The reboot -- Hollywood's answer to reviving a franchise that was given the commercial kiss-off previously. It's the go-to move when money mandates you give a series a second chance. In the case of Friday the 13th, Paramount had already promised that The Final Chapter would be the last installment in the Voorhees family legacy. Such a stance led to a really exceptional scare installment. But the cash created by the finale suggested there was still life in the old slasher stuff yet. So they reopened the mythos and tried to take it into an entirely new (but still wholly familiar) direction. The results, labeled A New Beginning, were indeed a revamp for slice and dice cinema. As usual, "new" did not equal "better" or "improved."

After hacking Jason Voorhees to death, Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman, and later John Shepherd) continues to be haunted by visions of the notorious killer. Said hallucinations have landed him in a number of institutions, the latest being a nature-themed community center called Pinehurst. There he meets the staff as well as the rest of the troubled teens needing managed mental care. When one of the kids is axed to death, the sullen Sheriff Tucker (Marco St. John) starts to fear that Tommy is turning into his old nemesis. As more bodies start turning up, the whole area grows wary, including Ethel (Carol Locatell), an irascible white trash mother and her bumbling, blubbery son Junior (Ron Sloan). They've hated Pinehurst ever since it moved in next to their property, and now with the rash of killings, their redneck anger is amplified even more.

There's nothing wrong with trying to turn Friday the 13th's iconic killer from a supernatural slayer to a more human-oriented horror. After all, with his skull split open and his guts spilling out, Jason's no longer much good at being the bad guy. Still, by taking Tommy, the only clear hero in all the slasher series' mythology, and turning him into our latest variation on the villain, is a major miscalculation. Sadly, it's not the only error in this uniformly mediocre movie. From the inbred clan who clamors like the Clampetts with rabies to the various reject sociopaths who pass for patients at Pinehurst, this flaccid fifth take is weak. When an actress's unusual dance to a forgotten Pseudo Echo track stands as the film's sole highlight, you know the shivers are scarce.

Like a Terminator movie without a Terminator, or a Chainsaw Massacre without Leatherface, the lack of a legitimate Jason Voorhees here is part of the problem. We don’t want to see someone mimic the maniac -- we want our deformed mama's boy and we want him now. The fact that A New Beginning was writer/director Danny Steinmann's feature film swansong says a lot about the level of perceived success here -- and with a creative canon consisting of previous lapses like The Unseen and Savage Streets, he really must have tanked. No one can compromise a Tinseltown treasure like the 13th series and get away with it, and it's not just the work behind the lens. The acting involved is atrocious, from Shepherd's deer in the headlights take on Tommy, to the literal "gag" that is Ethel and Junior.

All of which makes the film's typical horror moves that much more mundane. Had Steinmann something new to offer -- like Tom McLaughlin would with Jason Lives' zombie killer comedy angle -- he might have survived the fright fray. But deep down, A New Beginning is actually a final nail in the Voorhees-free idea of a Friday the 13th film.

The Deluxe Edition DVD includes a commentary track and retrospective making-of featurettes.