Personally, I kind of liked Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, but apparently the fans disagreed. It used a gimmick that didn’t satisfy them, so the series reverts to prior tactics with the next iteration, 1986’s Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

Plagued by hallucinatory visions of murderous Jason Voorhees (CJ Graham), Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) feels the need for closure. He decides to unearth Jason’s body, and he indeed discovers the rotting corpse of his tormentor. Not rotting enough, however, as a lighting bolt strikes the cadaver and restores Jason to life.

The killer soon makes short work of Tommy’s buddy Hawes (Ron Palillo), but Jarvis escapes. He rushes to notify Forest Green’s Sheriff Garris (David Kagen) - they renamed it from Crystal Lake to leave behind the Jason connotations - but the authorities ignore him and toss him in the pokey. In the meantime, the slasher resumes his reign of terror when he slays two lost camp counselors.

The other camp leaders pester Garris to do look for them, but even though he’s the father of counselor Megan (Jennifer Cooke), he ignores their pleas. Tommy tries to warn them about Jason, which irritates Garris even more, and he decides to escort Jarvis to the edge of his jurisdiction. Megan and Tommy show some romantic sparks in their brief interactions, and she starts to wonder if there might be some truth to his tale.

After some drama, the sheriff dumps Tommy on the outskirts of town and warns him not to return. The camp opens up and gets kids involved while Jason continues on his violent rampage. Matters complicate because the sheriff thinks Tommy’s behind the murders, so he attempts to nab our ostensible hero. The movie follows the long string of killings and Tommy’s attempts to stop Jason.

Sign you’re in for a bad horror movie: the first act includes an actor from Welcome Back Kotter and it’s not John Travolta. (Heck, even if it is Travolta, it’s not a good omen.) Granted, it’s a cheap thrill to see Horshack get sliced by Jason, even though he seems awfully old to pal around with teen Tommy.

That’s about the only minor fun to be had from Lives. Arguably the cheesiest of the series, this one screams “Eighties” more than any other. From the music to the fashions, it hasn’t aged well.

It also comes across as more toothless, largely because it presents the first Friday in which kids actually attend camp. This means there’s no way the movie can achieve its gory potential. There’s no way a mainstream series like Friday will start to kill little kids, so the amount of tension drops.

It doesn’t help that the movie telegraphs other concepts. We know exactly which adults will live or die because Lives sets up characters with no purpose other than to be Jason fodder. The prior flicks made us think that virtually anyone could die at any minute. Here, too many characters exist just to get chopped up, and with the zero potential to see Jason kill the little kids, the movie fails to create anxiety.

Lives also suffers because it’s the brightest and peppiest Friday to date. It has more of a comic book feel than its predecessors, with an oddly light and perky tone. It’s broader and more comedic than usual, which made it come across like part of the Nightmare on Elm Street series more than a Friday flick. Much of this was intentional, and often Lives plays like a spoof. It doesn’t work and feels more like awkward self-parody than knowing self-reference.

I thought New Beginning was better than usual because it included some real psychological darkness. All of that goes down the crapper for this campy offering. Previously, Tommy was a wreck, but here he’s just a standard issue hero. What happened to the haunted kid of the prior movie? It makes no sense that he suddenly is “cured”.

One of the crummiest entries in the series, Jason Lives fails on almost all levels. It lacks logic and seems too bubbly and silly to fit in with its predecessors. A couple of decent moments pop up but that’s about it, as most of the movie really stinks.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. The best looking of the Friday transfers to date, this one rarely faltered.

Sharpness seemed very positive. At no time did I encounter any signs of softness or fuzziness. Instead, the movie consistently came across as nicely detailed and crisp. I witnessed no problems with jagged edges or shimmering, and I also saw no signs of edge enhancement. Print flaws stayed minimal. Early in the flick, I noticed a bit of grain and a few specks, but those soon went away and left us with a clean presentation.

Lives went with a palette that seemed awfully bright for a Friday movie, but I can’t complain about the reproduction of those tones. The colors consistently looked lively and dynamic. No particular hues dominated, as the movie presented a broad and vivid spectrum of colors that were solid. Blacks also seemed tight and deep, while shadows appeared smooth and taut. Even with a few minor flaws, this remained an excellent transfer.

Miracle of miracles, for the first time, we got a Friday flick without a monaural soundtrack. Lives came with an Ultra-Stereo that was essentially just Dolby Surround with a gimmicky name. Never mind - at least the audio presented a good impression, and it certainly vastly outdid its predecessors. The soundfield created a good sense of setting. Music offered solid stereo imaging, while effects spread neatly and cleanly across the front. They blended well and brought about a smooth impression. Surround usage didn’t stand out as exceptional, but the rear speakers added dimensionality to the proceedings and were reasonably active.

Audio quality was very good. Speech always came across as natural and distinctive, with no problems related to edginess or intelligibility. Music was lively and dynamic. The score and songs showed good range and clear reproduction. Effects also sounded accurate and broad. They demonstrated clean highs and fairly deep bass response. This wasn’t a dazzling soundtrack, but it sounded quite good, especially given the age of the movie.

This version of Friday the 13th Part VI comes as part of a package entitled From Crystal Lake to Manhattan - Ultimate Edition DVD Collection. It gathers the first eight Friday flicks onto four discs and adds a fifth platter of supplements. Four of the flicks include commentaries that I’ll discuss when I get to those movies. Since Paramount designed the set as a connected package, I didn’t give the individual discs grades for supplements; I’ll reserve those for an overall review of the fifth DVD.

Half of the eight movies include no supplements, but Part VII comes with an audio commentary. We hear from director Tom McLoughlin as he provides a running, screen-specific track. I didn’t think much of the movie, but McLoughlin gives us a nice look at this film. He discusses the actors and casting, the flick’s tone and sensibility, locations and related challenges, visual effects, cut sequences and graphic footage dropped for ratings reasons, and a variety of production anecdotes. McLoughlin proves consistently chatty and personable. He covers the film’s creation in a fairly concise and involving manner that makes this a positive commentary.

One of the series’ weakest efforts, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives feels like an awkward attempt to make it something it’s not. It looks as though they wanted to give it more of a Nightmare on Elm Street vibe and seems too goofy and inane to deliver the requisite scares. The DVD presents excellent picture with very good audio and an interesting audio commentary. The DVD quality is good enough for Friday fans to dig this release, but I can’t recommend the terrible movie to anyone else.