Friday the 13th Part VII, New Blood old formula
May 13th, 1988
Rated R
90 minutes
John Carl Buechler
Paramount Pictures
Horror
Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Terry Kisser
3 out of 5 Kudos for creative deaths and given the big guy a good beating
Appropriately, this latest installment in the apparently very marketable Friday the 13th series begins a few months after Jason is chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake. One faithful night, five-year old Tina Shepherd runs out of the cabin she lives in, due to a dispute her parents are having. When she climbs on her boat, her father chases her out onto the pier, where she then proceeds to drown him telekinetically …… mmmmyeahhhhh. Fast forward a decade, Tina now is 17 ish, she is urged by her psychologist to revisit the campsite where she drowned her daddy with brain powers. Next door a group of promiscuous teens are indulging in random acts of nakedness , while throwing a very calm rager. When Tina taps into her telekinesis by mistake, she sets the big guy free. archetypical teens and top less women beware.
The Friday the 13th series has the unfortunate luck(ha) of all being compared to the first three installments. Moviegoers don’t give credit where credit is due, some of the later films in the series have some really good stuff going for them, well except Jason X, avoid that like the end piece of a loaf of bread. The creative death and violence is where pt. 7 shines for me, not just a clever sneak death where Jason jumps from behind somewhere or a dark place. You have him breaking through walls, using weed whackers and my favorite, picking up a sleeping bag and slamming it against a tree. Thought was put into these random acts of carnage, to the point where small details are very obvious and make the scene that much more genuine. Keeping with the creative violence theme, this is one of the few Friday’s in which Jason really gets a good beating, to the point of being annoying. For Being a slasher movie from the 80′s the cinematography and sound were very polished, surpassing the film quality of part 8.
All though this is a solid installment, it is far from perfect and has some weak points that I can’t help but scrutinize till my eyes bleed. The whole mental power thing doesn’t work for me as far as a formidable adversary for Jason. One being the brutish animalistic behemoth and the other a dainty blonde that can move shit with her mind. Where are the jocks and old woodsmen…that seems more of an even match. Keeping on the psych-broad, Tina goes from not being able to control her powers to having the ability to move branches and heavy rocks from one scene to the next. They had a premise and decided to ride it till the brakes fall off. Should have been Jason Vs Carrie, I’d buy that for a dollar. Although the deaths were some of my favorite in the series, I was left wanting more, the deaths were brutal, but the gore was missing, the camera cut out whenever there was a chance of flinging body parts and overuse of blood. I can look past these, chalk it up to creative integrity, but the thing i can’t forgive is how cheap the ending felt. With out giving away any plot “twists”, it was a bit contrived.
In spite of the bitching and moaning of the paragraph prior, I still recommend this movie for horror enthusiast and fans of the series. If anything just to see how far they can push the boundaries of the myth, for story sake.
