Metacritic reviews

Some of it is a bit too goofy – I could do without the overly slapstick antics of the goofy paintballer who finds out a paintball gun is not much use against Jason – but the comedy is still an appreciated aspect of the film, and it's nice to finally have a Friday the 13th film where someone says they've seen enough horror movies to drive away from the scary guy in the mask standing in the road.

Though it has the requisite murder every 10 minutes or so (including victims snapped in half and punched through the heart, and a triple decapitation), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives feels more like a harbinger for the Scream series with its self-aware jokiness.

Writer-director Tom McLoughlin, who made the scare entry One Dark Night, puts comic spin on some of the predictable material and turns in a reasonably slick performance under the circumstances.

When he crushes a patrolman's head between his hands, you think you're watching a happy campesino lusty for coconut milk; when he skewers a depraved camp counselor with a knife in the temple, he is the happy barbecuer on a sunny Sunday afternoon. "Soup's on!" he might have cried. Then he tears a girl's head clean off. Well, the head probably wasn't doing her much good anyway. [6 Aug 1986, p.D10]

The murderous Jason is back in the latest chapter of the most offensive series in film history, unless Burt Reynolds makes three more ``Smokey and the Bandit`` pictures real quick.

Despite a few lighter touches, the film is still a gory waste of time that plays its murders for all the blood and guts they're worth. There are plenty of cliched reaction shots of faces in terror, more than enough frames filled with bloody knives and severed heads. There is not, however, any suspense about Jason or his victims. He stalks, they scream, he kills. None of it is enough to make you jump out of your seat, though it may be enough to make your stomach churn. [2 Aug 1986, p.9]

Besides the humor and the technical savvy, the biggest difference between this film and the five before it is that the characters are actually allowed to live long enough for the audience to develop some sort of empathy with them. Some of these teenagers are downright likable, and we don't want to see them get killed. That element, more than any other, was the real breakthrough in the series.

Jason Lives is not a good movie. It is as predictable as a City Council vote in the Daley era; a lamely acted film filled with the most contrived slaughter and utterly lacking in suspense. [4 Aug 1986, p.C5]

Operative marketing concept: There are thousands, not just one, born every minute. [5 Aug 1986, p.B5]

Sad excuse for a movie. [4 Aug 1986, p.C6]