Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	83:32
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (53:26)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Tom McLoughlin
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Thom Mathews Jennifer Cooke David Kagen
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Harry Manfredini

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Slovenian French German Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Arabic Turkish Polish Italian Spanish Romanian Czech Hungarian German Titling Spanish Titling Italian Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, extremely
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Those of you out there who have been reading my Friday The 13th reviews for a while now will know how this one goes: in yet another remake of the not-so-special original, we see Jason Vorhees hack apart yet another brainless bunch of young adults. What makes Part VI, or Jason Lives, such a disappointment is that the previous sequel, A New Beginning, displayed some vestige of creativity by bringing the series back to its vague mystery roots. Not only does Jason Lives completely ignore this previous instalment, but in doing so, it raises some serious questions about series continuity that are never answered to any degree of adequacy.

    The plot, such as it is, begins with Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) attempting to dig Jason (C.J. Graham) up and burn him, just to make absolutely certain that he really is dead. Never mind that the police chief in the previous episode told us that Jason had been cremated, this is a Friday The 13th sequel, after all. To make a long story short, Tommy's plan backfires, and in a miracle of reanimation that Victor Frankenstein would have appreciated, Jason is brought back from the grave (nice going, Tommy). Of course, Tommy's accomplice, Allen Hawes (Ron Palillo) is found at the scene the very next day and promptly buried again by a caretaker named Martin (Bob Larkin), making it hard to convince people that Jason has arisen.

    A boring horror sequel is still a boring horror sequel, no matter what way you look at it, and all the gore, creative or otherwise, in the world cannot hide this fact. Tom McLoughlin's writing and direction is poor, to say the very least, and neither of these things offer anything vaguely new to either the series or the genre. If you're a fan of this series, I would recommend that you get this episode, but I would still caution you that there are a lot of other episodes you'd enjoy a lot better, such as the completely goofy third instalment.

Video

    Friday The 13th, Part VI is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced.

    Considering the age of the film, and the conditions it was shot under, this is a surprisingly sharp transfer. It won't win any awards, but it is still better than what I would have expected. The shadow detail is still only good at the best of times, but there is no low-level noise to spoil the abundance of black in the picture.

    The colours in this transfer are pretty muted and dull, giving the whole film that distinct 1986 look, but this is only to be expected. The transfer renders this arrangement with no difficulties.

    MPEG artefacts were not noticed in this transfer. There were occasional film-to-video artefacts, such as aliasing on the blade of Jason's machete, but this artefact was very well-controlled by the standards that were set by previous episodes in this franchise. Film artefacts frequently peppered the picture, with lots of small little white marks to be found at all times. Black marks were also occasionally noticed, but since this film is mostly set at night, they were much less of a problem.

    The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles on this disc are pretty faithful to the spoken dialogue, with just the occasional slight variation.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change taking place between Chapters 10 and 11, at 53:26. While this layer change is noticeable, it is acceptable in its placement.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five soundtracks on this DVD, all of which are in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 kilobits per second.

    The first, and default, soundtrack is the English dialogue. There are also dubs in German, French, Spanish, and Italian, none of which I listened to except to draw a ten-second comparison. The dubs sound particularly flat and unnatural compared with the original English.

    The dialogue is generally clear and easy to understand, although there are some phrases that get lost under the sound effects or just in the general manner of speech that the actors use. This is fairly typical of mid-1980s films, and nothing is going to change it short of a 5.1 remix, which may not be possible with this film anyway. There were no discernable problems with audio sync.

    The score music in this film is credited to Harry Manfredini, who seems to be improving with this instalment, using some genuinely creepy and atmospheric cues rather than the usual typical horror themes. Also included is a rather hilarious selection from a low point in Alice Cooper's career. I cannot remember the name of the song, but from what I could discern of the lyrics, it had something to do with a Frankenstein character. The score music is much better, but it is still somewhat dull after having finished listening to score music from one of the greatest films ever made.

    The surround channels were not involved in this soundtrack. Given the low-key nature of the film, there is little they could have done to improve it, except maybe provide some ambience for the constant rain.

    The subwoofer is also not used by this soundtrack, and it is more sorely missed. It could have been used quite well in some of the more violent scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and 16x9 Enhanced. Navigation is somewhat less straightforward than it should be.

Theatrical Trailer

    This ninety second trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.

    The Region 4 and Region 1 versions are pretty much identical, except the Region 1 version only contains English subtitles, and is not RSDL formatted. Given that the list price of the Region 1 version is US$29.99, I'd be inclined to stick with the Region 4 version.

    Friday The 13th, Part VI is a pretty sad excuse for a film, and is only recommended to those who are big fans of the hockey-masked main character. One would think that someone would try to come up with a more imaginative episode in the franchise, but it looks like that's never going to happen. Still, there are some fairly gruesome kills to be seen in this episode, which almost makes up for the lack of any character development.

    The video transfer is good.

    The audio transfer is good.

    The extra is pretty slack.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall