It's difficult to say which movie in the Friday the 13th franchise is the worst of the lot. This is because there are so many candidates. Jason Takes Manhattan (Part 8) was pretty bad, but it did at least have some campy humor to make things interesting. Jason Goes to Hell (Part 9) had better production values, but the premise was absurd and the film itself a chore to sit through.
But my personal vote would go to Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning as the worst of all. Not only is it perhaps the most generic film in the franchise, it has few redeeming qualities at all, including a twist ending that's underwhelming to say the least.
The film begins just a few years after the end of Part 4, where Jason Voorhees was killed by young Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman). Jarvis, now a teenager (John Shepherd), is being transferred to a halfway house for troubled teens in the middle of nowhere. Jarvis is still haunted by Jason, whom he fears is still alive. After one of the teens at the house murders another with an axe, the entire area is beset by brutal killings suggesting that Tommy's fears are well-founded. Jason is back.
The characters at the halfway house are straight out of the generic horror film pantheon; a sort of C-level Breakfast Club. There's the really fat, sloppy and annoying guy. There's the punk rocker with headphones glued to her ears. And there are the two nubile youngsters who — literally — do nothing but frolic and fornicate.
The actor who plays the director of the halfway house (Richard Young) seems generally indifferent, as if he were just passing by that day and was asked to be in a movie. Also living at the house is a sassy young black child (a staple of all '80s entertainment), whose brother lives in the local trailer park smoking dope and, sadly, meeting his untimely end inside an outhouse.
To be fair, it is possible to enjoy a horror movie even with these obvious drawbacks. The fourth part of the series (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) is pretty enjoyable and is easily one of the best of the franchise. But that film at least had some charm, humor, and a tacit understanding of its awfulness. That's very hard to find in A New Beginning.
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