Today marks exactly 41 years since Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning hit theaters on March 22, 1985.

After the massive success (and supposed finale) of The Final Chapter, the franchise took a wild swing. Jason Voorhees was “dead,” Tommy Jarvis was all grown up and traumatized, and suddenly we were thrown into a gritty, sleazy halfway-house slasher mystery where someone was dressing up as Jason and racking up one of the highest body counts in the series (around 20 kills).

Directed by Danny Steinmann, shot on a modest $2.2 million budget, it opened huge — #1 at the box office its first weekend, eventually grossing nearly $22 million domestically. But fans were furious about the fake-out, the reviews were brutal, and the word-of-mouth killed its legs fast.

Love it or hate it, A New Beginning is still fascinating: it’s raw, mean, surprisingly stylish in a grindhouse-punk way, packed with creative (and nasty) death scenes, and it dared to try something different instead of just repeating the formula. It’s the black sheep that almost turned the series into a new trilogy with a different killer… until the backlash brought Jason back for Part VI.

Whether you call it underrated, a guilty pleasure, or a hot mess — it’s undeniably Friday the 13th. And 41 years later, we’re still talking about it.

So raise your machete (or pitchfork) to Roy Burns, Tommy’s hallucinations, that infamous outhouse kill, and one of the most controversial chapters in horror history.

Happy 41st Anniversary, Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning!

What’s your take on it — underrated gem or the one that should’ve stayed buried? Drop it below. 🪓