THE RETURN OF 31 DAYS OF HORROR: #23 Friday The 13th Part 7: The New Blood

I’ve been rejected by some of the finest Sci Fi Magazines out there!

So we've come to it at last Friday The 13th Part 7: The New Blood, Or as it really should be known Jason Vs. Carrie. In an effort to watch a Friday The 13th movie I’d never seen before, I originally wanted to get Part 5, based mainly on it’s Halloween 3 style outsiderishness, and the fact that The AV Club deemed it’s kill count “Existential”.

Alas the lone VHS copy of Part 7 just looked so trashy, and reminiscent of my misspent youth spent in the horror section dreaming of the terrifying things behind the lurid covers (and coming up with stuff that was probably scarier then the actual movies) that I couldn’t help but rent it.

Friday The 13th Part 7 is pretty OK. It’s not a masterpiece and not as much fun as the first 3. But it capitalizes on it’s clever idea, has some great gore gags (including the classic tree plus girl in sleeping bag one), a great monster performance by Kane Hodder and all in all has a real sense of fun. And if it seems to expect us to take the subplot about The Final Girl’s psychiatrist being an asshat, some guy who so WISHES he was Crispin Glover in The Final Chapter, and her neighbor being a bitch (Though her hiss worthy performance, does end up making her hatchet to the face derived ending extra special) well every rose has it’s thorn.

Tina’s psychiatrist has sent her to Crystal Lake, where her father died, for some therapy, because he is a tremendous douche. In reality he’s just trying to traumatize her further so he can harness her psychic powers because… well because as far as I can tell he thinks it’d be neato.

Anyway, things start to come undone when Tina develops a crush on a pile of feathered hair with a body underneath it, and also Jason has come back in a killing mood. But this time he’s met his match, no not because of Tina’s psychic powers, but because she has just as many fucked up parental issues as he does.

The main difference between Hodder’s Jason and all the others, is that while most Jason’s go for implacable apathy, Hodder’s clearly enjoys what he does. It’s not played to broadly, it’s just all in the details. The extra second he takes to let the poor son of a bitch he’s come across know what’s coming. That extra twist of the knife.

The extra personality comes in handy this time out as this film is the first (only?) time that Jason is actually shocked by what’s going on. Hodder’s reaction when Tina starts throwing psychic blasts at him and throwing him through the floor is a great one, just this “Wait What the fuck?” It’s almost like he’s shaken.

The New Blood’s a whole lot of fun. It’s not perfect, it’s slow, a bit talky for a Friday 13th flick and never threatens to actually be scary. But it’s a great bit of Halloween fun.