Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Zombie Movie Or Not?
Where do we draw the line on what is and what is not a zombie movie? We just can’t decide on our own, so every Monday we’ll post a new movie to be debated by, you, our readers and ask the question: Zombie Movie Or Not? Every Sunday we’ll post our findings and possibly strike that movie off our Zombie Movie List. The week should give you enough time to rent the movie if need be or you desire.
What every reader must keep in mind is that there are two basic types of zombie that every zombie movie based off of – the Voodoo Zombie and the Romero Zombie. The Voodoo Zombie, while not always raised by Voodoo necessarily, is basically a person, either undead or entranced, that is controlled by a person or entity for the purpose of completing tasks, often killing. Romero Zombies are basically mindless, flesh-eating undead whose bite will turn victims into zombies. Now, not all movies adhere to all of these rules, but if the basics are there, you got a zombie movie.
This weeks debate is over Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) Directed by Tom McLoughlin
IS: Jason Vorhees, though mistaken for dead several times in previous films, is actually reanimated from his grave into undeath to stalk the living as a zombie.
IS NOT: He’s just a reanimated dead person. He’s not mindless or infectious or flesh-craving, he’s just a reanimated dead guy.
Now it’s up to you, reader. What do you think? Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Zombie Movie Or Not?
Comments(11)
Love him, but no.
I say no.
Jason is just…Jason. I have to vote no, although I can’t be any more analytical than that in this case.
“Hey you got your zombie movie in my slasher movie!”
“No, you got your slasher movie in my zombie movie!”
I’m going to call it NOT zombie movie based on the Mummy defense.
I’m going to have to vote NO. While Jason is technically reanimated dead in this film, he is no more a zombie than, say, Frankenstein’s monster. A reanimated corpse alone does not a zombie make.
hell no! he should of stayed in hell
I always thought this feature has been rough on films that are genre deconstructions or films similar to what passed for zombie films in the 40s and 50s.
I do not think this is a zombie film. It is a MacGuffin to continue the franchise. In a fashion, Jason is part of its own genre like Frankenstein or the Mummy.
The first 5 films go so far into making its own mythology that I cannot see what it would take to make it a zombie film. He could be renanimated by a voodoo priest and I would still have doubts.
NO
I’m not a big Jason fan (Freddy lover here) but it was my understanding that Jason is a demonic ghoul. Demonic insofar as he is relatively immortal compared to humans as his spirit can easily be transferred between our plane of existence and “hell”. Ghoul insofar as when he’s in “our world” his vessel is a corpse. The same can be said of Mike Myers (again not a Halloween buff but I understand him as a demonic ghoul as well).
Though I can think of several graphic novel characters that have zombie anti-heroes that break many zombie conventions (enough to qualify as a central character, so that means the big “lack of individual intelligence” convention is quickly discarded) and yet remain very zombie: Xombie, Emperor Zombie in Amazing Screw-On Head, Marvel’s Simon Garth, Wormwood the Gentleman Corpse, and the most obvious is the lumbering giant of Marvel Zombies. But as far as film, I can’t think of a zombie anti-hero that doesn’t also live in a world full of zombies. The decapitated doctor in Re-Animator is as close as it comes, though the only reason there aren’t more zombies about is the plot’s chronology – and Re-Animator is not, to me, as “zombie movie” as it is “intentional B horror” and simply “[attempted] Lovecraft adaptation”.
I’m going to have to say no. While a fan of Jason (horror movies in general), and while there are some arguments for it that can be made.. He wasn’t brought back by a single person (see voodoo.. oh so boring voodoo) that we are ever made aware of to do their bidding.
Also he doesn’t fit the Romero mold for a zombie (see: why would a zombie put on a hockey mask? Really? C’mon.. it’d get in the way of those delicious humans! Also it doesn’t spread to anyone that he kills!)
Nope, nope, nope.
not zombie movie