Friday the 13th Part VII - The New Blood
Short description
A young woman with telekinetic abilities returns to the area around Crystal Lake with her mother and her psychiatrist. Years earlier, as a child, she accidentally caused her father's death using powers she could not control. Now a teenager, Tina Shepard senses something trapped beneath the lake and, during an attempt to reach it, unintentionally frees Jason Voorhees from the chains holding him underwater. The psychiatrist, Dr. Crews, is more interested in exploiting Tina's abilities than in treating her. Jason resumes killing in the surrounding area, including at a birthday party held at a neighbouring house, and Tina's visions and powers become the only means of confronting him.
Directed by John Carl Buechler, this 1988 horror, science fiction and thriller film is the fourth of the six features he directed, arriving after Troll (1986) and followed the same year by Cellar Dweller. Lar Park Lincoln plays Tina, Kane Hodder plays Jason Voorhees, Terry Kiser plays Dr. Crews, and Kevin Spirtas, Susan Jennifer Sullivan and Debora Kessler appear among the substantial credited cast. The screenplay was written by Manuel Fidello and Daryl Haney, with Frank Mancuso Jr. and Iain Paterson producing. Made for about 3 million dollars, the film took roughly 19 million worldwide.
Audience responses have been modest: on IMDb the film holds 5.2 out of 10 from more than 41,000 votes, and on TMDB it holds 5.5 out of 10 from over 1,200 votes. A critics' rating of 4.6 out of 10 from 27 reviews places critical opinion somewhat below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Director John Carl Buechler was so shocked by Kane Hodder eating live worms on the set of the thriller 'Prison' (Renny Harlin, 1987) that he persuaded Paramount Pictures to let him film Hodder as Jason. If it weren't for his persistence, the role would have gone to S.J. Graham again.
- Initially, this was intended to be the first film to feature a crossover between Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger from the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' franchise. However, Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema, the owners of the 'Friday the 13th' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street' franchises respectively, failed to reach an agreement, so the script was rewritten and telekinetic Tina Shepard was introduced instead of Freddy.
- The Jason mask for this film was created using the same mold as the mask from Steve Miner’s 'Friday the 13th Part 3' (1982), but with minor alterations. The mask shows damage (from an axe and a screw), and its edges were also slightly trimmed to make the actor’s head appear smaller.
- Initially, John Carl Buechler wanted Paula Irvine to play the role of Tina, because she was 19 years old at the time and looked exactly as he envisioned the character. However, it turned out that Irvine was busy filming a horror film, 'Phantasm II' (1988), for Don Coscarelli. Time was running out, and Buechler couldn't find an actress of the appropriate age for the role of Tina, so he cast the older Lar Park-Lincoln (who was 26 at the time). The actress had to wear a lot of makeup to look a few years younger. The producers really liked that she resembled Sissy Spacek, who played Carrie in Brian De Palma’s film of the same name (1976).
- Screenwriter Daryl Heaney was fired after his agent called executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr. and claimed that Heaney was demanding a substantial increase in his fee (even though Heaney hadn’t even considered such a thing). A less well-known Manuel Fidelio finished working on the script.
- As the series creator and producer Rebecca Sugar revealed, the voice actors for the main characters were selected based on the sound of their singing voices.
- Kane Hodder later recounted that filming the scene of the girl’s murder in the sleeping bag proved difficult, as the sleeping bag with the dummy and fake blood inside was very heavy. The scene had to be reshot again and again. During the filming of one of the takes, he dropped the sleeping bag and kicked it in frustration, and it was that take that made it into the film. Hodder subsequently repeated this on the set of the horror film “Jason X” (James Isaac, 2000).
- The film set a record for the longest controlled continuous burn in a frame in Hollywood history. Hodder’s character burned for 40 seconds.
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