Friday the 13th Movies: Ranked Worst to Best

3. Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Paramount Pictures

In Friday The 13th Part VI, we have to deal with Tommy Jarvis for the third, and final, time. This Tommy guy's almost in more F13 movies than Jason himself. I'm glad he's gone. I never liked the character. Despite Tommy's appearance, I really liked Part VI. I feel it advanced the franchise in great leaps, giving us the Jason we've come to know and love.

Tom McLoughlin, who wrote and directed the film, obviously had a little more leeway (or maybe just more imagination) than previous writers and directors. The main plot revolves around Tommy and his quest to exorcise his Jason-related demons. If you'll recall, 12-year-old Tommy "killed" Jason at the end of Part IV. He then witnessed a Jason impersonator hack his way through the movie in Part V. In Part VI, he decides to dig up Jason's body and cremate it, thereby destroying Jason forever. Silly boy.

After disinterring Jason, Tommy decides to stab the rotting corpse a few times with a hunk of nearby iron fence that's conveniently loose. Unfortunately, a flash storm comes along and strikes the fence hunk while it still rests in Jason's torso. The electrical jolt infuses Jason with new life (a trick we see happen in Part VIII as well). Tommy's friend is killed, but Tommy gets away. Jason then begins hacking his way through another movie until he is once again defeated as the movie comes to a close.

This movie gave us the Jason we see in nearly all future F13 films. It imbued Jason with a degree of supernatural life, introducing us to the fact that Jason can never be fully killed. Until this episode, we'd seen Jason as a tough, but mortal killer - he wasn't the killer in Part I, we never saw the final battle in Part II, he was possibly killed in Part III but Part IV showed him still alive after the events of Part III. Finally, in Part IV he was hacked up by Tommy and, at last, dead. And of course, he was not the killer in Part V.

Now, in Part VI, we see Jason resurrected, like Frankenstein's monster, by lightning. The immortal Jason has arrived, and he proves it repeatedly as he absorbs shotgun blasts and handgun bullets with no detrimental effects. In this film we also get to see, for the first time, Jason defeated by his only weakness - water.

Part VI ends with Jason chained by the neck to a rock at the bottom of Crystal Lake. His eyes remain open and filled with life, but he is powerless to free himself. I guess the water makes him too weak to slip a chain noose off his neck. There is one more small plot point that I think is important to the legend of Jason.

In one scene, Tommy tries to warn the police that Jason is alive and will return to Crystal Lake, because that's his home. If I remember correctly (and I think I do) none of the movies after Part I specifically take place at Camp Crystal Lake until this film, Part VI. Three of the next four F13 movies also take us away from Crystal Lake (although Part VIII and Jason X both begin at Crystal Lake), but I think we'll eventually return.

Contributor

Tim is a varied character. He's lived on three continents. He hates ice cream. He has been a highly-paid computer programmer. He invents collectible card games. He is a coffee shop owner. He has had fantasy stories published in magazines. Eventually he wishes to retire from life and become a professional 10-pin bowler who writes articles while living in his RV and traveling from bowling tournament to bowling tournament with his faithful wife in tow. And of course, Tim is a major horror and science fiction fan.