Review of Friday the 13th Part VII - The New Blood (1988) by Lucien L — 04 Mar 2015

Director John Carl Buechler (Troll), who is also known as a Make-Up artist in many "B" movies (Which some went on to be Cult Classics) gives some life to this seemingly never ending series of the highly popular Slasher flicks "Friday the 13th" series. The good things in the seventh film, it has a lead character (Who can't control her telekinetic powers), some good performances, Jason's look on the movie and it was the first film that Kane Hodder got to play Jason. Which he did three more times after this one.

Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) is a pretty blonde teenager, who is going back to the tragic place at a summer camp. As a Young girl, she accidently killed her father with her telekinetic powers. Now she has to face her face with the help of her loving mother (Susan Blu) and her seemingly caring psychologist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser, who gives the best performance in the film). While there is a group of teenagers living next door to their Tina's summer home. Since Tina has much regret killing her father, she thinks, she can bring her father back to life (Since his body was never found...supposedly ?) in the lake but instead, she brings Jason Voorhees back to life. Now Jason goes his mojo back to stalk his favorite prey... killing horny teengers and adults, who have no business being in Camp Crystal Lake. Since it is been his terrority for years.

What I do like about this one that the characters knows nothing about Jason Voorhees in it. The characters of Tina and Dr. Crews do make this one unique, it has something of a supernatural feel as well. But the film's biggest problems, it is the sometimes incoherent script (Some characters seems to appear in the woods for no apparently reason at all), a few story holes, the basic stalk and slash (Although it has some good moments with that) and some of Buechler's make-up effects kills really lacks real bite, since those scènes were badly cut from the MPAA. Which it is too bad in a way, the film won't have been just a little better but not by much. I do like the character of Nick, played by Kevin Blair (Now known as Kevin Spirtas), who has an easygoing charm and for some reason, he reminds of Christopher Reeve. I do find the character of the bitchy, unpleasent and sexy character Melissa (Nicely played by the late Susan Jennifer Sullivan) very amusing.

The film's pace is fairly good, the third act is a lot of fun to Watch. It does have some imaginative things going on. If it had an much better script, it could have been an much more sastifying. Buechler was forced to re-shot some important story moments would have made the film better but the associate Producer of the feature was seemingly to the most powerful person of the set!

Overall "Friday the 13th Part 7:The New Blood" was made with good intentions and it is still popular with the die-hard fans of the series. I used to love it more as a kid, but I still Watch it, because I love horror movies of all kinds and it brings the nostalgia feeling back, when I watched it on VHS in the late 1980's. Grade:B.