This may be something of a controversial choice, but it shouldn't be. The second-best film in the franchise came on the heels of an entry that could have been stellar but ultimately disappointed, due to its mere teasing of what was now being delivered: the return of Jason after his apparent death at the hands of nemesis Tommy Jarvis.
The film opens with a delirious sequence in which Tommy literally digs up Jason's grave on a stormy night, angrily and symbolically tosses a hockey mask and machete into said grave, and impales the corpse with an iron stake from the cemetery's fence. Anybody who's ever seen Frankenstein can guess what happens next: there's a freak lightning strike, and when a newly reanimated Jason—an explicitly supernatural being for the first time in the series—figures he woke up just in time for the killing spree, Tommy must figure out a way to stop him again.
The opening sets a self-referential tone that continues throughout, successfully making audiences giggle between jump scares and brutal murders a full decade before Wes Craven's Scream perfected this formula. The film is simply a blast: the body count is absurdly high, The Return of the Living Dead's Thom Mathews makes an excellent, more action-oriented Tommy Jarvis, and stuntman C.J. Graham is second only to Kane Hodder in his menacing portrayal of Jason. All this and a kick-ass Alice Cooper theme song? It's almost the best Friday the 13th ever. Almost.
