As with all the previous Fridays, the movie winds on an extended dream sequence, this time making it a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-possible-dream. The faux Jason's been disposed of, so the movie concludes by hinting that Tommy will be taking over the slash work next time. That doesn't happen, of course, since the Big J returns from the cremated ashes in VI, so the image of Tommy donning that hockey mask at the movie's end proves to be just one more cheat. Par for the course with these flicks, of course.
Paramount's "deluxe" reissue contains many of the same types of features that have graced previous entries, though, unike the Final Chapter DVD, there isn't any found footage of the initially more graphic killings for our edification.
For all its considerable flaws as movie, Part Five looks pretty spiffy: the woods surrounding Crystal Lake have never appeared more inviting. I remember seeing a Siskel and Ebert show from around this time where the killjoy critics complained about the fact that strides in moviemaking technology made even the lowliest exploitation fodder look good onscreen. I'm not unsympathetic to this idea since I continue to hold that the much less slickly mounted first film remains the peak of this overextended horror series. But if you're tired of the faux handheld video look favored by too many horror pics these days, the old-fashioned approach is almost a visual relief.
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