The Edited Death Scene Of Jake In FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING
The were a number of death scenes that were sliced (pun intended) in the fifth film of the series, but one of the more notorious was that of actor Jerry Pavlon's (Jake) death by meat cleaver. In the film, as a distraught and frustrated Jake leave's Violet's room, sulking over his rejection by Robin, he is confronted by pseudo Jason with a meat cleaver raised high in the air. The cleaver drops down, and the audience is taken away from the action to only hear a thump. There was to be a much more graphic demise displayed on scene for Jake, but squabbling with the MPAA ultimately caused the entire scene to be cut.
The Reel EFX crew had done a masterful job of creating a pretty realistic prop head of the Jake character for which an actual meat cleaver would be slammed into the face. The pictures below show the test shots of creating the effect for the death scene. In trying to appease the MPAA, the production crew had to make a decision on how to edit the scene. Either they would have to re-shoot the death entirely, or excise the entire death completely. It was decided it would be cheaper to just edit the scene once the meat cleaver drops down from high above Jake.
Many fans have asked for an unedited version of Friday The 13th: A New Beginning, and Jake's death scene is one of the main reasons for their desired release of the film. In fact, some fans wanted so bad to see this scene unedited, that they have taken to Youtube to post their own version of Jake's death. Check out one person's take on the scene below. We may never see this scene or the film unedited in it's entirety, but the passion of the Friday The 13th fans continue to drive the conversation towards unedited films in the franchise.
