Friday the 13th Part VII (1988) - Additional

I remember when my siblings and I were teenagers watching “The New Blood” we definitely enjoyed it because of inclusion of the telekinesis, the makeup and special stunt effects, and just a differently lensed Jason Voorhees. There are moments when he is moving through those woods, he’s actually not cartoonish but very menacing, like this beast in the wilderness with one goal and that is to destroy. There is humor, though, even if it features dialogue that often has you going, “Wait, what was that he said?” And there is a contingent of slasher fans that consider this the “gayest Friday male cast ever”. So over the last thirty years—in 2018, this sequel’s thirtieth anniversary was dwarfed obviously by the fortieth of “Halloween” (1978)—the seventh film has built a cult following similar to “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part II: Freddy’s Revenge” (1985).

To me, this film does have my favorite all-time kill: the sleeping back thrust into the tree. No machete to the torso or ax to the head, just a mean-spirited Jason dragging a fighting woman struggling in her sleeping back, lifting her off the ground with vicious intent, and hurling her head first into that tree. It impacted me more than the hybrid weedeater-saw-blade machine that Kiser gets split by…I laughed to myself when I remembered how my brother and me reacted to that when we saw it for the first time. Jason wielding that thing, that saw just loud and scary, and Kiser going nowhere, his eyes crossing as the blade meets his flesh. Jason found every kind of blade available. Every kind of curve, a variety of long and short handles, and a myriad of body parts sliced and diced. The face, neck, stomach, back…Jason catches them in the refrigerator, snooping into birthday presents (the penis/magnifying glass joke is a gas), with their pants down (the skinny dip has never been more ill-advised for the exception of “Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter” (1984)), out of van windows, holding pets, and opening doors. Victims run through woods, but Jason knows them better than any of these out-of-towners.

Thing is, I can’t help but feel that almost all the kills—except some of the weapons are a bit designed differently—are the greatest hits of past films. I always seemed to feel a strong callback to “The Final Chapter” and the butcher knife, machete, and ax are weapons that are used so often, the value of their impact had diminishing returns. It seemed like in “The New Beginning”, the paramedic stabbed and axed a lot of torsos. Knives, machetes, and axes, oh my! I think I credit the sixth film for its use of weapons in more of a comedic way just because there was a change in presentation. But the late John Carl Buechler compromises by leaving in the slasher tropes that are footprints of the franchise while allowed to play with the formula thanks to the telekinesis plot. But I will always have problems with the father at the end of the film. He would have been drug from Crystal Lake and buried, not left there. And Tommy would have told somebody about Jason being left in Crystal Lake chained, wouldn’t he? All those kids would be telling their parents that they witnessed events quite harrowing and there are cops dead…to think that Jason would be left there and FBI wouldn’t swoop in (earlier than “Jason Goes to Hell” (1993)) to stop the damned onslaught is questionable. There is a lot that sort of needles me…logic holes in the Friday franchise are expected, but, for some reason, I am always aggravated by the ending to “The New Blood”. Cool opening with the voiceover narrating what has happened in the past and how Jason seems to never die, and that nifty intro with the hockey mask and streaks of light into the credits couldn’t introduce the seventh film any better.

I have noticed a trend, too…the posters for the latter films I seem to like a lot more than the earlier ones. For the exception of “The Final Chapter”, I think the later sequels have my favorite posters of the series.