Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.0

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie Review

Scream Factory via Shout! Factory has released the 1986 Horror franchise film 'Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives' to Blu-ray with a high quality 1080p transfer and a pair of lossless soundtrack options. Several supplements are included as well, carrying over the extras from Warner Brothers' disc found in the 2013 collection and adding a few new ones. It's an excellent Blu-ray. It is currently only available in the exciting, and limited, Friday the 13th Collection which includes all 12 films featuring killer Jason Voorhees as well as two bonus discs.

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another excellent Friday the 13th Blu-ray. It's generally free of print blemish and encode failure while holding steady to an attractive, natural grain structure that compliments the film source quite nicely. Though it has not been sourced from a 4K scan, as were the first four films in the series for the Shout! Factory collection, it's a highly impressive effort that, beyond its clean and accurate filmic credentials, yields expert texturing that brings Jason's tattered clothes, decayed body, and worn hockey mask to life like never before. Areas around the camp are sharp, human faces are delightfully clear, and clothes are complex. Colors are excellent, whether natural greens or red blood, both of which delight. Much of the film takes place at night, making black levels yet again crucial for this release. They, too, do not disappoint, producing perfectly inky and deep nighttime exteriors with no signs of crush of troubling encode issues, like macroblocking, which is nowhere to be found, either. Flesh tones appear to be accurate and the print is in meticulous condition. The movie looks terrific. Fans are going to be thrilled with this release.

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives features dueling 2.0 and 5.1 lossless soundtracks of the DTS-HD Maser Audio configuration. The opening scene is more authentic, engaging, and effective in 5.1, offering musical richness and atmospheric space that the more technically limited stereo track cannot achieve. Still, this may be the best 2.0 track of the first six films (and the first in stereo). There's greater balance in play, with the music and thunder merging nicely together, lacking that more finessed spacing but ensuring good elemental balance and a surprising amount of output vigor at the same volume. The stereo track also keeps up during the opening titles, with more engaged music yet still lacking the finishing polish of richness and subtle immersion found in 5.1. Music and effects are more forceful in stereo, so switching to 5.1 is a tradeoff for better extension and detail. But it's nice to have two very viable alternatives here, not as in previous films where the 5.1 track was the great superior and the 2.0 track better suited just for a more traditional listing experience. Dialogue is excellent in both, grounded in the center in 5.1 and imaging there without fault in 2.0. Either way, the listen will prove rewarding.

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives includes a blend of new and returning supplements. New content is marked as such. Please click here for coverage of the carryover content. Note that The Friday the 13th Chronicles was included on the Warner Brothers disc but appears on the bonus discs for the collection, not on this film's disc.

• New! Audio Commentary: Peter Bracke and Actors Thom Mathews, Vincent Guastaferro, Kerry Noonan, C.J. Graham, and Cynthia Kania.
• Audio Commentary: Writer/Director Tom McLoughlin.
• Audio Commentary: Writer/Director Tom McLoughlin, Actor Vincent Guastaferro, and Editor Bruce Green.
• NEW! Audio Commentary: Writer/Director Tom McLoughlin and Fans/Filmmakers Adam Green and Joe Lynch.
• Lost Tales from Camp Blood - Part 6
• The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited - Part III
• Jason Lives: The Making of Friday the 13th, Part VI
• Meeting Mr. Voorhees
• Slashed Scenes
• NEW! TV Spots (1080i upscaled, 1:03).
• Theatrical Trailer
• NEW! Still Gallery (1080i, 6:07): The images advance automatically. There is no musical accompaniment.
• NEW! Fangoria Articles: Accessible only via PC Blu-ray drive.

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives takes on a more humorous approach but fortunately does not push to that Nightmare on Elm Street level of absurdity. The film balances its lighter footprint with its heavy violence quite well, resulting in another solid franchise entry that certainly needed a slightly different approach for freshness' sake. Shout! Factory's Blu-ray is first-rate, too, delivering near perfect 1080p video, terrific 5.1 and 2.0 audio, and it includes a good many supplements, including four, yes four, audio commentary tracks, two of which are new for this release. Recommended!