As for the requisite counselor slashings, McLoughlin ups the stakes by, for the first time, actually showing a whole group of living breathing kids at the camp. One pair of boys gets to crack wise during Jason's final assault on the camp ("So what were you gonna be when you grew up?" one asks his buddy), while a cute little girl gets to deliver an unheeded early warning. Nobody listens to anyone young in these movies!
Though the movie's killings are plentiful, they're treated both less explicitly and more cartoonishly than they were in earlier flicks. In one outlandish gag, for instance, a paint baller gets his face smashed into a tree, leaving behind a bloody smiley face in the trunk; in another, Jason lops off three heads with a single swath of his machete. Having established Jason's supernatural creds, the moviemakers decided to focus on "kills that were almost impossible for a person to do," as McLoughlin states in the DVD's "Making Of Friday the 13th –- Part VI" feature. The heightened unreality didn't make the ratings board go any easier on the flick, however, as a feature showing "Slashed Scenes" makes clear. Though the uncut killings were still pretty tame as these things go, the fx folk were still forced to trim their best gags.
Paramount's "Deluxe Edition" DVD contains many of the usual bells and whistles, though there's one fresh moment entitled "Meeting Mr. Voorhees." It features a series of storyboards depicting an originally planned appearance by the hitherto-unseen husband to game show regular Betsy Palmer's Mama Voorhees. The moment doesn't really tell us much, though it does hint at future plots never to be developed. Wonder who they would've gotten for the role of Daddy V., anyway? Orson Bean, perhaps?
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