Part 7, titled, The New Blood, would come out 20 months after part 6, the longest stretch between movies since parts 3 and 4 (although part 3 did have a 3D release in the year between it was first released, and part 4 came out). Essentialy, 1987 was the first year that didn't feature a cinematic release of a Friday The 13th movie since 1980.
I'm not sure of the reason for the break. Box office returns had been declining ever since part 3, with a sharp drop off for the 5th and 6th installments.
We open with a little girl running out of her cabin where dad has just smacked mom down. The little girl gets in a boat and goes out to the middle of the lake. When dad comes out on the dock and implores her to come back in, she says she hates him and wishes he was dead, then she makes a cheesy face as we're led to believe she has some sort of mind control powers that cause the dock to crumble, sending daddy to a watery grave where Jason would join him at some point in the future.
Now a teenager, Tina still hasn't gotten over what happened that night, and just like Tommy, has been in a mental institution for a spell. Her doctor thinks it would be a good idea to return to the site of where her dad died because it's the only way left he knows how to help her.
So there's the setup. My first thought back then was that it was cool, I loved the Tina character as a kid. My first thought now is that it was a terribly goofy direction to go in, but I'll let it play out. Oh yeah, when Tina, her mom, and the doctor arrive at Camp Crystal Lake, there's already a group of teenagers hanging out at the cabin next door waiting for their friend to show up for his surprise party.
So the snivly doctor seems more interested in tapping into Tinas telekinetic powers than helping her get over her fathers death. When he pushes her too far, she runs out of the cabin and onto the docks where she senses a presence, and thinking it's her father, tries to will it back to life. Big mistake.
Alright, rather then bore you with anymore details, let's just say that this baby is a giant turd.
I was hoping that it would overcome the goofy premise but it doesn't, not at all. The idea of a girl with psychic ability as Jasons main foil just comes off silly.
Besides that point, almost everything else the series has ever done right, it does wrong here. The Jason fodder is rather bland and just out in the woods to be out in the woods, the kills are dull and hardly gory at all.
The teenagers next door all look like extras from the Cosby Show, which makes it kind of creepy when we see some of them naked, not that I didn't appreciate that they threw in some tits and ass but it's all so uniform and by the numbers. Stuff just happens because it's supposed to happen rather than feeling organic in any way. There is a nice skinny dipping scene where we get an underwater twat shot, that while appreciated, again feels like it was just thrown in for the sake of having it there.
The dialog, the characters, all cheese. It's sort of baffling to think that they took 2 years to make this movie and this was the best they could come up with. As I said earlier, none of the kills are all that great. Hell, most of em aren't even shown. A laughable moment occurs when Jason, in the middle of the woods, shows up with a gas powered saw, the kill with which isn't shown. A lot of this shit left me scratching my head.
The final scene features Jasons mask coming off, and while it scared the fuck out of me as a kid, the clear animatronics in the close ups just left giggling now.
The ending is beyond stupid. Words can't even describe how stupid.
Easily the worst film of the bunch, it doesn't even have the atmosphere to save it. Everything is wrong here. Everything.
So yeah. I had high hopes for this one based off my recollections as a kid, but god damn is this awful. Up next is Jason Takes Manhattan, which I remember not wanting to see as a kid just because it sounded so fucking corny. I think I saw it once and that's it, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised but I'm fairly certain the cliff has already been fallen off of.
The New Blood is tainted and the patient is dyeing.
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