"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

“There’s a legend ‘round here. A killer buried, but not dead. A curse on Crystal Lake. A death curse. Jason Voorhees’ curse.”


On paper FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD seems very promising. It has a wild premise: what if instead of just having to contend with a bunch of young people having sex in a cabin, Jason has to contend with a bunch of young people having sex in a cabin and also the next door neighbor who has CARRIE-like telekinetic powers? HUH? THEN WHAT?

And it’s directed by John Carl Buechler (TROLL, CELLAR DWELLER), who’s an FX makeup legend (FROM BEYOND, DOLLS, GARBAGE PAIL KIDS THE MOVIE, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, HALLOWEEN 4). But it doubles down on all the sins that started in part IV and got worse in V and VI. We’ve returned to part IV’s “two stories about two cabins next door to each other” format, with even more assholes in this sex cabin than ever before. And according to the late Buechler in many interviews before he died, the movie got completely screwed by the MPAA, who by this point saw this series as their arch-nemesis. They were forced to lose most of their gore, throwing off the rhythm of every important beat in the movie. It definitely seems that way – lots of killing, but either the camera doesn’t point at it or it cuts after a couple frames. And tragically the original footage was not preserved in such a way that there can ever be a restoration. Thanks alot, Movie Prude Asswipes of America.

A nice touch at the beginning is that the “Previously on FRIDAY THE 13TH” montage has folksy narration, like a local telling you the story. “They say he died as a boy, but he keeps coming back.” In fact it’s Walt Gorney, a.k.a. part I and II’s Crazy Ralph, maybe back from the dead to get us up to speed. I love that! But the synth-heavy score sounds cheesier than what we’re used to in these introductions; some of the music is in this one is by the great Harry Manfredini, but some is by Fred Mollin (SCREWBALLS II, The New Gidget). So… rough waters ahead. It does have a decent (if too brief) title sequence, with dramatic light beams projecting from the holes of the hockey mask (much like the JASON LIVES poster) before it splits in two and reveals the title.

Like so many horror movies it begins in the past, and turns out to be a dream, but a dream that seems to accurately represent the past. A little girl named Tina (Jennifer Banko, who later played “Little Girl” in LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III and “Spike” in BARB WIRE and was on Pacific Palisades and Sunset Beach as an adult) is arguing with her dad (John Otrin, The Orkly Kid) outside their cabin on the shore of Crystal Lake. She yells “I hate you! I wish you were dead!” and then watches regretfully as the dock he’s standing on buckles and collapses and he drowns. You see, she has telekinetic powers that she doesn’t really know how to control.

Tina wakes up from the dream, grown up, played by Lar Park-Lincoln (HOUSE II: THE SECOND STORY), and fucked up by what happened all those years ago. (If this came out now the reviews would say “it’s about trauma.”) So her mom (Susan Blu, voice of Stormer on Jem) is taking her back to the cabin at Crystal Lake (they seem to have given up on calling it Forest Green) for some unorthodox therapy from one Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser right before WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S). Just like Tommy digging up Jason’s body to deal with his hallucinations, this misguided method of treatment will end up resurrecting Jason.

The cabin next door is being used by some youths to hold a surprise birthday party for their friend Michael (William Butler, GHOULIES II, LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ’90, director of GINGERDEAD MAN 3: SATURDAY NIGHT CLEAVER), and much more than in earlier FRIDAY THE 13THs they’re a group of harsh stereotypes that don’t really seem like they would intentionally hang out together. The most extreme are pearl-necklace-wearing Melissa (Susan Jennifer Sullivan, CLICK: THE CALENDAR GIRL KILLER), who we know is a classist rich girl because something about Tina’s outfit makes her say, “There goes the neighborhood” when she pulls up; Sandra’s boyfriend Russell (Larry Cox, HEATHERS), who complains about the cabin being messy by comparing it to “closing time at the stock exchange;” and sci-fi geek Eddie (Jeff Bennett, who soon became a top animation voice actor who has played the Batcave computer, the villain in Phantom 2040, Johnny Bravo, Mr. Smee, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester and Daffy Duck), who makes everyone back away slowly by pitching his book ideas or emphatically declaring that “BATTLE OF THE GARGANTUAN THRONG is Derrick F.Z. Simms’ greatest film. A work of genius.”

(Side note: I have always hated that fake sci-fi and horror movie titles in movies almost always sound like ‘50s drive-in movies. Even to this day. Stop that, writers.)

Birthday boy Mike hasn’t shown up yet (R.I.P.) but his cousin Nick (Kevin Blair, THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II) is there and is immediately attracted to Tina, so he invites her to the party, where everyone is mean to her, calling her “Marilyn Munster” and saying she should be in a strait jacket. But it’s a good break from her therapy sessions, where Bad News Crews (as she calls him) videotapes her and purposely says mean things to her because he’s figured out that her powers manifest when she gets emotional. It all brings back her guilt and she runs out to where it happened and says, “I’m sorry Daddy, I wish I could bring you back.” But whoops, Jason is still chained up at the bottom of the lake, and she brings him back instead of Daddy.

So Jason goes around stalking and killing people, and Tina starts having visions of the murders, but everyone assumes it’s the trauma talking, not the psychic powers. This is notable as the first time Kane Hodder (also stunt coordinator) played Jason. He had done an important makeup gag for Buechler in PRISON (the movie, not the institution) that showed he was capable.

Birthday boy Michael and his girlfriend Jane (Staci Greason, TERROR NIGHT) break down on the way there and camp out, where Jason finds them as well as another couple, Dan and Judy (Michael Schroeder and Debora Kessler, no other roles). Judy is in a sleeping bag when Jason picks her up and slams her against a tree, a kill that became legendary even though it was censored from the original version where he slams her multiple times. Also Sandra (Heidi Kozak, SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II, SOCIETY) participates in the locally popular activity of skinny dipping, and Jason joins her, but clothed.

Nick is nice enough but seems about as smart as a pile of fire wood. When Tina tells him about seeing her father die and being “really messed up” he says, “So? You’re okay now, aren’t you?” Which is supportive, but he kind of says it like she just had to flip a switch from messed up to okay.

I would say the most hateful part of the movie is when Melissa tells a shocked Eddie that she thinks he’s “cute” and takes him to bed, but then stops and cruelly tells him she doesn’t really think he’s attractive and was just hoping Nick would see them together and be jealous. Eddie reckons he can take it because he’s “been rejected by some of the finest science fiction magazines in the continental United States,” but angrily says he’s “going to take a cold shower” and has “a date with a soap on a rope.*” Eddie is of course the wronged party here, by a cartoonishly cruel woman, but you can’t help think of him when he’s a proto-incel when he’s sitting around ranting about her being a “c-word” and then hears Jason behind him and assumes that it’s her, having changed her mind and wanting to have sex with him after all.

(*In Crystal Lake Memories, Bennett says that he ad-libbed that line in his audition and they wanted to use it in the movie. Screenwriter Daryl Haney complains, “I didn’t write most of those fucking lines, like that horrible thing where the kid goes, ‘personal penis enlarger’ and, ‘I’ve got a date with a soap on a rope.’ I died a million deaths when I heard that, because people are going to think I wrote something so stupid. It was horrifying.)

The movie does pick up steam for the last act. Dr. Crews gets the honor of being killed by the weirdest weapon: a gas-powered buzzsaw on the end of a long pole. And Tina finds a bunch of her acquaintances’ bodies, HALLOWEEN style, which triggers her emotions enough for her to finally go CARRIE on his ass. Her psychic attacks include making roots pull him into a puddle where a power line shocks him (she doesn’t know that an electric shock brought him back to life previously), throwing furniture and furnishings at him (a couch, a potted plant with Eddie’s head in it), etc. A great part is when she and Nick tell Melissa about Jason and she thinks they’re full of shit and says, “Fuck you both!” and goes to storm out the door, but Jason is standing right there. He sticks the ax in her head, grabs her neck with one hand and hurls her across the room, over the TV, smashing a lamp in the corner.

Being directed by makeup man Buechler they had to follow the FINAL CHAPTER idea of unmasking Jason in the final battle, and they gave him even more of a monster face this time. (The mask, intended to still be the same one he obtained from Shelly in part III, is completely destroyed. That would be funny if it was stitched together in the next one.) Tina knocks light fixtures into him, knocks him through the floor, hangs him with wires, shoots a fireball at him from the furnace. There’s a great fire stunt in full monster Jason makeup. They run onto the dock as the entire house explodes (a cool model shot, I think).

But then Jason is there again! What finally does him in is when Tina’s powers bring the correct guy back to life – her dad (not rotted) – and Dad puts a chain around Jason’s neck and pulls him down. It’s silly but I like that it reverses the shock ending of the first film. Finally some balance – a long dead person emerging from the lake and grabbing somebody is shown in a positive light. They mix things up by making it basically a happy ending, with Nick waking up in the ambulance to say, “Jason! Where’s Jason?” and Tina just says, “We took care of it.”

But then they have an awkwardly timed “Ki-ki-ki” to make sure we know that Jason is still out there. Oh shit, yeah, I had forgotten! This one actually feels like it should’ve had rock song credits like the last one, so it would have kind of a victorious feel. Instead it’s that scary synth score that’s no Harry Manfredini.

The best thing about THE NEW BLOOD is that it’s CARRIE VS. JASON, but of course that just means a generic troubled young woman with telekinetic powers. They can’t just rip off the character of Carrie White. And the problem there is that the telekinetic powers are not the only aspect of Carrie that makes her a great character, and (as with Tina here) she mostly unleashes them in the last act. What makes CARRIE a great movie is how much we feel for this girl who struggles against her zealous and mentally ill mother, wants to have her own life, make friends, do normal teen things. And she’s so awkward and unequipped for the social world and dating rituals of high school, and she’s bullied and doesn’t always know when to trust people and when not to, but she wants so badly for things to be better and she tries to make them that way. Which is to say that the idea of Tina fighting Jason with telekinesis is cool, but she’s no Carrie, and this is no CARRIE, and not just because Buechler is no Brian DePalma.

The screenplay is credited to the aforementioned soap-on-a-roap disavower Haney (DADDY’S BOYS) and Manuel Fidello. Fidello has no other credits, but Haney’s subsequent works include CRIME ZONE starring David Carradine, LORDS OF THE DEEP, ONE MAN ARMY starring Jerry Trimble, XTRO 3: WATCH THE SKIES and a bunch of erotic thrillers (DANCE WITH DEATH, MIRROR IMAGES II, EMMANUELLE: FIRST CONTACT, ANIMAL INSTINCTS II, FORBIDDEN SINS). Buechler directed several more movies, but the best known of them are GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE and WATCHERS 4. He continued to work in effects makeup, including with Hodder for the first HATCHET.

Here’s an odd tidbit: editor Martin Sadoff only cut two other movies: PINK NARCISSUS and GRADUATION DAY. But he was the 3-D supervisor for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III. So he’s a genius.

Let’s say some nice things about this one. There are some good qualities. I like the telekinetic method of reviving Jason from his floating underwater grave. I like that he is now officially a literal zombie, with Dino Damage exposing ribs, vertebraes, even one side of his jaw bone visible behind a conveniently missing chunk of mask. (Did fish eat it?) I like that he still has a piece of chain around his neck, and you can hear it clinking when he pursues people.

They continue with the tradition of Jason loving to throw people through windows, with a pretty good redo of that stunt. He does a very good jump through a window, and also tears through a wall. There’s a cool part where he grabs Tina by the arm and just one-armed tosses her.

I kind of like that he has a monster face when his mask is torn off. I don’t know why he does. Does being dead cause your teeth to grow really long, like your fingernails do? I guess it is pretty much a rotted version of the previous design, and the teeth were pretty crazy there too. But it’s pretty crazy that he supposedly looks like that under there, and I like crazy. I will never be able to picture that being the face behind the mask when I’m looking at him wearing it, but I will appreciate it when he whips it out. And although I’ve always thought this chapter was weaker than I wanted it to be, I didn’t think it was terrible this time around. I like some of it.


WORM ON A HOOK notes:

This one has a scene where Maddy (Diana Barrows, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE) is trying to hide and suddenly Jason’s arms break through the wall behind her and grab her. Years ago, when I came up with the basic concept of WORM ON A HOOK, the very first image that came to me was of this scene if Maddy could turn around, put her own hands through the wall and strangle him back. At that point I figured the unnamed Florence character would have some kind of super powers, which I later abandoned, but I still used a version of the idea in the final book.

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26 Responses to “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood”

  1. There’s some debate if Jeff Bennett is the Johnny Bravo guy or not, it’s on his IMDB but other sources seem to suggest it’s another guy who otherwise has only worked on plays. Similarly the producer, Barbara Sachs is on IMDB as having worked at Nelvana including as a camera operator on THE CARE BEARS MOVIE but a couple of years earlier; surely that’s not the same one? At least we know for a fact it’s the real Arcee as not-Carrie’s mom.

    Anyways, I like this one but I read this interview with the writer recently and came out not liking him much

    Crystal Lake Confessional: Friday The 13th Part 7 - The New Blood

    In this exclusive interview, screenwriter Daryl Haney, talks about the troubled production of Friday The 13th Part 7: The New Blood.

  2. Ok, Vern, everything you said about THE FINAL CHAPTER applies here than it did there(ok, there are survivors from both camps here, but still). The sex cabin is full of incredible unlikeable people who don’t really make sense as friends. Hell, the other has only really has Tina-the mother is sympathetic to a point but she’s absolutely letting Crews take advantage of her. And like you said, Nick is dumb as a stump, so you really have Tina to root for.

    I’m fine with that, tho. She goes thru a lot of shit over the course of the movie so it’s easy to root for her, especially once she levels up her telekinesis powers.

    The best kill of the film is mos def Melissa, the most awful, hateful female character in the whole series. She totally earned her awesome death and that slide over the tv especially showed us Hodder’s potential.

  3. MOVIE PRUDE ASSWIPES OF AMERICA

  4. I’ve got a fan edit with the deleted gore put back in (literally someone just spliced the grainy VHS deleted scenes back into the film). It’s really jarring because of the quality change but I can confirm the rhythm and pacing of the kills are way better.

  5. Agree with most of the sober critique, but this is a movie I will cut endless slack to because of the Jason design. Is it definitive? When McFarlane Toys was making horror movie action figures, this was the Jason they made. When they needed a movie still of Jason for the cover of the NES game, they used a New Blood one.

    One thing that makes these later entries a little less charming, I think, is how heavily lit the forests seem. I don’t know enough about these things to know whether it’s cinematography or film stock or them literally just setting up more spotlights, but I feel like they lose a lot of the “dark woods” look that gave the early ones some legitimate atmosphere.

  6. I am here most for Zombie ghoul Jason, and I love the telekinesis shit that makes Tina actually a match for Jason. We’ve already seen various types of ostensibly macho dudes owned by Jason, and we will see another type of ostensibly macho dude get owned by Jason MANHATTAN (Mike Tyson, eat your heart out). This film gives us the first real match for Jason, and it’s fun seeing Jason get his ass telekinetically kicked. I enjoy the electrocution scene, love the body bag kill concept (which will re-appear in X), the light fixture face smash, Bernie is such a prick and is a fun kill, dad resurrection scene (man, the Tina family is just ickey shuffling all over Jason’s as). For me, this is the coolest looking Jason, including the make-up effects, the rotting concept, the face design, and Hodder’s movement and labored-breathing (why a zombie would breath like he’s got emphysema, I can’t tell you, but it’s fucking awesome). Jason 6 Jason is the perfect Jason, and this is the perfecter perfect jason. The best image is telekinetically squeeze-breaking the mask off of Jason’s face, which is the ultimate union of awesome zombie Jason with awesome telekinetic match for Jason.

    I remember really liking Tina, and for whatever reason, I don’t dislike the kids as much as Vern does. As I noted in the part 4 review, I think most of them are perfectly likable, it’s just that “dead fuck” guy is an asswipe, but he’s an ultimately small-time, harmless asswipe IIRC, and he’s sort of friends with Crispin Glover, so, he’s got that going for him.

    The lack of solid kills does suck, but I think Hodder still makes Jason sufficiently menacing that there is an effective tension whenever he shows up. Viva le Zombie Jason.

  7. Buechler died too? Man, I missed a lot of these significant losses.

  8. I always appreciated this for trying something different. It definitely breaks from formula to make the female lead in one of these slasher movies really powerful rather than simple prey.

    Has anyone seen this weird, really recent short film that apparently picks up Tina’s story?

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13049516/?ref_=nm_knf_t4

  9. Also, that voice-over narration at the beginning is AWESOME! Great voice and tone and amounts to the Jason equivalent of the BEVERLY HILLBILLIES theme.

  10. Okay, I had to re-watch this to see if it was as good as I remembered it.

    It was not as good as I remembered, but the the things I remembered liking, I still liked. I’d just been overlooking a few less likeable things.

    Good stuff (in approximate order of appearance)
    1. Voice-over narration at beginning. still great
    2. Tina – still a fan. She’s got a nice awkwardness.
    3. Nick – He is bland, but he’s kind and earnest and a handsome likeable guy.
    4. Melissa – This is the one true “shitbag” teen character, but she’s a deliberately heightened mean girl, and she’s a lot of bitchy fun.
    5. Dr. Bernie – Also a shitbag, but again, a love-to-hate shitbag.
    6. Tina’s mom’s hair – She’s got that hair metal / cocker spaniel feathered helmet going, and it is a glorious thing to behold. Plus, she’s like the sweet version of Kristen’s mom from NIGHTMARE 3. She’s a keeper.
    7. Rest of the kids – suitably varied and makeover nerd girl is fun.
    8. A little in the weeds, but I liked the aesthetic of Tina’s cabin-house.
    9. Both in this one and 6, I like how zombie Jason throws caution to the wind by bounding right into the water. He’s recovered from his water issues, guys!! His therapist (Dr. Leo Marvin?) must be thrilled.
    10. Kills – Hear me out. Yes, they’re choppy and largely bloodless, but the kill concepts are solid and somewhat inventive, and I particularly like how much mileage Jason gets out of bare-hand kills. For all the talk of his creative use of new implements, I think it’s at least half bare-hands kills in this one.
    11. Last 20 minutes – This is where we get to just about all the great stuff I referenced in previous comments. So, it’s a strong finish to a film that’s already racked up a respectable body count. All the Jason-Tina battling stuff is gold for me and stacks up with the best moments of any FRIDAY film.

    Less good stuff (random order)
    1. Location and spatial stuff – The filmamatography is lacking in vision and grandeur. We don’t get any overhead or pan-out landscape type shots, and a lot of Jason’s kills are framed very tight over a very narrow swath of space. So, the whole thing just feels strangely small and constrained, especially for the in-the-woods-kills, which are easily 2/3 of the kills. It really almost feels like maybe Jason is hanging out by this one tree in this one tiny section of the woods doing most of his kills there (is he guarding a pot of gold?), and like every kid eventually ends up walking past just that tiny stretch of woods, and then when Jason chases them, the sense of spatiality is so unclear and tight, that it almost feels like Jason could just be chasing people in very tight circles around a couple of trees. Like he’s a kid playing goalie or guarding home base or something weird. He does venture from time to time, but it’s like that’s his lucky killin spot or something, just sitting at the edge of the pier, dangling the old machete into the metaphorical water, hoping to get a bite. It’s typically very dark woods, all looks the same and almost just seems to be a narrow loop, like they could be shooting this over a very small space. A little chintzy.

    2. Kills (again!) – It is true that the censoring cuts drain the kills of a lot of their force. I think the kill concepts are strong enough that I still like them, but it’s a definite loss. Also, see weakness #1.

    3. Teen characters (again) – Although I think only one of them is shitty, the kid characters are a under-developed and can be a bit bland. And, even for a slasher film, they seem to do nothing but fuck (or spew forth bad sci-fi ideas). Not an epic fail, but more ofa missed opportunity to have more memorable teen characters.

    4. The sex – At one point, the film gives us three consecutive shots of three different couples, all presumably having sex at exactly the same moment in various locales (vans, bedrooms, etc.). And there aren’t that many couples. It gets to be unintentionally comical.

    Not as great as I remembered, but the good stuff holds up, and I like the leads well enough, and some of the other characters were interesting, and none of them actively got on my nerves (except maybe sci-fi writer dude, a little).

  11. I love this one for just being where Friday the 13th seemed to offiically go ‘fuck it’ and start throwing whatever they want at the wall. Psychic girl fights jason, sure why not.

    The Jason vs Carrie thing reminded me, anyone here read the friday the thirteenth fan comic where jason becomes an over protective camp counciler and ends up going to prom with Carrie?

  12. You know what’s weird about revisiting these? Each one has elements I remember, but then you start to watch them and it’s like oh yeah, they actually tried to make a whole movie. So most of the plot is still kinda new to me again, obviously to varying degrees of success each time.

  13. Ben, I never made much effort to follow-up on the tie-ins or fan-fic stuff, though I’ve heard at least some of it is good.

    Fred, yes, you are spot on. I had remembered pretty much only the Tina-mom-Bernie-Nick-Jason component of the film, pretty much nothing about the other kids (they are my Gordon of this film, I guess). And all of my favorite stuff was really confined to the last 20-25 minutes. The rest was not nearly as good filmatically in look, characters, or sense of location, but I do really love the Jason, so, even when his kills are (dr. evil pinky) cut to shreds, I still think they’re pretty cool.

    Also, I failed to mention that I somewhat liked the score on this one, actually, and I thought it had some additional interesting PSYCHO/Hermann -type notes to it, but not in an excessively rip-offy way.

  14. Interesting that they had to go back in Part VI and add extra gore, and in this one a couple years later, they apparently removed it.

    I did not realize how many feature-length fan-films this series spawned. And a number of them feature actors from the “real” movies. They even got Terry Kiser back in that one Ben mentioned!

    This site points to a bunch on YouTube, though IMDB tells me there are newer ones beyond this (like Vengeance 2 and the Rose Blood/Return of Bernie one): hooked-on-horror.com/post/hooked-on-horror-presents-the-best-friday-the-13th-fan-films

    So the question is: How do we convince Vern to watch and review some of these?

  15. “Interesting that they had to go back in Part VI and add extra gore, and in this one a couple years later, they apparently removed it.”

    Yeah, but then the MPAA made them cut the gore they added. There was a triple decapitation in the paintball scene that got excised entirely.

  16. I haven’t even gotten to VII yet but with 4 I obviously remember Crispin dancing and Feldman shaving his head. I actually quite liked the relationship drama between Crispin and the dead fuck guy and him proving himself romantically.

    V I remember the axe kill, all the nudity and the barnhouse finale. I actually didn’t even remember the Feldman dream. So the halfway house drama is obviously not good but I did appreciate that Tommy still makes scary masks, or at least kept the ones he made as a kid.

  17. It’s funny to see Haney get brought up as an unpleasant personality re: the interview above. It seems like he’s less edgy than he was years ago when the documentary was made. I enjoyed him as the gun nut in Siege, and I have a bit of sentimentality about this entry, but he struck me as a tremendously arrogant asshole in Crystal Lake Memories. I wish someone had shot him down, much as Zito did to Part IV’s scribe–I don’t remember the exact words, it was something like, “If you were a better writer, you’d be writing a better movie, but you’re not.”

    My relationship with this movie has been all over the place, but I remember it coming off a little better after I watched the next two after it and thought they were both terrible. It made this one seem like the last “real” Friday the 13th, for a while, at least as I’d want to watch them. This was before the remake, and by the time that came out, I realized that it wasn’t the woods or cabins I missed, just some elemental simplicity that that movie botched. Tunnels and survivalist Jason and shit.

  18. I didn’t disagree with or dislike everything he said, but the boasts of doing tonnes of coke while writing his screenplays 30 years ago give off a vibe that makes me suspect he’s not my kinda guy.

  19. Last time I watched I couldn’t believe how she keeps dropping him and not going for an actual kill. It’s rediculous.

  20. I like the idea of a decomposing zombie Jason, but having all the exposed ribs and other makeup effects on top of Hodder’s beefy bodybuilder physique just looks weird. His monster face is particularly silly.

  21. “one side of his jaw bone visible behind a conveniently missing chunk of mask. (Did fish eat it?)”

    That’s continuity, Vern. The bottom of the mask got torn off by the propeller on the boat at the end of JASON LIVES.

  22. You’re killing me, Crustacean! That’s the stuff I love, though I think the transition to the relatively lankier-looking Kirzinger for FVJ was another reason that was a smart design move. It is paradoxical that he’d be bulkier (not just bloated) and more rotted away — both at once — but for me this is the appeal of him transitioning into a kind of monster man thing. He’s not simply decomposing but he’s sort of transforming, evolving and dissolving all at once. Or another theory is that, while he’s submerged under water, the water is eroding away at him, but his natural zombie-Jason healing properties (which seem to be visually evident and also subject of some commentary in X) are kind of working at cross-purposes against the putrefying forces of the water, so you’re getting the net product of that. Whatever the case, I love Universal monster Jason, those are what put VII above VII for me (that and telekinetic ass-kicking and Tina being more likeable than anyone in VIII).

  23. Dang it, I mean 7 is better than 8.

  24. Don’t worry Skani, I have your back. The MPAA may have cough, butchered the gore, but the Jason creature effects, continuity and more make VII rise to the top. When Vern started posting these I had planned to comment as they went up, but given its been 7 years since my last full series rewatch, I’m gonna gorge on them all on Halloween then come back to necropost. I’ll be curious to see if my order, which is very different than most commenting here, remains true:

    VII > X > VI > IV > III > I > II > VIII > IX > V

    Just as my love for Miner’s DAY OF THE DEAD will always be true no matter how many times Vern takes a swipe at it, F13 VII and ANOES 4 remain tops in my slasher series books.

  25. Wow, that’s a bold list! I would not put VII THAT high, but it’s definitely ahead of IX and V, and it’s right up there with FVJ as the coolest-looking Jason imho. I’ve already outed myself as having insufficient familiarity with 2 an insufficient recall of 3, so, I need to hold off on my rankings until I’ve righted that. All of this chatter has me in an FVJ mood, so, I made need to revisit that first, but now 2 and 3 have to happen soon.

  26. Rewatched FVJ. Hard to compare to the others (of either franchise), for various reasons. It’s not a good movie, but it’s delightfully bizarre, intermittently entertaining, visually very interesting, and very much delivers the goods with the final battle. A couple stray thoughts:

    1. The film has too much bad CGI. When they go all in on practical blood and carnage in the final battle, you really notice and appreciate the differences. There’s an interesting visual shift, where the film is pretty heavily into more CGI blood and effects and then finally abandons them for serious gore when they get to Crystal Lake.

    2. That last battle at Crystal Lake, tho. It’s so utterly kitchen sink Tom and Jerry cartoon over the top that you have to love it (this, I command).Those last 20 minutes alone are worth the price of admission.

    3. Robert Engund – Such a professional. Freddy has the thankless job of being Jason backstory and current motivation exposition speak guy. It’s terrible dialogue, but he’s the consummate actor and does it as well as it can be done. All the physicality and mirth of the character is there.

    4. Freddy makeup – Medicore and reflects the FREDDY’S DEAD pivot to a bunch of larger pieces and lacks the gooey realism of the Yagher era or even ANOES 1 and 5 David Miller. Pretty bland. And there are these terrible fake “bloodshot” contact lenses in the first little opening bit. Bad.

    5. Demon Freddy jumps out of the lake – Chef’s kiss, that’s a visually delightful Freddy moment, all around.

    6. Filmatism – Yu goes for some weird “De Palma hired to film a Limp Bizkit” production design and filmatography here. Weird angles, outrageously bold lighting shemes, werid strobing shots, very hyper-colored all around, filmed kind of like a graphic novel. Does not look like any other film in either series, though maybe just faint hints of JASON X and FREDDY’S DEAD.

    7. The Zinger. As with Freddy, the make-up is not as gooey and wet and oozy as it should be, but it’s a nice mashup of some of the better elements of his look in 6, X, and maybe even a dash of pre-cyborg X. A cool one-headlight eye thing going on, some long strands of stray hair, and he’s adapted to the nu metal era and is wearing big bagging clothes (coveralls are so yesterday). he’s also massively tall and mostly on his machete game here, as far as kills. Still not sure it’s the best Jason, but it’s a cool Jason.

    8. Feels very Vancouver and not at all ANOES 1. For bedtime-themed movies set in Ohio (we find out in 6), the ANOES films spend a surprising amount of time basking in the bright California days. FVJ is very night-time, very hyper-colored (as noted), very overcast/Vancouvery when it’s not night time. Doesn’t really feel like Springwood or really like any descript, coherent place. It feels like a bunch of sets and un-specific, disconnected locations (even just in Springwood). This creates a weird, dream-like, graphic novel (again, as noted) feel. It kind of works, b/c then the whole movie just feels like a weird dream.

    9. Some truly great set pieces. Corn maze rave rampage and Crystal Lake battle in particular are great. All the stuff where we imagine Jason’s dream world and inner life is pure gold (foreshadowing some of Zombie’s stuff with Michael’s inner life in Zombie H2).

    10. Everything they do with scumbag boyfriend Trey is fantastic. “Babe, don’t make me wait!”

    11. Story, characters, and actors mostly suck. I like Linderman (SPOILERS FOR AN 18 YEAR-OLD FILM), great death scene. Nice bit of acting. Beyond that, the acting ranges from terrible to competent, and the characters range from fucking obnoxious to “fine, I guess.”

    12. Freddy, in particular, seems hamstrung and under-used or unimaginatively used. He’s mostly there to explain Jason to us or to get grumpy. This gets better once he turns on Jason. The film wants to take us through an arc where Freddy decides to feel threatend / angry with Jason, and it’s pretty weakly developed and abruptly escalated. Not earned.

    13. I like the way the film goes all in on weird, from the beginning, and I love the goofy Tom and Jerry fight at the end, and I think Yu has a distinct visual sensibility that is not a complete success but is interesting. The first 70 minutes a C-, but the last act is a A-. For as ridiculous of an ask as bringing these two characters together to have an epic fight, this film acquits itself well. The final fight is great, the penultimate fight is good, and the first 70 minutes has its charms.

    In hindsight, I put it near or just below the middle entry in either franchise. It succeeds in what it sets out to do and was the ending to both franchises that we needed. Good way to wind down the original series-es.

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