Meta Jason
We’re past the halfway point of May and Trace and I have already watched a number of unusual films and had great conversations! Last week we tackled the most contemporary film we’ve ever discussed on the pod with non-binary filmmaker Jane Schoebrun’s We’re All Going To The World’s Fair (2021) and the week before that we tackled our first-ever Mexican film in The Untamed (2016) which…features tentacle sex.
We’re coming back to earth this week to discuss another Friday the 13th. This time we opted for Part VI: Jason Lives, the 1986 film from Tom McLoughlin, which is way smarter and more innovative than its franchise predecessors. I mean, sure, it still has a ridiculously high number of Red Shirts who exist solely to be killed (hello corporate retreat!) but it’s got a great final girl and a number of sly “wink wink, nudge nudge” jokes that set this installment apart.
In the film, Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews) can’t resist checking on the grave of Jason Voorhees (C.J. Graham), inadvertently re-awakening the unstoppable murderer during a freak lightning strike. Now Tommy must partner with Megan (Jennifer Cooke), the Sheriff’s daughter, in order to protect the people of Forest Hills. These townspeople believe they buried Crystal Lake when they put the notorious killer in the ground, but will they live to survive the night?
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Episode 176 – Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
It’s another Friday the 13th, so we’re back on the Jason Voorhees beat with Jason Lives (1986), the sixth entry in the franchise and also its smartest? That’s the argument Trace makes, though Joe is less certain about its humor.
What we both agree on is that the Tom McLoughlin film has a (mostly) great final girl in Megan, a hot Tommy Jarvis, and Jason’s got a tight heinie.
Plus: the Camp Blood card game (here are the rules), the film’s best death and scariest sequences, and justice for Sissy and Paula, who deserved more screen time than those corporate paintballers!
Cross out Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re headed back Down Under for a look at toxic masculinity in the horror adjacent Oxploitation film, Wake in Fright (1971)! C/W for extreme (real life) animal deaths – there are two sequences involving kangaroos being hunted (the second is the worst).
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 180 hours of additional content! This month, we’re discussing horror movies that make us cry, Shudder’s new zombie movie The Sadness, the remake of Firestarter, Alex Garland’s Men and an audio commentary on 28 Weeks Later to commemorate its 15th anniversary!