The series took a turn here

It could be argued that this is actually the most "cinematic" of the Friday films. Part 4 had a couple of spectacular window falls but this entry really went for the action full on with car chases, foot chases, motorhomes crashing, over the top violence, overt humour etc. It has a very mainstream sensibility, unlike the original Friday which felt like a truly "down and dirty" low budget indie film. I can see people who are not fans of the series or the slasher genre actually liking this one because of that. Here in the UK I recall that when I was young this was the only Friday film which got screened on the terrestrial TV stations, perhaps because of the film's mainstream sensibility.

Of course many fans of the series prefer that down and dirty style of the earlier films, as I do. But I think by this point the series had no choice but to take some kind of turn to freshen up what the studio regarded as a stale formula. Regardless of the tone of this film being different to earlier entries, I think it's really well written and directed. You can see how talented a filmmaker Tom McLoughlin is in the way he handles the horror, comedy and action moments with equal effectiveness.

Horror-Comedy was definitely becoming more of a thing by this time. Jason Lives is the one I'd pick if a friend said they wanted to see their first "Jason" movie.