Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Danny Steinmann
Produced by	Timothy Silver
Screenplay by	Martin Kitrosser David Cohen Danny Steinmann
Story by	Martin Kitrosser David Cohen
Based on	Characters by Victor Miller
Starring	Melanie Kinnaman John Shepherd Shavar Ross Richard Young Marco St. John Juliette Cummins Carol Locatell Vernon Washington John Robert Dixon Jerry Pavlon Caskey Swaim Mark Venturini Anthony Barrile Dominick Brascia Tiffany Helm Richard Lineback Corey Feldman
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Cinematography	Stephen L. Posey
Edited by	Bruce Green
Production company	Georgetown Productions Terror, Inc.
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	March 22, 1985 (1985-03-22)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.2 million
Box office	$21.9 million

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (also known as Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning) is a 1985 American slasher film directed by Danny Steinmann and the fifth installment in the Friday the 13th film series. The film stars John Shepherd as Tommy Jarvis, the boy who killed Jason Voorhees in the previous installment, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). Shepherd replaces Corey Feldman, who played Tommy in The Final Chapter, although Feldman makes a cameo appearance in the film's prologue.

A New Beginning departs from the Camp Crystal Lake setting and Voorhees-themed mystery of the previous four installments and instead acts as a psychological horror film set at a fictional halfway house, where Tommy begins to fear again as a new series of brutal murders have been occurring by a new hockey-masked assailant. The film was initially going to set up a new trilogy of films with a different villain for the series. However, after A New Beginning's disappointing reception from fans and steep decline in box-office receipts from The Final Chapter, Jason Voorhees was brought back for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and has been the main antagonist in every entry in the series since.

The frequency of graphic violence and gore is expedited in A New Beginning, with a then-series high body count. Aside from its gore, the film has also become known for its explicit nudity and sex scenes, as well as frequent drug use. Peter Bracke's book Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th details that behind the scenes, the production was plagued with hardcore drug use. Produced on a budget of $2.2 million, A New Beginning grossed $21.9 million at the box office in the United States, making it the second poorest performing film in the Friday the 13th series at the time with a steep decline from the previous two entries, both of which had made well over $34 million in the US. In addition to weak box office returns, most critics gave the film negative reviews. In later years, much like the series in general, the film has obtained a cult following.