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

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Movies From My Childhood

58%
Overall Rating

Ranked #2,678
...out of 20,869 movies

Genres: Horror Slasher Film Teen Horror

Connections: Friday The 13th

Years after Tommy Jarvis chained him underwater at Camp Crystal Lake, the dormant Jason Voorhees is accidentally released from his prison by a telekinetic teenager. Now, only she can stop him. --IMDb

Review by Chad
Added: May 17, 2005

In part seven of our beloved F13 series, we witness one of the weaker films in the long-running series. It all starts out with a young girl named Tina Shepard, who is vacationing with her parents at Camp Crystal Lake. Tina overhears her father (John Otrin) beating and cursing at her mother, so she runs out to the dock, jumps in a boat, and gets out to the middle of the lake. Her parents heard the boat starting up, so of course they ran out to the dock to see what's going on. Mr. Shepard calls out to Tina to come back to the dock, but that's certainly not going to happen... Tina is quite upset at him, and during the midst of her letting him know such, the dock that he's standing on begins to rock back and forth, eventually collapsing and sending him into the lake below. We then fast-forward about ten years or so, where an adult Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) is going back to Crystal Lake with her mother (Susan Blu) and psychologist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser) in order to get over the guilt of having killed her own father. We also learn that she has some pretty powerful psychic powers, a fact which Dr. Crews seems particularly interested in. Shortly after showing up, she notices a group of kids in the next cabin over, and quickly meets Nick (Kevin Spirtas), the man responsible for all of the kids being there. You see, he's throwing a surprise party for his cousin, so he invited nine of his friends out here in order to have a lively party... well, ten after he invites Tina over. Upon arriving at the party, Tina meets the rest of the kids... there's Russel (Larry Cox), Sandra (Heidi Kozak), Maddy (Diana Barrows), Ben (Craig Thomas), Kate (Diane Almeida), David (Jon Renfield), Eddie (Jeff Bennett), Robin (Elizabeth Kaitan), and Melissa (Susan Sullivan) in attendance, so it's sure to be quite the party for all involved. After a particularly embarrassing moment during the party, Tina runs outside and over to the dock, where she cries due to being in a depressed over her deceased father. She uses her psychic powers in an attempt to raise her fathers corpse from the lake (or something), but instead of having a reunion with her father, she breaks the confining chain that Tommy Jarvis had wrapped around Jason's neck and drowned him with in part six. Now that Jason (played this time by Kane Hodder) is loose, he intends to rack up yet another impressive body count, and certainly succeeds at that.

Here we have yet another F13 movie, one that is (in my opinion) one of the weakest ones. It has a nice storyline going for it, even though it does get a bit hokey (especially at the end). Still, it was nice to see some sort of thought going into it, rather than just sending a bunch of kids to camp and setting Jason loose again. We have the obligatory T&A shots, plenty of pre-marital sex and drug usage, and a very high body count (fifteen when all is said and done). So then, why was this one of the weakest films in the series? One word: censorship. The majority of the entertainment that comes from watching any of the Friday The 13th movies is from the numerous deaths and kill methods that are employed in each, but in this entry, every single death has been censored. Sure, there's fifteen deaths here, but what good is that when nearly every one of them cuts off much too early, leaving little to no bloodshed or gore. Granted, I don't watch horror movies for the sole purpose of watching gallons of blood and oodles of murders, but c'mon... this is Friday The 13th. Blood and gore is the main point of these movies, as there's really not much else there. The storylines are usually weak and the acting is usually awful, but there's always the entertainment from watching the fresh-faced teens get hacked to bits in creative ways. When you remove the best part of the series (or in this case, cut it down so much that it might as well be removed), you're kind of ruining the formula. It astounds me that Paramount couldn't put out an uncensored version of this film, even seventeen years after it had its theatrical run... the American VHS copies, the DVD copies, and even the box set contains the censored version of this film. I've yet to watch the bonus disc on the box set, so I'm not sure what's included there as far as deleted / extended scenes... but it would have been nice to have everything spliced back into the film.

Getting back on topic here, we find that the rest of the movie is your typical slasher film. The storyline, while original for the series, definitely wears itself thin as the movie progresses. The end battle between Tina's psychic powers and Jason becomes painfully obvious by the quarter-mark of the film, so we're left to waiting for Jason to finish killing off the teenage fodder and get on with the end battle. In most of the previous films, it's not blindingly obvious who the sole survivor is going to be, so that leads to an element of surprise due to the fact that anyone can die at any time. When you know by the ten minute mark who the survivor is going to be and who's going to pad out the body count, it tends to ruin the flow of the movie just a little bit. So, we know who emerges victorious here, and we know that it involves her psychic abilities... but the specifics (which I won't spoil) certainly aren't as obvious. Want to know why it isn't obvious and comes as a complete shock? Because it's mind-blowingly retarded, and that's all I'm going to say.

The highlights of this film are limited to Kane Hodder making his debut behind the hockey mask and making the character much more menacing, the battle between Carrie... whoops, Tina.. and Jason prior to the aforementioned mind-blowingly retarded twist, and... well, that's it. Fans of the series will enjoy it, but it's far from finding a spot in the top six movies up until this point. 5/10.

#1: Crispy - added May 13, 2005 at 9:39pm
First one I ever saw *nostalgic sigh*

#2: Tristan - added May 8, 2007 at 12:26pm
What a piece of trash. I mean c'mon, she fights Jason with telekinesis? And then she resurrects her deceased father of 10 years, and he comes out looking the same as he was when he went in? AND he just what, chokes Jason and drags him under the water? That's the best they can come up with? Kane Hodder owns as Jason though. A big lumbering killer who's actually terrifying to look at. Not some guy wearing a plumber's jumpsuit, w/full belt of tools. I did find it funny though, how he would kill a kid, then go back to the shed and choose a new weapon to kill the next one with. Variety is the spice of life I suppose, but c'mon. A weed whacker? This was the best Jason, but the worst damn movie. Even Jason X blew this one away as far as believable acting goes. 5/10, and only for Mr. Hodder.

#3: bluemeanie - added May 8, 2007 at 12:55pm
You know -- I like this "Friday the 13th" installment. It was far more fantastical than the others, but it reminded me of "A Nightmare On Elm Street 3" in terms of taking a very fantasy-esque approach to the series. I also thought some of the death scenes were far better than in previous films, Terry Kiser from "Weekend At Bernie's" was in it, for god's sake, and Jason just looks more bad ass than usual. I enjoyed this one. 6.5/10.

#4: Chad - added May 8, 2007 at 1:02pm
If either of you have the From Crystal Lake To Manhattan box set, check out the alternate ending on the bonus disc. Had they used that, I would have enjoyed it so much more.

#5: bluemeanie - added May 8, 2007 at 1:17pm
Indeed, I have seen the alternate ending and enjoyed it very much, and don't really know why they didn't use that instead. But, I don't have a huge problem with this ending. It's in keeping with the whole telekineses side plot.

#6: bluemeanie - added May 8, 2007 at 1:17pm
Oh, and three words -- TERRY FUCKING KISER!!!

#7: Crispy - added May 8, 2007 at 3:55pm
like this "Friday the 13th" installment. It was far more fantastical than the others, but it reminded me of "A Nightmare On Elm Street 3"

Ironic you say that, this script was the initial attempt at Freddy Vs. Jason. The idea was eventually scrapped due to Paramount and New Line not being able to coexist.

#8: Tristan - added May 10, 2007 at 1:43am
I have the box set, but I'm going to finish up 9 and 10 before I dive into the special features. And it's a shame that this is the best looking Jason we've had, and it had to be in this movie. Kane Hodder just looks so goddamn good as Jason. It's all about the body language.

#9: Tristan - added May 14, 2007 at 7:05pm
I watched all the alternate takes and ending for this one on the box set. I feel so sorry for Buechler. After they showed all the gore and death scenes that were cut out, I completely sympathized with the man, and had to rewatch it. All telekinesis aside, it's one of the better movies in the series. I just can't believe they cut out so much good stuff. This series is all about grisly deaths, and excessive violence, and for this one he had to cut it right before we're delivered the goods. I thought the director stunk before, but now I realize the poor man was a victim of censorship. I give this one a 7/10 now.

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