Friday The 13th: Ranking Every Movie From Worst To Best

2. Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

After the disappointment of the nasty Part V (which held a franchise record for most kills up until Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X), Paramount turned to Tom McLoughlin who had recently directed Meg Tilly in One Dark Night. It would turn out to be an inspired choice after the mis-step of Danny Steinmann. Here, McLoughlin, years before Scream, actually adds some humour to the mix but, most importantly of all, gives us characters we actually care about.

Tommy Jarvis, after years of trauma, decides to dig up Jason's corpse and burn it to ashes. Unfortunately for him, an ill-timed lightning strike brings the maggot covered corpse back to life and Jason is determined to head back to Crystal Lake (now Camp Forest Green) to pick up where he left off. Unfortunately for him, Tommy hooks up with Megan, daughter of the police chief, to try and stop the monster. When Tommy finally faces up to his nemesis, a battle ensues in the middle of the lake which leaves Jason chained to the bottom back where he began as a tragic child all those years ago.

The reasons why this film works are because McLoughlin tampers with the formula, but not too much (he filmed a scene with Elias Vorhees, Jason's father, who owns the cemetery but it was cut because it headed off into another direction too much). We actually have the camp open and full of kids, the teenage counsellors are actually likeable and have some funny scenes (witness Cort teaching the kids about Native American outdoor tracking techniques), the cops aren't too stupid with Sheriff Garris actually making some sensible decisions, and in Tommy and Megan we have a sweet couple we can actually root for. Also, the film is backed up by a cracking Alice Cooper soundtrack and some inventive deaths revolving around paintball, American Express cards and open-heart surgery.

Basically, McLoughlin looks like he cares about the franchise and the film. It's here that we first see Jason as the unstoppable killing machine which would reach its height with Uber-Jason in Jason X but we also have a coherent story and arc for Tommy, someone we've watched go from loner child to scarred teenager and now intelligent young man. It's a franchise high which didn't last but there is more wit and likeablity in the first five minutes of this film than in all of Platinum Dunes' recent output.