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Heads roll thanks to Jason in Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood.
The film begins with an excellent opening montage, summing up the previous events in the Jason Voorhees story. Does the narrator sound familiar? He should: it’s our old friend Walt Gorney, better known as “Crazy” Ralph. Gorney is spot-on in setting the tone as dark and menacing.
They’re all doomed!
After the formulaic opening credits, a flashback is shown. Ten years prior, a young Tina Shepard becomes angry with her father’s physical abuse of her mother. She heads out to a boat on Crystal Lake, and Mr. Shepard runs after her. Using her previously unknown telekinetic powers, Tina causes the pier that her father is on to collapse, killing him. Flash forward to present day, Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) and her mother are headed back to Crystal Lake to confront her guilty feelings.
Whoa, wait a minute... Crystal Lake? Didn’t the local residents change the name to Forest Green? It’s never truly explained, but presumably the name was changed back to Crystal Lake between Part VI and Part VII.
Why drown the film with needless details, right?
So Tina and her mother (Susan Blu) arrive at their old cabin, conveniently located next to the lake, as well as a house full of naughty teens. Tina’s psychiatrist is also at the cabin. Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser) convinces the Shepards that the only way for Tina to let go of her guilty feelings is to confront them head on. In actuality, Dr. Crews is only out to profit from Tina’s amazing abilities. But he must learn is to harness her power.
That night, Tina heads down to the lake, alone, to remember her father. She attempts to use her powers to bring him back to life. In a case of sheer happenstance, the telekinetic wires were crossed somewhere along the way: instead of her father, Tina revives Jason, who had remained dormant at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Jason rises to the surface, and begins his killing spree one more time.
Nick (Kevin Blair) from next door takes a liking to Tina, and invites her to a party for his cousin. While there, she meets the usual slasher victims: the nerd(s), the stoner, the token black couple, the “friendly” woman, and the just plain stupid. Tina foresees Jason killing one of the party-goers and she runs home. On her way, she finds a metal tent spike driven through the side of the house. A frantic Tina tells Dr. Crews and her mother, but the doctor believes it is the guilt she feels for her father’s death manifesting itself in delusions. Tina disagrees.
What ensues is a complicated, entangled mess of three storylines. The first is of a developing love story between Tina and Nick. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the love potential between Trish and Rob in The Final Chapter (TFC), but manages to be somewhat more believable... I guess. I don’t usually enjoy a legitimate love story in a simple slasher flick. It tries to add another dimension, but usually detracts. That is, unless one of the love interests is brutally slain by the killer, as in the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
But I digress.
The second running theme is that of Dr. Crews’ seeming disinterest in actually helping Tina with her problems. Instead, he’s looking to cash in on her supernatural powers. Packed with a video camera and voice recorder, Dr. Crews documents his research with Tina. However, Mrs. Shepard eventually discovers the truth about Tina’s money-hungry shrink. Unfortunately, by the time she does, she’s already deeply involved in the third and main storyline...
Jason Voorhees is a massive zombie mess who is on one simple mission: kill everyone as quickly and as violently as possible. Now, one could argue that is exactly the storyline of the previous films. True... the whole series is just a collection of mindless slaughtering, but the difference in Part VII is huge: Kane Hodder!
With the extraneous teens put out of commission, as well as Mrs. Shepard and Dr. Crews, the stage is set for the battle between Jason, the New Jersey mongoloid, and Tina, the telekinetic Carrie wannabe. Women’s rights activists will love the fact that the series goes back to a strong female heroine and a seemingly worthless male counterpart.
I like strong women, too.
Kane Hodder is to the Friday franchise what Robert Englund is to the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Plus, Hodder is working with a distinct disadvantage: his character does not talk! He manages to stalk the residents of Crystal Lake with such cunning and believability, and sheer anger that even the critics that despise this series ought to give him the credit he deserves.
CJ Graham was exceptional in Jason Lives, but Hodder raises the bar to a level that only he can surpass. Jason conveys definite personality here. He breathes heavily... his shoulders lift in anger... his body language is beyond the ability to even describe properly without diminishing it’s effect.
In fact, Graham likely would have reprised his role here. Beuchler, however, was so impressed with Hodder on the set of another one of his films, that he was cast for the role of Jason. What could he have possibly done to impress Beuchler so much?
He ate live worms. Most impressive.
No slight to Graham, it is unfortunate the various casting people did not find this run-of-the-mill stunt coordinator sooner. Imagine Kane Hodder playing Jason in TFC instead of an uncredited Ted White, who took the part solely for extra cash. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. (That was a slight directed towards Ted White.)
Our hapless victims are amazingly underdeveloped, but that is probably a blessing in disguise. If we got to know these people any more, we’d likely shut the darn film off and use the DVD as a coaster. While we can’t wait to see Jason dispatch of these morons, it tends to detract from his scare-ability. It’s difficult to be afraid of someone if you are rooting for him (or her).
The one character we get to know too much about is Melissa. Jealous that Nick is attracted to Tina and not herself, she goes to extraordinary lengths to make Tina look like a nutcase (which isn’t too hard). It gets tiring after the first twenty times she tries it, and when Jason buries that sharp axe right between her eyes, you can’t help but to breathe a sigh of relief and cheer Mr. Voorhees. It’s too bad this doesn’t occur until just before the final showdown.
Believe it or not, this was originally supposed to be the first meeting between horror icons Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kreuger. The problem was, Paramount owned the rights to Jason, and A Nightmare on Elm Street was New Line’s baby. Disagreements abound behind the scenes, the script was rewritten and took the incarnation of The New Blood. Seems like a sensible back-up alternative to me.
Most of the gore is extremely toned down. The MPAA had a field day with this movie, threatening the dreaded X-rating (now the NC-17), which is a literal kiss of death for a film. In essence, every death scene was drastically limited in its gross-out capability. Some examples include:
In the theatrical release, Ben’s head is crushed by Jason in a very quick shot. Originally, it much grislier with loads of blood and more “squishing”.
After being decapitated, we hear Eddie’s head drop to the floor, instead of actually seeing it.
Dr. Crews’ meeting with the tree-trimming saw originally featured his intestines flying through the air.
As much as I don’t care for the obvious rip-off of the film Carrie, it is hard to argue that this film fails in what it sets out to do. They take the same old Jason Voorhees premise and manage to produce a decent movie. A New Beginning tried to pull this off, but failed miserably.
On top of everything else, they used a “Tina” as a main character, instead of killing her off! Beuchler flouts Friday’s conventions!
The downside to the modest success ($28.6 million – 2004 adjusted values) is that the following three sequels gimmick the heck out of the stories. We get Jason in a bustling metropolis, Jason body-hopping, and Jason in space. Two of them aren’t completely horrible.
Jason Takes Manhattan is not one of them.
Flick Figures: 16 dead bodies; psychic visions; telekinesis; sleeping bag-bashing; strangulation; multiple drownings; gasoline-dousing; electrocution; 2 counts of assault with a tent spike; throats slashed; Arnold Schwarzenegger impression; face slashed; head crushed; weed-whacking; ax to the face; butcher knife to the stomach; spear to the back; neck broken; serious eye trauma; arson; roof-collapsing; plant-flying; television-flying; couch-flying; body-flying; head rolls; house explodes; 3 gunshot wounds; 1 butt; 4 breasts.
Next Week: Jason gets hungry and takes a bite out of The Big Apple... Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. You’ve been warned.
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