Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

HomeyTao For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

ClassicHorror Jason lives 1986 is the best Friday the 13th in my opinion. It has everything a Jason movie needs, the intense Jason scenes, the sound FX, the music, the acting, the filmography, the locations, everything ties together to make a great movie.This is the scariest Friday the 13th by far. None of the others even come close.One reason why Jason lives is so scary and serious is because while the movie does have some comedy to it, none of the comedy or jokes are aimed at Jason. So it keeps Jason scary and nothing to be laughing at about him.10/10, plus how can you not like that dudes ripped up jeans, or the RV scene!

Robert McElwaine The sixth in producer Sean S. Cunningham's humdrum horror franchise, the fifth sequel which would have seemed like a somewhat pointless venture, as it has increasingly just become an excuse to milk as much out of the Friday the 13th cash cow for all it's worth. However with Jason Lives, a title which is something of a contradiction in terms given the context of the story, the series went in something of a new direction as there was a divergence in to supernatural territory. It also adopted a more comedic tone with writer/director Tom McLoughlin taking up the reigns. With the psychotic, hockey masked mummy's boy lying peacefully in his grave after coming to a an unceremonious end at the end of The Final Chapter (a moniker that would prove to be an ironic misnomer), Tommy Jarvis, (Thom Matthews) the troubled hero of Jason Lives, and who was the young boy survivor of that film who's character was again, seen in the lacklustre A New Beginning, can't put Jason to rest in his mind. Determined to do so he breaks out of the mental institution where he has been residing with fellow patient Allen Hawed (Ron Palillo) to exhume the killers grave and burn his maggot infested corpse to cinders. Of course things don't go quite according to plan when Tommy, who upon clasping eyes on Jason's decomposing remains stabs it with a metal fence post after snapping and briefly losing his composure. What follows is a tremendously silly resurrection scene as a bolt of lightning strikes the metal fence post, still embedded in the lifeless body and reanimates the murderous behemoth. Tommy manages to evade Jason while Allen proves not to be quite so lucky. Donning his iconic hockey masked, the newly zombified killer sets off for Camp Crystal Lake, which has been renamed Forest Green with an inevitable blood bath and a showdown between Tommy and his old nemesis on the cards.From the offset, it would be quite easy to mistake Jason Lives as just another generic slasher movie in a franchise which had already ran out of steam by the time it's fifth instalment had come along. Although quite frankly, the first movie was nothing more than a poor man's Halloween and it's sequels flat out mundane. Thankfully however, while not a classic of it's genre but any stretch of the imagination, this outing manages to stand out among the rest. Silly and dumb though the film is, it's more knowing in this regard and Tom McLoughlin who directed as well as wrote the screenplay treats the material with more affectionate irreverence. It's dumb and silly but it's blatantly so that he's winking at the audience from behind the camera. I'd go so far as to say that as it stands, it could be seen as a precursor to Wes Craven's Scream Movies. The story itself is of course standard fare and the means of Jason's rising from the grave is downright ridiculous, and owes some kind of of a debt to the Frankenstein story. Jason after all is a lumbering monster in a similar vein to Mary Shelly's iconic antagonist. There's also some stupid plot twists with the actions of the movies main heroine investing too much trust in a short amount of time in the movies frantic hero. The Sheriff is also your hackneyed obstacle (who is also conveniently the father of the lead female) who typically doesn't heed the main protagonists warnings and eventually suspects him as being the killer. As for the overall standard of the acting, they're solid enough although ropy at times but then I wasn't exactly expecting Academy Award winning quality here, and it could have been worse than it actually is. Never the less, if you leave your brain behind and just go with it, it's not bad fun and there's some innovative kill scenes. Yes, the scene with the executive paint-ballers is too comedic and clownish and is out of sync with the whole tone of the rest of the movie, while the fact that none of the kids under the care of the camp counsellors miraculously go unharmed is unconvincing, but this is still watchable undemanding fodder which while not a class of it's genre makes for a passable enough way to waste an hour and a half of your time. Plus it has the added bonus of that thumping good theme tune performed by Alice Cooper

Eric Stevenson This entry in the series actually started off pretty well. It seemed the movie was taking shots at itself with the one guy looking at the camera and blaming the audience for considering this entertainment. A girl says that she knows that those wearing masks in horror movies are not friendly. I heard that this might have been trying to be a self parody of the series. By the second half, it just abandons it. We get the same scenes of the kills over and over and it's rarely interesting. I will at least give this film credit for somewhat trying to be a good movie. The makeup is quite impressive. I really do like Tommy Jarvis here as it's interesting for a series with so few recurring characters to have a protagonist.It seriously probably is the second best movie in the series next to the original. It does kind of set up the mythology well. What fails is that it doesn't make any sense. In the previous movie, it was said that Jason's body was already cremated, but here it isn't. Maybe that's more the fault of the previous movie, which really is worse. There have actually been three serial killers at Camp Crystal Lake (or Forest Green) at this point and it's simply stupid that they would try to suppress information on it. He's not Freddy Krueger. He doesn't become stronger the more you believe in him. Speaking of which, there's actually a girl here named Nancy who has a bad dream. Maybe it's the same Nancy from the Nightmare movies? I guess if you're really bored you can check this one out. This is a fan favorite and I really can see why. **

MaximumMadness "I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly."-Lizabeth, "Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI."Whelp, here you have it folks. Arguably the finest entry in the long-running "Friday the 13th" media franchise.Is it because it has the most hardcore, brutal kills of the series? Nope! Does it have the most bouncing bodies skinny-dipping in the water? Not at all! Does it have the most intense portrayal of psycho-killer Jason? Not a chance!No, this film succeeds as the best in the series for one simple reason: fun. It's just flat-out a fun movie. Thanks in no small part to a wickedly self-aware, satirical script courtesy writer/director Tom McLoughlin, filled to burst with savage meta-humor years before meta-humor was really a thing. Kevin Willaimson... eat your heart out! OK, I kid... I love Kevin Williamson... but McLoughlin did kind of beat him to the punch 10 years before "Scream" further revolutionized the idea of self-aware slasher-flicks.Tommy Jarvis (now portrayed by Thom Mathews in a role that more-or- less ignores the troubled Jarvis of Part V) has had enough of living in fear. He has decided to face his troubled past once and for all by digging up the body of Jason Voorhees and burning it to symbolically conquer his childhood trauma. But a hilarious bolt of lightning (in a cute nod to "Frankenstein") accidentally brings the beast back to life, now as an unstoppable "Super-Zombie!" Uh, oh. Now Tommy must team with the gorgeous daughter of the local sheriff (Jennifer Cooke) and try and stop the hulking Jason from taking out a new group of camp- counselors who are overseeing a children's summer-camp at the former Camp Crystal Lake. (Now referred to as "Forest Green.) What follows is a surprisingly hilarious and sometimes creepy mixture of laughs and thrills, in a Hellish roller-coaster ride of mayhem.McLoughlin really seems in his element with this film. While his other work has been hit-and-miss, his keen sense of postmodern meta- humor jives well with the outlandish nature of the story. Nobody was going to be able to really take Jason coming back to life after all this time seriously... so the curve-ball of having the story border on self-parody helps make it a bit more appetizing and easier to digest. And thankfully, it lends to a general feeling of freshness throughout the whole film. We've seen this movie before five times... but not quite like this. Seeing characters acknowledging the outlandish nature of events, punctuating dialog with witty and humorous cutaway gags, and making Jason's kills less brutal and more Looney-Tunes-esque is just great fun and both a nice compliment and contrast to the previous films.It also helps that this film has some of the best characters and performances since Part III. (I still love you, Shelly!) Thom Mathews makes for a fun new Tommy Jarvis, who is both troubled but also very proactive, in a nice contrast to mopey-Tommy from the last film. Cooke is adorable and spunky as our lead heroine Megan, and though she doesn't serve much outside of a general love-interest who occasionally gets in on the action, you still really like her and root for her. David Kagen eats up the role of the grumpy Sheriff who is gruff but has a soft-spot for his kid. And even the generic Camp Counselor fodder characters portrayed by actors such as Kerry Noonan and Renée Jones are surprisingly likable. This film thankfully eschews the standard cliché of having to define characters exclusively by singular quirks, and everyone feels a bit more grounded and realistic. They're all more-or-less decent people, which helps us actually care when Jason starts knocking them off.Add to that a really effective score by series composer Harry Manfredini, some really good cinematography from DP Jon Kranhouse and some really slick visual direction, and you just have a good, solid, fun time all around. There's no sore thumbs in the production either in front of or behind the camera. They all work together to generate a well-oiled machine of madness that I can't help but love.I'm somewhat shocked to be giving this such a high rating, but I have to. "Jason Lives" is a 9 out of 10 as a horror fan. It's phenomenal entertainment, and it's self-aware sense of humor may even win over a few non-fans as well.