Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Written by Puño Estupendo

It may be overstating the obvious, but by part seven of the Friday The 13th franchise, this series' glory days were long gone. The formula that the first couple of films had helped to establish was already tired by 1988. There was only one sure way to go to reinvigorate the series: get yourself a telekinetic girl.

This Firestarter/Jason mash-up is just so godawful that I would feel completely confident in calling bullshit on anyone that tries to defend it. I do have friends that say (with a kitschy grin) that they "like that one," but I have to think that it's nostalgia from their youth painting that picture for them. If you ask these people when was the last time they actually watched it, the answer is usually "not in years". If you're a fan of The New Blood but haven't seen it in a decade or so, do yourself a favor and keep it that way. There's nothing worse than having great memories of something only to have it ruined by your current sensibilities. Seriously though, I don't even think this one makes it into the "so bad that it's good" category.

After the events of the film before it, Jason lies under the waters of Crystal Lake once again, this time with a chain around his neck, anchoring him to the bottom. Coincidentally enough, a flashback sequence shows a little girl fleeing her house, her parents arguing, and the father physically abusing the mother off camera. The girl, Tina, is crying and ends up jumping into a small boat and floats outward from their dock on...wait for it...Crystal Lake.

Y'know, it's amazing how many people actually ended up living or having vacation spots on that lake over the years.

Anyway, so Tina's dad comes out to try to tell her that everything is okay. He stands on the dock, pleading for his little girl to come back to shore. She is so upset and angry at her father that it triggers her telekinetic powers, unleashing a force that destroys the dock and kills her father in one tantrum induced swoop. Cut to years later and Tina, her mother, and her doctor are returning to the house on Crystal Lake as part of Tina's recovery. She now looks to be in the 17-22 age bracket, perfect for this franchise. What luck! She's spent years in a hospital trying to deal with her crazy powers and cope with the guilt of having bumped off her dad.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that you would take her back to the scene of the crime until you find out that her doctor is trying to provoke her powers (which come out when she's stressed like the Hulk) for his own career. He films her with his camcorder in one scene, trying to get her to move a matchbook across the table. She can't do it until he properly upsets her, not only moving the matches, but causing them to BURST IN TO FLAME! Tina ends up finding herself out on a dock to the lake, lamenting over her dead father, when she senses a presence in the lake. Assuming it's dear ol' dad (because obviously nobody ever remembers the body count associated with this lake) she tries to resurrect him, but guess what? Guess who she resurrects instead?

Oof.

Did I really need to see a confrontation between Jason Voorhees and a telekinetic?! I know it reads like it would be shamefully stupid and yet fun, but it's not. The only thing I actually enjoyed in this was the appearance of Terry Kiser as Tina's doctor, Dr. Crews. You know Terry even if you don't think you do. He was Bernie in Weekend at Bernie's and he's appeared in so much stuff that he has the face that makes you say "Oh, that guy"! He plays an asshole so well that it kind of cracked me up.

Overall, I say skip this movie. If you're a legit horror fan, this movie has nothing for you. If you like the gore and death scenes, not much there for you either. Sure, people get killed, but it's not impressive, creative, or even particularly bloody. As for the people that like the awful movies because for some reason they think it's still funny, you're gonna strike out as well. It's bad in a bad way, nothing really funny to it other than Terry Kiser, but that's stretching it fairly thin. This is an abysmal wreck of a film from the late '80s and is best left undisturbed.

It's okay for completists to want to watch it because they want to see the entire series, but unless you fit that bill, you should just watch something else instead.