipped off to Pinehurst which is a halfway house for troubled teens. In 80s slasher speak, halfway house basically translates to ‘a place where unsupervised teenagers are legally required to live in a secluded forest so a killer can turn them into confetti.’

The movie establishes the Pinehurst madhouse immediately. Director Danny Steinmann, a filmmaker with one foot in the sweat-soaked world of sexploitation and the other in the gritty revenge cinema of Savage Streets, treats the camera like a voyeur on a caffeine bender. There is no slow burn here. Steinmann didn’t have time for atmospheric tension; he wanted blood-soaked antics and relentless murder.

The inhabitants of Pinehurst are a hall of fame of the bizarre:​

Vic: A man who treats a piece of firewood with more emotional intimacy than a human being.​

Joey: The classic annoying kid. Joey is the patron saint of “Too Much, Too Soon.” He just wanted to help. He just wanted a friend. He just wanted a chocolate bar. Instead, he became the catalyst for a body count that would make a small-town dictator blush.​

The Rest: You’ve got the greasers, the dancers, and the dreamers, all lined up like a literal slaughter buffet.

It’s gleefully lawless filmmaking at its peak, we don’t need backstories; we just need targets.​

The Gospel According to Ethel and Junior

​If you want to talk about how fucking out there Part V is, you have to talk about the neighbors. Ethel and Junior Hubbard.

​I am convinced Ethel and Junior wandered off the set of a lost Troma film or a particularly filthy John Waters flick and just decided to stay. Ethel is a foul-mouthed, stew-stirring, shotgun-toting matriarch who spends her time screaming profanities at ‘them damn fools’ next door. Junior is her grown son who rides a dirt bike and looks like he hasn’t bathed since the Nixon administration.

​Their inclusion is comedic genius. They provide a level of humor that is so aggressive and misplaced that it circles back around to being high art. When Ethel starts screaming about what she’s going to do to those kids, it isn’t classic horror dialogue; it’s a full-throttle screech straight at your eardrums. They represent the Ugly World philosophy of the movie, everyone in this county is a lunatic, which makes a man in a hockey mask feel almost… normal.

The MPAA Massacre

​Part V is legendary among the horror community for being the most censored film in the series. The original cut was reportedly so drenched in blood that the MPAA threatened to give it an X rating.​ The gore may be pared down, but the viciousness survives. This isn’t the cartoonish violence of the later sequels, this shit is just nasty.

The Road Flare: A kill so horrible it sticks in the back of your throat.

​The Leather Strap: Wrapping a strap around a guy’s head and a tree and twisting? That’s not a supernatural zombie at work; that’s a man who enjoys the sound of a skull cracking.​

The kills in A New Beginning feel personal. Because it’s not Jason, because it’s a man driven by a break from reality, every stabbing feels like a desperate act of human madness. The horror might have been trimmed, but the blade stayed sharp.​

The Ballad of Demon and Reggie the Reckless

​If you don’t love Demon, we have a problem. Demon (played with surprising soul by Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) is the undisputed king of the Friday side-characters. He lives in a trailer. He loves enchiladas. He has a direct and engaging relationship with his girlfriend, Anita.​

The outhouse scene is a peak moment of the franchise. Most slashers treat the bathroom as a place for a quick jump-scare. Part V treats it as a venue for a romantic duet. Demon singing through the walls while struggling with stomach cramps (let’s be real, it was the enchiladas) is the kind of humor that makes this movie so good. When the killer finally shows up, it’s not just a kill; it’s a tragedy. We lost a real one.​

But then we have Reggie the Reckless. Usually, kids in horror movies are either annoying (see: Joey) or metaphysical weirdos (see: Tommy). Reggie is actually cool. He’s brave, he’s resourceful, and he doesn’t take any shit. Watching him square off with Pseudo-Jason turns the third act into a white-knuckle showdown that never lets up.

The Roy Burns Conspiracy: Justice for the Paramedic​

Let’s crack open the Roy chest. The big reveal: it’s not Jason Voorhees. It’s Roy Burns, the paramedic who arrives to collect Joey’s butchered corpse and who may be more connected to the boy than anyone realises.

The fans in ’85 felt cheated. They wanted the original undead powerhouse. But Roy is a fascinating study in psychotic breaks.​

The Imposter Syndrome: Roy is so dedicated to the bit that he manages to teleport around the woods with the same supernatural efficiency as the real Jason.

​The Blue Chevrons: A subtle detail that signals to the audience that something is off.​

The Human Element: Roy isn’t an unstoppable force of nature; he’s a grieving father who happens to be a world-class slasher. It drapes the film in a darker, more decadent atmosphere.

The reveal that Roy is the killer turns Part V into a “Who-is-it?” mystery. Throughout the film, Steinmann drops clues about Tommy’s fragile state, making you think Tommy might be the one under the mask. By shifting the blame to Roy, the movie explores the idea that Jason isn’t just a person, he’s an infection. A virus that turns anyone who gets too close into a monster.​

The Sexploitation DNA

To truly understand why A New Beginning feels so different from the polished Final Chapter or the supernatural Jason Lives, you have to look at the wizard behind the curtain: Danny Steinmann. Steinmann didn’t come up through the ranks of horror aficionados; he came from the world of grit, grime, and sexploitation.​

When you watch Part V, you aren’t just watching a slasher; you’re watching a descent into a world where everyone is either sweaty, screaming, or about to be stabbed. The pacing of the film mimics a street-level thriller. The lighting is harsher, the character archetypes are broader, and the treatment of the victims feels like a deliberate middle finger to the slasher tropes of the time.

​In most Friday movies, the classic victims are innocent camp counselors. In Part V, they are troubled teens in a halfway house. This changes the stakes. It adds a layer of social commentary, these are the kids society threw away, and now they’re being hunted by a man society forgot. It gives the movie an undercurrent that makes the humour even darker. When Vic buries an axe in Joey after one too many interruptions, it’s not just a kill; it’s a statement on how thin the veneer of civilization really is in the woods of Crystal Lake.​

The Theology of the Blue Chevrons​

We need to get technical for a second. Every fan worth their salt knows that Jason’s mask usually features three red triangles (chevrons). In Part V the mask swaps Jason’s classic red chevrons for blue ones, a subtle visual cue that something about this ‘Jason’ isn’t quite right. This isn’t just a costume department mistake; it’s a sign that this killer’s world is operating under its own twisted logic.

​The blue chevrons represent the Pseudo-Jason. They are the mark of the imposter. But what’s fascinating is how Roy Burns, a simple paramedic, managed to acquire a hockey mask that so perfectly mimicked the legend of a man who died just a few years prior. This suggests that the legend of Jason Voorhees has become a folk-hero myth in this universe. Roy isn’t just killing; he’s performing as Jason. He’s a cosplayer with a body count.

​It makes the mask more than a prop, it’s about its power. Tommy Jarvis spends the entire movie terrified that the mask is calling to him, while Roy is actually wearing it. It creates a sense of identity crisis. Is the monster the man, or is the monster the image of the hockey mask itself? For a movie that features a song about enchiladas, that’s some surprisingly deep philosophy.​

Hubbard Horror: Gothic Decay in the Countryside

Let’s go back to Ethel and Junior, because one section isn’t enough to contain their glory. Every corner of the Hubbard farm drips with obsessive, grotesque detail. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the 1930s. The clash between Pinehurst’s sterile halls and the Hubbards’ rotting kitchen heightens every uneasy beat of the film.

​Ethel Hubbard isn’t just a character; she’s a force of nature. Her dialogue is delivered with a venom that makes her more terrifying than Roy. When she goes down with a machete through the skull, landing in her own stew, it’s pure 80s mayhem. She is the unwashed queen of the franchise, a reminder that the world of Friday the 13th isn’t just about Jason; it’s also about the weirdos who live in his shadow.​

Barn Loft Bloodbath

The final twenty minutes of A New Beginning are a masterclass in relentless tension. Once the rain starts, the movie shifts from a “Who-is-it?” mystery into a full-blown chase.​

Pam Roberts (played by Melanie Kinnaman) is one of the more underrated final girls. She doesn’t just run; she fights back with a chainsaw. The image of Pam, soaked to the bone, wielding a buzzsaw in a rain-drenched barn while a man in a hockey mask looms over her, is pure iconography.

​And then there’s the payoff with Tommy. When Tommy finally faces Roy on the barn loft, he isn’t just fighting a killer; he’s fighting the Jason in his own head. The fear here is that we want Tommy to win, but we’re also terrified of what he might become if he does. John Shepherd’s performance in these final moments is incredible in its intensity. He’s a hero who is one bad day away from being the villain.​

Why I Love It

​Why does Part V still matter in 2026? Because it dared to fling the classic slasher formula into uncharted territory, sleazier, nastier, and gloriously unhinged. You don’t need Jason stomping through the woods to get a nightmare that sticks to your brain like guts on polyester, you can put a simple paramedic in a knock off mask and still rack up the kills.

From outhouse mishaps to barn loft showdowns, every scene crackles with manic energy, every kill feels personal, and every weird side character leaves a mark you can’t shake. It’s chaos distilled into ninety-eight minutes of rain-soaked, chainsaw-swinging, leather-strapped madness, a movie that lives for the absurd and thrives on the grotesque. Watch it at 2:00 AM. Turn the volume up, and let your freak flag fly, because this is one slasher that refuses to be forgotten.