So apparently nobody bothered to get Jason’s body out of the lake after Part 6. Great idea. I’m sure nothing bad could possibly happen from leaving the most vicious mass murderer of all time chained to a rock and floating a foot or two from the surface of Crystal Lake (oh and by the way, it’s called Crystal Lake again). And how is it that the filmmakers choose to have Jason brought back from the (half) dead? Telekinesis, of course.
Okay, so the setup is hokey and makes pretty much no sense, it is an interesting choice on a subtextual level. Telekinesis, a power that typically only manifests itself in young women (at least the young women of Brian DePalma films anyway) seems to have some connection to sexual awakening. And since Jason is a sexually stunted man who murders people in what basically amounts to rape (repeatedly penetrating women with pointed objects), it’s quite appropriate that he is brought back by a force that draws its power from burgeoning sexuality. Unfortunately, as depicted in this film, telekinesis is simultaneously pretty lame and pretty ineffectual.
But that’s not really the problem with the film. No, the real problem is the plot and the fact that there is an attempt at one. People come to Camp Crystal Lake to try and get laid and be cool, Jason kills them all except for one, the end. That’s the plot of a Friday the 13th. But no, this film has to add some mother-daughter issues and a sleazy psychiatrist who is trying to profit from his charge’s gift on top of the trying to get laid and look cool stuff. There’s just too much going on. And I don’t know if it’s fact that the filmmakers are trying to do too much that lead them to make the other characters (aside from the Girl Who Lives and her boyfriend) such tools, but man did I want to see some of these people die.
Although, come to think of it, wanting desperately to see people killed does put the viewer in a very strange place. While not exactly identifying with the killer, it makes the scary scenes far less so, if you don’t care about the survival of the victim. I don’t know, all this Friday the 13th has sort of inured me to the scary scenes in these films. Not because they are repetitive (although they are to some extent) but because no one ever survives (except, of course, the Girl Who Lives). If Jason comes after you, you die. It’s just a question of when and how horribly. So it seems a little silly to be concerned for someone’s safety if you know they ain’t gonna make it. Which, in terms of Part 7, means that when you see Jason going after one of these hateful people (they make fun of the telekinetic girl for going to a shrink, for chrissake) you can enjoy the entire sequence just as you did back in the beginning of the series. Yes, you enjoy the scene in an entirely different way, but it is enjoyment nonetheless. It’s injecting life back into the scary moments of the film and that’s something that seemed all but impossible after the last two sequels.
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