Review of Friday the 13th Part VII - The New Blood (1988) by Nathaniel A — 22 Oct 2014

Man, oh man. Jason versus a telekinetic teenage girl. It's basically Jason vs. Carrie if you really think about it. I realize that the Jason franchise, prior to the reboot/remake, eventually ended up in FUCKING SPACE, but I don't think I can wrap my head around how a telekinetic teenager can bring back someone from the dead.

So Jason, in the previous movie, was drowned in Crystal Lake where Tina's father had also drowned when she was a child. Apparently she caused this because her telekinesis acts up whenever she's under emotional stress.

Basically, she caused her own father's death after her telekinesis has caused the walkway/gazebo leading into the lake to collapse. Years later she goes back to the house to confront her past. Of course, Tina is being haunted by the guilt of causing her father's death.

So she, trying to make up for what she did, somehow tries to put her telekinesis to work in order to bring her dad back to life. Not to mention the fact that he's been in the lake for almost a decade, no time is given, so who knows how bloated he would be even if he didn't decompose and all that's left is his skeleton.

Somehow, and this isn't explained, and they don't even care to, instead of bringing her father back to life, she brings back Jason. This wouldn't be a big issue if they bothered to explain it, but I would almost have to imagine that the person she thought about coming back to life was her dad and him alone.

How does she then bring someone completely unrelated to her, someone whose existence she's only vaguely aware of, considering she was a child when Jason "died", back to life??? How does that happen???? Or is there like a range limit to her telekinesis, which would be incredibly stupid.

And, to top it off, and this will have SPOILERS, so skip ahead, she brings back her dad back to life for a moment to drag Jason back into the lake with him. So it can't be that her abilities had a range meter, that would be really stupid.

So with that, the film starts off on the wrong foot. I realize that this is the horror genre, where the laws of physics and logic need not apply, but if I can't suspend my disbelief then, I'm sorry, I just can't buy into it.

To be fair, this would've still been a really bad movie without that stupidity, but it might've been better. You know what to expect from a Friday the 13th movie. Teens having sex, said teens then being "gruesomely" murdered in a variety of different ways.

Poor character development, poor acting, and even worse gore. Perhaps I was spoiled by Hellraiser 2, but the violence in this movie is really tame in comparison. If, at the very least, the film hadn't been afraid to get a little more brutal, then this might've gotten a better score.

So that lack of brutality only helps to shine an even bigger spotlight on the narrative missteps of using telekinesis as something to bring a murderous brute back to life. Of all the ridiculous ways to bring him back to life.

..fucking telekinesis. How does that even work??? As far as I can tell, telekinesis involves moving things with your mind...not completely affecting whether a person is alive or not. And, another big, huge fucking plot hole, if she can use her emotional stress to bring someone back to life, then why can't she do the same thing to snuff the life right out of Jason's bloated corpse??? Really, did the scriptwriters even THINK about this before they put pen to paper??? I bet someone, somewhere has an excuse as to why she couldn't use her abilities to kill Jason once and for all.

Just completely stupid, this might actually be one of THE stupidest horror movies I've seen in a while. The Leprechaun reboot was really fucking terrible, but I didn't think it was stupid. It's just a combination of things, just terrible.

One positive, I guess, would be that the movie just flies by. At 85 minutes it would almost have to, but it's still a positive. I realize that this franchise has a lot of passionate fans, and if they genuinely liked this movie then more power to them, but I can't believe that this film ever saw the light of day.

I would've taken one look at the script and immediately demanded that the whole thing be scrapped and make them start over again. This is a terrible movie.