Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI is one of my favourite films from the Friday the 13th series and I don’t think I’m alone thinking it’s one of the best. Tom McLaughlin was behind the 1986 film, but why didn’t he direct another sequel? It turns out that he was asked to direct the follow-up, but producer Frank Mancuso Jr. wasn’t keen on the idea he had.
“[He] Wanted me to do another film after we did Jason, and I said, ‘What are you thinking? I don’t know what it could be now.’ And he said, ‘Well, what do you think about Freddy (Krueger) and Jason?’ And I go, ‘But Freddy’s at New Line and the guys at Paramount have [Jason].’ And it’s like, ‘Well, we’re going to try and see if we can work something out.’ So, I started thinking about that, going, it doesn’t make sense. I mean he lives in one realm and — you know, I take this stuff very seriously, what realm a monster’s supposed to stay in. And he came back, he goes, ‘Eh, forget it; it’s not going to work anyway.’ And I said, ‘You know what? You guys own Cheech and Chong. What if we do Cheech and Chong-meets-Jason? They’re like camp counsellors or something. It’s like, ‘Hey, man, I saw Jason out there.’ ‘No, man, that’s a myth.’ But he said, ‘You know what? No.’”
It certainly would have been a memorable addition to the Friday the 13th franchise and we’ll never know if that would have been a good or bad thing. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see this bold idea for a film sequel, but at least we did eventually get a Freddy vs. Jason flick. Perhaps that wasn’t a good thing.
Words: Jessy Williams (@JessyCritical)
