Often heard described as Jason Voorhees meets Carrie White, "Part VII" of the venerable series was where the writers started to get a bit creative with the formula - more often than not to damning effect. But here the boundary-pushing inclusion of a telekinetic protagonist works like the proverbially charm, in my opinion. This is also the first of four occasions where Kane Hodder would play the hockey-masked maniac. Many fans think he added a new dimension to the character but I'll be honest, I just don't see it. I thought Ted White and C.J. Graham made great Jasons and, to me, Hodder is just riffing off previously established quirks. If Graham had played the role four times, I'm sure fans would be saying the same thing about him. The one thing I do believe is superior about this incarnation of Jason is the make-up effect for his facial reveal which is absolutely stunning and would probably have been nightmare-inducing if I hadn't watched a boatload of horror films already. Hell, by the time this was released in '88, I had already discovered Lucio Fulci and Ruggero Deodato films so . . . yeeaahh.
"Part VII" may be a tiny step below "Part 3" in my book, but it's nowhere near as bad as I've heard a lot of people make it out to be. Compared to the ninth and tenth installments, "The New Blood" looks like "Citizen Kane." Forest Green has gone the way of the dodo bird and the Crystal Lake moniker returns with no explanation. More partygoers are staying at the lake, this time as a birthday surprise for one of their friends, while a troubled young teen tries to work out her emotional problems next door. I think Lar Park Lincoln does the best she can as Tina Shepard - even though the dialogue given to her is a little stilted - but many of the other cast members here are just window dressing. They're not exactly stereotypical like the ones you'd find in "Part 3," but their individual personalities seem like echoes of what they could have been. In the hands of better writers, the partygoers from this film could have been as solidly entertaining as those found in "The Final Chapter." As it stands, everyone here feels like they exist only to interact with Tina, and when they're away from her they seem a little lost. The only exception is Terry Kiser's opportunistic psychiatrist but that's probably due to Kiser's own force of will to develop his persona appropriately - even going so far as
[Show spoiler]to make a sacrificial lamb out of Tina's mother while showing an exceptional lack of remorse.
Of course, the following year Kiser would imbue a dead man with more personality than most stand-up comedians possess, so it shouldn't really be a surprise his character here is successful.
One thing I immediately noticed when I was younger is that this film has a darker tone: feelings of repression and guilt which are barely explored but always buried just beneath the surface, subtexts of childhood trauma that don't come from Jason's own backstory, emotional as well as physical isolation, etc. There's humor present in this sequel as well, but half of what's here feels more antagonistic than good-natured like previous entries. The kills also feel more cruel, like Jason's done toying with his victims and just wants to massacre them as brutally as possible. Sometimes they work (pole saw fans unite!), sometimes they don't (a party favor through the forehead? Seriously?). However the finale really goes all out with
[Show spoiler]Tina tossing everything from electricity to fire at Jason, even dropping an entire porch on his head, although in the end he winds up right back in the lake where he started.
"Friday the 13th Part VII" is a good film and I'm always entertained while watching, but it also feels clear that the legacy of Jason Voorhees is beginning to wear thin.
When you've covered every square inch of Crystal Lake as your stomping grounds over the course of seven previous films, what's left for you to do? That's right - take your act of carnage and brutality on the road, which is exactly what our hockey-masked hack 'n' slash antihero does. This eighth entry starts off with the same kind of atmosphere that permeated the past episodes yet it doesn't add anything to the proceedings outside of the obligatory resuscitation of Jason Voorhees. Once they hit the cruise ship, the mood shifts a little and it becomes a fairly interesting endeavor. In my opinion, this new location is a fresh and welcome change. I'd even go so far as to say if the film had
[Show spoiler]ended when the five cruise ship survivors reached the New York shoreline,
I probably would have ranked this film three-and-a-half skulls.
Jensen Daggett and Scott Reeves work well together, even if their characters are a bit cookie cutter, and Peter Mark Richman plays the kind of overly protective uncle that crawls under your skin (which makes you love to hate him). Outside of those three, we're left with more generic characters like the ones found in the third and seventh installments of the series, but at least the actors here are game enough to give it their all and try to rise above what was written in their scripts - particularly Martin Cummins as a videographer, Sharlene Martin as a snobby elite woman Cummins brown-noses for, and V.C. Dupree as a bad to the bone boxer. What surprises me the most about this cast however, is that the two names I'd become most familiar with over the years (Kelly Hu and Gordon Currie) do precious little to impress on this occasion.
Some of the death scenes show sparks of life (who doesn't love a good pun - be honest), notably
[Show spoiler]rocker J.J.'s boiler room head bop, Mr. Sauna Stomach, and the rooftop boxing battle between Julius and Jason which is the only scene I like once they hit the Big Apple.
I truly believe that even if director Rob Hedden was allowed to spend all the time he wanted in New York, the film wouldn't be any better. Jason running rampant in a major metropolitan area was too gimmicky from the start. Once the action leaves the ocean and hits the streets, the entire film grinds to a freaking halt. The mini subplot with the
[Show spoiler]drug users kidnapping Rennie is really uncomfortable and, worse, absolutely unnecessary. The protracted chase through the sewers had me rolling my eyes and checking my watch when I was ten years old - perhaps the first time I ever did that in my life - and the reversion to "childhood Jason" is so preposterously bad it makes me want to b*tch slap all those who were involved in its inclusion.
I suppose the film is average in its own way. In fact, I'm quite fond of two-thirds of the presentation, it's just that the remaining third is so horrible it taints the good with its incredible badness.
I normally avoid "Jason Goes to Hell" and "Jason X" when rewatching the "Friday the 13th" franchise, but I figured I'd use this "31 Days of Halloween Movies" as an excuse to drag them back from the depths of my unloved cinematic cellar and give them another chance. Of course, splitting them between two days might be a mistake and may make me want to toss "Jason X" in the bin before subjecting myself to that kind of misery again, but . . . we'll see what happens. So here it is: New Line Cinema acquired the rights to the "Friday the 13th" franchise and basically decided they could do whatever the hell they wanted, tradition be damned. So they take all the right ingredients - violence, gore, nudity, sex - and mix them up in a blender full of bad ideas. With no established precedent, with not even the merest hint in any of the previous eight films, New Line decides to turn Jason Voorhees into a black magic-based body-jumping supernatural entity that can possess other people until he can be reborn through someone from his own bloodline. Oh for crying out loud (modesty forbids me from typing what I'd
really like to type there)!
After seeing this film in theaters, I was left scratching my head and wondering for the first time if Hollywood had truly lost its marbles. The film starts off well enough with a lonely traveler heading to Crystal Lake, stripping to take a shower, and being interrupted by my personal favorite psychotic killer. Then she gets chased into the woods where Jason hacks her to pieces before going off to look for more victims. Yeah. Right. I wish. That would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, New Line decides to have a SWAT team waiting where they blow Jason sky high and begin their warped decent into horror movie irrelevancy like a bat
into Hell. Most of the characters come off as unlikeable two-dimensional morons - more so than most horror movies, which is saying something - with the exception of Creighton Duke. This is the only well-rounded individual present and he would have made an excellent leading man in a completely separate film that could have benefitted from his wry, near sociopathic cynicism and single-minded sense of purpose.
For the majority of the run time, we're stuck with pale imitations playing "Jason" until
[Show spoiler]the very end when the true Jason is reborn with his hockey mask intact. Yeah, that's freaking brilliant. Let's have the supernatural powers guiding Jason's return know to include the iconic mask because . . . reasons? At any rate, it's too little too late to save the film. The fight between Steven and Jason is such a meager effort it wouldn't have ranked notice as an opening contest in one of the original Paramount-produced works. That last moment "stinger" with the cheap knock-off Freddy Krueger glove (bending blades and all) rising to grab the hockey mask is the best part of the film and fans wouldn't receive a payoff for that until a decade later!
I think the great irony here is that if Adam Marcus and Jay Huguely had crafted their film around an original entity instead of an established character like Jason Voorhees, more people would have taken their film seriously. Of course if they hadn't included Jason, I doubt the studio would have greenlit their project at that time so it doesn't really matter anyhow. Tell me . . . why did I rewatch this again?
SPOILER WARNING:
MUCH OF THE EIGHTH FILM IS SUMMARIZED IN THIS MUSIC VIDEO!!
("I have warned thee!")
SPOILER FREE VERSION OF THE SONG:
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Tender Dracula 
and 
Linear Mode
