Franchises: Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

I first saw quite a bit of this one during a marathon of the Friday the 13th films on Spike TV on an actual Friday the 13th and at the time, I thought, "It's pretty cool. Jason looks great and the mechanical effects with the telekinesis are nice." And years later, that opinion hasn't changed at all. I'm rather blase about the film as a whole in that I don't love or hate it. There are some things about it that I really like, some others that I don't care for, and others that I'm just plain indifferent about. However, this film is significant in the history of the franchise in that it marks a major coup for the character of Jason, which I'll get into presently but, if you're die-hard fan of the movies, you no doubt already know what I'm talking about.

Years after Tommy Jarvis chained Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake, Tina Shepherd, a teen with telekinetic powers, returns to her old home by the lake with her mother to undergo therapy. Tina is haunted by the memory of when she accidentally killed her father in the lake with her powers when she was a young girl. During her stay, she becomes friendly with Nick, one of a group of vacationing friends renting the house next door to hers but, unfortunately, she ends up putting them all in extreme danger when she tries to raise her father from the lake and releases Jason instead. Soon, the bloodbath is on and it's up to Tina to destroy the monster that she's released.

Like other movies before it, this one begins with a montage of scenes from some of the past movies, with a narrator telling us the history of Jason Voorhees. I've heard that narrator is Walt Gorney, the guy who played Crazy Ralph in the first two films, but it doesn't sound like him to me. If they say it is him, though, I won't argue. As I said before, I like montages and this one is pretty good. It shows some of the kills from Part 2, the climactic scene between Tommy, Trish and Jason in The Final Chapter, and Jason's resurrection, rampage, and imprisonment in Jason Lives. (Come to think of it, I actually saw the very first part of this on TV when I was very young but when Jason appeared and my parents realized it was Friday the 13th, they promptly turned the channel.) Following the credits, you get hyped up for this latest flick by an effect of the title coming up after an animation of Jason's hockey mask being torn apart, which is actually a prelude to what Tina does to Jason near the end of the film. It's fairly conventional by this point but acceptable. Before I go on, I have to mention that the music that plays during this prologue is quite creepy and even though the stuff that plays during the opening credits isn't really music, I think it sounds cool myself. (This is the last film to use the opening credits sequence that had become a staple of the series by this point.)

Our director this time is actually an effects artist: John Carl Buechler. Buechler has done some great effects for scores of horror and science fiction films from the 80's onward and, as a result, this movie does have some impressive makeup and mechanical effects; story and character-wise, however, it's lacking. Although the addition of a Carrie-like opponent for Jason is interesting (this movie is sometimes even called Jason vs. Carrie), up until the last twenty minutes it's your typical Friday the 13th scenario, with Jason stalking and killing the teenagers, which wouldn't bother me so much if the characters were interesting but most of them aren't. In fact, I feel this one has some of the blandest in the whole franchise. It also doesn't help that this time around, thanks to the now very stringent MPAA, the final film is lacking a lot of good gore that was actually filmed, which would have made the buildup to the final confrontation a lot more enjoyable. Plus, Buechler had this pain-in-the-ass associate producer, Barbara Sachs, who was always all over him and vetoing a lot of the stuff he wanted to do, resulting in the movie coming out as a big compromise in the end. We'll get to that in a minute but, for now, let's get into the characters.

Our lead, the psychokinetic Tina Shepherd, is played by Lar Park Lincoln, whom I met at a convention once and was a very sweet girl; as for her performance here, though, I have mixed feelings. Tina does come across as a sweet enough girl who's had a rather hard life and has to deal with a lot of crap, which makes her pain is understandable. However, I find her to be crying and whimpering a bit too much. In fact, there are very few scenes in this film where she's not crying. I also don't like the way she fights Jason at the end of the film. Instead of standing her ground and fighting and battling him, she does something to him and then just runs away. He then catches back up to her, she does something to him again, and she runs away again. I think if I had telekinetic powers, I would stand and try to throw everything I could think of at Jason but she doesn't do that. I know an undead psychotic killer would be a scary thing to have to face but she's more than capable of taking him. Fight him, damn it!

Terry Kiser from Weekend at Bernie's plays Dr. Crews, Tina's conniving psychiatrist who's just a slimeball to the nth degree, something that Kiser does a very good job getting across. He doesn't care about helping Tina; he intends to keep her stress levels high and film instances of her powers so he can become famous. He also doesn't care if other people have to die so he can do so. And even when Tina's mother confronts him about it, Crews is undeterred and tells her he's going to commit Tina back to the hospital, whether she likes it or not. As Tina's mother herself says, not only is Crews a horrible doctor but he's a fucking coward as well. When he and Mrs. Shepherd run into Jason, Crews heartlessly grabs her and uses her as shield against Jason, who promptly kills her. What a bastard! And after that, he goes and lies to Tina about it when he runs into her, trying to get her to come with him. Don't worry, though; he gets his comeuppance soon enough.

As for Mrs. Amanda Shepherd, played by Susan Blu, there's not much to say other than she's another in the long line of seemingly very loving mothers in this series. I like how she truly cares about Tina and how she confronts Crews when she realizes the guy's a lying scumbag. After they argue, they hear a car start and she sees Tina take off in their car. Before she rushes off to stop, she's gives Crews a cold look, knowing that Tina's running because of him. Of course, like I said, that bastard Crews uses her as a shield against Jason, resulting in her getting killed. On that note, I thought that a good piece of Lincoln's acting comes when Tina discovers her mother's body and how she mourns her, saying, "Mom? Mom! Mama!"

Kevin Blair as Nick doesn't have much to do. He seems like a nice guy and at one point, we find out that he used to hang out with a bad crowd and he now goes to night school to try to make up for it. He also supports Tina implicitly and hates that bitch Melissa and the crap she puts Tina through. As you can guess, Melissa (Susan Jennifer Sullivan) is the other despicable character in this flick alongside Dr. Crews. She's the typical snobby rich girl who thinks she can have whatever man she wants

and doesn't care who she hurts in trying to get her hands on said man. I especially hate the part where she tricks Eddie, the sci-fi geek, into thinking she likes him but when he proves to be clumsy in bed, she blatantly tells him that she used him. I also get infuriated with her when, near the end of the film, she still insults Tina and call her nuts even though she can tell that she's traumatized and upset for some reason. She also has the nerve to insult Nick just because he has the "gall" to choose Tina over her. What a total bitch. She doesn't get killed nearly soon enough for me, I'm telling you.

As I said earlier, the other teens are some of the blandest ever. Robin (Elizabeth Kaitan) is a red-headed slut who only cares about banging some guy and getting stoned with him, going as far as to make her friend feel like crap in the process. David (Jon Renfield) is a dumb stoner and the aforementioned guy Robin wants to bang. He does do something funny, though, when he hits a lamp and then wanders in, grumbling, "What a stupid place to put a lamp." Future cartoon voice actor Jeff
Bennett plays Eddie, a sci-fi loving geek who gets burned big time by Melissa. I do feel bad for him as a result but other than that, he does nothing all that noteworthy. I do like the scene where he's bored and just sifting through the birthday presents, though. Russell and Sandra (Larry Cox and Heidi Kozak) are really bland. All we find out about Russell is that a relative of his owns the cabin they're staying at and that's it,
whereas Sandra is really sex-crazed and likes to skinny-dip. I actually kind of like Maddy (Diana Barrows), the geeky girl whom Robin belittles for not exactly being pretty. She gets made up at one point, though, and she actually looks really good. I actually wish she hadn't died to be honest. Ben and Kate (Craig Thomas and Diane Almeida) had some sort of fight because Ben blew her off to go out with a friend or something. They make up just in time to have sex and get killed by Jason, so it's all good. There's also Michael, the guy whom everyone is

throwing the party for, and his girlfriend Jane (Staci Greason). Michael is of some note because he's played by veteran horror actor, and victim, William Butler. Finally, there's a camping couple, Dan and Judy (Michael Schroeder and Debora Kessler), who, the minute you see them, you know are just there to serve as more cannon fodder. I bring them up because Judy serves as the victim of one of the best kills in the series, as we'll see in a minute.

One character I have to mention is Tina's father, played by John Otrin. At the very beginning of the movie, young Tina hears him smack her mother during an argument that they have when he gets drunk. That makes Tina go out on the lake in a boat and when her father runs out onto the dock and tries to apologize for what he did, she says that she hates him and wishes he were dead. (She says, "You hit Mom again," indicating that this isn't the first time he's been abusive to his wife.) Her anger unleashes her psychic powers and she destroys the dock he's on, ultimately drowning him. Years later, Tina's guilt

over what happened is what leads her to try to raise her father from the dead and inadvertently release Jason. At the end of the film when Tina and Nick are the only survivors and Jason has them both cornered, Tina tries to summon her father again and succeeds this time. Originally, Mr. Shepherd was supposed to be an emaciated corpse with rotting flesh and exposed bones but Barbara Sachs excised it and as a result, he comes up looking perfectly normal with just some dirt on his face. It never bothered me personally but I do think it's rather anticlimactic. You can view the original design of the character on recent DVD releases and see that it looks great, which makes you wonder what that woman's problem with it was. However, that wasn't the only thing she had a problem with, as we'll see.

Visually, I've never liked the way movie looks. It has this soft white/blue look it that I've never cared for. It makes the movie look really cheap to me. (I know it was cheap but even more so.) Also, Darryl Haney, one of the writers of the film, seems like a really bitter person if you read his interview in the book Crystal Lake Memories (which, in my opinion, is required reading for any Friday the 13th fan, as is the epic documentary based on it). I know this probably wasn't the movie he wanted to write and it seems he had a bad time on it but he comes off as a rather angry man with a major chip on his shoulder in that book. This has nothing to do with the actual movie but it's just something I wanted to mention.

Many fans have said that Jason's design in this film is the best of them all and I couldn't agree more. It's just so cool and dynamic that it makes you wonder why they didn't keep this design for the rest of the series. Buechler's reasoning behind the design was that he wanted to show all of the damage and decay that Jason had been through in the previous movies; as a result, he's an absolute mess here. He's rotten, with bones showing in various spots, including his spine and backbones, some ribs, his kneecaps, his jawbones, the bones in his fingers, and so on. It's absolutely amazing. The rotten hands with the bones showing look kind of fake and rubbery to me but it never bugs me because the rest is so great. The top part of the chain Tommy put around him is still hanging from around his neck and is another nice touch but the best part is when Tina destroys his hockey mask at the end and his face is revealed. It's an amazing, zombified monster face with rotted cheeks, one eye missing, and a huge cut on the left side of his face from the machete at the end of The Final Chapter. It's incredible and we almost didn't

get to see it because that Barbara Sachs felt it looked like a frog(?) and tried to keep Buechler from filming it; however, Buechler, thank God, stuck to his guns and shot it anyway. If I have any major complaint with Jason's design here, it's simply the look of the hockey mask. I appreciate them for trying to maintain continuity by taking a chunk out of the mask's side to replicate what happened with the boat motor at the end of the last movie but there's only one problem: it's on the wrong side. It seems like when they try to maintain continuity, they can't seem to do it completely right, but whatever.

Friday the 13th Part VII marks a major turning point in Jason's character because this is the first movie where he's played by Kane Hodder, the most beloved stuntman/actor to ever play the role. Let's face it: Hodder is the best Jason. The others before him were good in their own ways but his dedication to and love of the character is hard to match. The guy is willing to put himself through such hell for a good performance and it shows. His mannerisms and movements really give depth to Jason, allowing you to see his anger. For instance, watch his body language when he drags Tina down into the basement with him and how he tears off the cable she tangled around his neck a few minutes before. He's pissed! And what's more, with his face revealed, you can see the hate and rage when he looks at Tina evilly when she ignites the floor around them. You can just tell he's thinking, "You bitch!" Hodder doesn't make that much noise in his first appearance as Jason. When he's first released and he walks to the shore of the lake (which is a great moment), you can hear him make a very low growl, which is unnerving, a raspy groan when Tina hits him in the face with a light, and some growling and choking sounds when Mr. Shepherd pulls back down into the lake but, for the most part, Hodder's pretty silent here.

The kills in this one were originally meant to be very over the top, which just gobs of gore, but by this point, the MPAA had clearly had it with the series and really came down hard on this one. They gutted the makeup effects until basically none of them were left in the final film, leaving many of the kills feeling very unremarkable, to say the least. You can see the uncut gore in workprint form on recent DVDs of the film, as well as probably on YouTube, and despite the poor video quality, it looks really good. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll get to see a true uncut version of the film with the original negatives of those kills because it was discovered in recent years that they were thrown out, which is a major loss to fans of the franchise.

Jane is the first one to get it: Jason puts a road spike through the back of her neck and immediately afterward, he puts the same spike all the way through Michael's torso (later, Tina gets a more drawn-out vision of the kill when she first visits the teens' house). Dan, the male half of the cannon-fodder camping couple, gets Jason's arm shoved all the way through him and his neck broken. As I said, Judy's death is one of the best in the series, with Kane Hodder himself saying that it's his favorite kill he ever did during his tenure as the character: she's in
a sleeping bag when Jason tears his way into the tent, grabs her, drags her outside, and slams her against a tree. Russell gets an axe to the face whereas Sandra gets pulled under the water and drowned while she's skinnydipping. We don't even see Maddy's death. Jason traps her in a toolshed and he presumably put a small scythe into her. He kills Ben by
crushing his head (the uncut version of this kill shows him crush the head into a bloody pulp and it looks awesome) and then puts a party horn in Kate's eye, which makes a loud toot-sound when it's jammed in. David gets killed with a butcher knife to the gut and I think that it's his head that Robin and Tina later run across during their respective encounters with Jason but it's never made clear. (When David wanders into the kitchen, look in the upper left corner when the lightning flashes and you'll see Jason standing there.) Eddie gets an axe to the throat, the end result of
which we don't see. Robin gets thrown out a window. Jason kills Mrs. Shepherd by putting some sort of gardening tool through her torso (not really sure what is what, though; also, like Michael, Tina has a vision of this elsewhere, this time before it actually happens). Crews gets the blade of a tree saw right in the gut. (Given how hateful a character he was, the uncut version of that is much more satisfying. Also, when I heard the engine of the device rev before Jason shows up with it, I thought he'd gotten a chainsaw!) Finally, Melissa gets an axe to the head, which I think is not nearly painful enough for her.

There are also a lot of great mechanical effects and stunts during the last third where Tina battles Jason with her powers. First, she uproots some tree roots and tangle them around Jason's waist, causing him to fall into a muddle puddle. Tina then makes a powerline slither into the water and electrocute Jason. After that, he chases Tina back into the main house, where she flings a couch at him and then a potted plant with a head in it. (Again, I think it's supposed to be David's head but I'm not entirely sure.) After that, Jason chases Tina outside, where she causes the roof to fall on him. (Watch Kane Hodder's reactions here; he says he wasn't acting and was really startled by how hard those parts of the roof came down around him) That seems to stop him but, of course, he comes back and traps Nick and Tina in the other house. That's when Tina makes a light hit him right in the face, causing him to fall backwards and crash right through the stairs. After he tries to kill Nick, Tina destroys Jason's mask and then hangs him with a cable from the broken light, dropping him down into the basement. One bit I love is when Tina sends a bunch of nails flying at Jason, some of which hit him in the head. That's when Tina douses him with gasoline and uses fire from the furnace to ignite him. A lot more than just your typical Friday the 13th climactic chase here.

Harry Manfredini is given credit along with fellow composer Fred Mollin here but Manfredini was working on another project so Mollin actually just used some of his earlier music along with new stuff he himself composed. While I like most of the stuff Mollin composed as well as the re-use of the cues Manfredini created for Part VI: Jason Lives here, I don't think the latter's score from films 1-4 mesh well with Mollin's stuff. One part that makes me cringe is when Maddy goes out to look for David and you hear a creepy cue that Manfredini played along with some very jarring stuff that Mollin puts in the background. It just doesn't sound good to me. I also don't care for the theme that he made for Tina, which plays whenever she uses her powers as well as over the latter part of the ending credits. Other than that, I do like the music in this flick though.

Overall, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is a mixed bag for me. While I commend Jason's design along with Kane Hodder's great performance, the impressive mechanical effects and stunts, and the abundance of action particularly during the film's final third, the film has a number of problems with characters that are mostly bland, a lack of gore and makeup effects that really hurts the film's entertainment value, and a score that sounds good in some sections and jumbled and badly put together in others. Also, to be honest, by this point the idea of Jason stomping around Crystal Lake and killing people is starting to get really old, a problem that the next flick would fix.