Who Is The Killer In ‘Friday The 13th Part V’? (& How It Almost Killed The Series)
Friday the 13th is a franchise that changed and evolved in ways that no one could have expected when the first film was released in 1980. This also included a whole film in which Jason Voorhees was not only absent from the film, but there was a totally different killer who looked like him.
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985) marked a shift in the franchise and tried to build back the mystery angle from the original. However, one rule changed that and killed the franchise, introducing to us a killer that no fan gravitated towards, even if his motivation was sound.
Who Is the Killer in ‘Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning’?
When Jason Voorhees was killed by Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), it was meant to be the end of the Voorhees story, and A New Beginning sought to hold up their end of the bargain. Set five years after the film, we see Tommy has grown up in an institution to help him deal with the trauma of his past.
When one of the other patients kills a young man in a fit of rage, a rash of killings by a hockey mask-wearing killer emerges. Of course, this begins to feed feelings of fear and doubt in Tommy's mind, and it's only after multiple killings that we learn the true killer was paramedic Roy Burns, the father of the young man who was killed at the start of the film.
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning had all the makings of another great slasher mystery but was unfortunately stuck in the shadow of Jason Voorhees. This was evident by the killer still looking like Jason and making it feel half-hearted in executing a new era for the franchise. Part of that was also due to studio mandates that hurt the film.
In the end, A New Beginning was an ambitious film that failed to make a mark in terms of audience appreciation. It's still one of the most divisive films in the series, as it's the only one without a Voorhees, and decades later, it shows in unexpected ways.
We Almost Had a Passing of the Torch in ‘Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning’
When the franchise was ready to put Jason Voorhees behind it, it meant that a new killer had to be introduced, and the one they had in mind was none other than Tommy Jarvis. The tragic hero and protagonist of the middle part of the series, his second appearance had him be the film's last jump scare as he wore a hockey mask and knife with the intent of killing Pam.
The reason for this was a studio stipulation that, as the story progressed, Tommy would be the franchise's new slasher. A tragic ending for the character also left the series in a strange place, as the character who was a hero is now supposed to be as intimidating as Jason; a feat that's impossible to achieve.
This wouldn't be the last time that slasher icons would evolve into someone new either, as Halloween Ends (2022) tried to do this with Corey Cunningham, and Candyman (2021) was made solely to continue the legacy of the character with a new face. But these passing-of-the-torch angles almost never work out, as there's a reason one slasher is an icon, and it's not hard to understand why. Nevertheless, history proved that Tommy was not fated for the hockey mask.
‘Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning’ Had One Rule That Nearly Killed the Franchise
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning tried its hardest to be a film that felt akin to the original. The first Friday the 13th was a slasher mystery in which the kills were brutal, but we tuned in to try and understand and figure out who the killer was, only to be sideswiped by the reveal that it's Pamela Voorhees. To go back to the roots of the series would've been a great thing for A New Beginning but, sadly, that wasn't in the cards.
Per another studio mandate, Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning had to have a kill or a jump scare every 7 to 8 minutes, making for a very energetic film and also one that wasn't what the filmmakers even wanted. These scares and kills took away from the slow-burn mystery that could've made the movie a standout, and it felt like the studios were just riding the wave of the series and nothing else.
At this point, a Friday the 13th film was coming out once a year, and they were made so fast and on a low budget; this began to become obvious to the audiences. A New Beginning only nearly became the straw that broke the camel's back, as no one wanted to tune in to a film that was overstuffed with jump scares and also had nothing to do with its main antagonist. As a result, A New Beginning became one of the lowest-rated movies in the franchise and nearly marked the end of the series.
Of course, we all know how the next film, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), brought back Jason and gave him supernatural powers, but these additions weren't just for show, as they were meant to give people a new reason to come back to the theaters to see him. Jason was different, Tommy was a hero, and all was right with the world again. But the tragedy is the mystery that was being made before, and a new era for the series was dead in the water (pun intended).
Decades later, we can look back on Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning and see how it dared to be different with a new killer and a new narrative angle, but how a studio meddling changed what could've been a good idea into a bad one. It's a monument to what could have been that we will never see the full vision of.
