Conceived as a direct response to the dark cynicism of A New Beginning, this entry is much lighter fare, with elements of gothic horror and humor that manages to be "dark" without going all the way to "black". This is the one that introduces "Zombie Jason" as Tommy Jarvis (now played by much less dour Thom Matthews) and a friend (played by the late Ron Palillo of Welcome Back, Kotter fame) dig up Jason's corpse (despite him being supposedly cremated as of New Beginning), only for him to be brought back to life via a lightning bolt. This opening is tremendous, as everything goes wrong for poor Tommy. Jason is brought back to life via the lightning bolt, and when Tommy gets the idea to light Jason on fire...it starts pouring rain just as he's about to strike a match. Poor Hawes gets his heart punched out, and Tommy gets the fuck out of dodge, leading to the AWESOME Bond-esque main title sequences.
Now we have our main character, Tommy, playing the "Crazy Ralph" role of warning everyone within earshot about Jason, only to have no one believe him. There are a bunch of in-jokes and references, before that became the hot thing to do when Scream hit it big as McLaughlin was given the OK to add as much humor as he wanted, as long as Jason himself wasn't made fun of.
There's even the return of the Friday tradition of casting a relative of a famous person, this time with John Travolta's nephew Tom Fridley as Cort. This movie also features Darcy DeMoss as his girlfriend Nikki. DeMoss, was originally in the running for Debbiesue Voorhees' role in A New Beginning, but did not get the job after turning down a proposition from Danny Steinmann and refusing to show him her breasts.
The only real series continuity problems, aside from largely ignoring A New Beginning, are the ones it creates by giving Crystal Lake the new name of Forrest Green, which is in turn promptly ignored by The New Blood. This was also very obviously not filmed in New Jersey, where it's supposed to be set (the movie was shot in and around Covington, Georgia).
I have, and will continue to, make the argument that this is not just a good Friday, but a good movie period. McLaughlin has a lot of fun within the constraints of the formula, and does a lot to make it stand out from the other sequels, not just with the humor, but the action movie elements as well. McLaughlin does a good job of straddling the line between humor adding to a movie, or taking away from it (like say, Scream 4). After the unrelenting bleakness of A New Beginning, the light-heartedness of Jason Lives is a welcome breath of fresh air.
The only real negative I have with this one is that there are times where Matthews is clearly having too much fun for what his character is supposedly going through, especially when the sheriff's daughter helps him escape the jail and head back to the camp.
Despite being largely bloodless (aside from the ridiculous aftermath of one off-screen death), there are still some memorable kills here, namely the triple decapitation of the paint ball players, and the back breaking of the sheriff.
The final showdown between Tommy & Jason is pretty good, even if it didn't need the kids involved, and there's some editing issues with part of the scene being shot on location with normal night, and other parts clearly being shot elsewhere (most likely a pool, I can't remember) with pitch blackness surrounding everything. The shot of Jason's neck getting destroyed as actually shot in McLaughlin's parents' pool, as he tells the story in Crystal Lake Memories and any kind of special edition of this movie about destroying it to the horror of his mother, and the amusement of his dad, who loved that his son got a shot to direct a "big" movie. The tease of Jason potentially killing Tommy is well done, and the babyface victory seems well-earned and climactic.
***1/2 Definitely the high point of the series. It delivers almost everything that the Friday audience could want (missing only nudity), while not taking itself too seriously. A grand finale to the "Jarvis Trilogy".
FUN FACT #1: This is the first one since the original to explicitly take place on a Friday the 13th.
FUN FACT #2: McLoughlin wrote the script during Christmas season, which influenced the original title, Jason Has Risen.
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