Sunday, August 10, 2014

Newb Views the 80s #7: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)


a.k.a. "Fri-Gay the 13th"

Directed By: John Carl Buechler

 After Jason Lives, the idea of finally doing Freddy VS Jason was gaining some steam. However, New Line Cinema & Paramount could not work everything out, so Buechler came up with another idea: Jason VS Carrie.

This is probably going to sound really snarky, but the best part of this movie may be the opening, with the terrific voice over by Walt Gorney (a.k.a. "Crazy Ralph), which recapped Jason's escapades leading to this. After that, this movie becomes a story of a director fighting battles against the MPAA and one of his own producers, and losing most of them.

There actually is a story here, as a teenager named Tina is being brought back to Crystal Lake by her well-meaning mother and the EEEEEVIL Doctor Cruise played by Terry Kiser, a.k.a. the corpse from A Weekend at Bernie's years after accidentally causing the drowning death of her father after he pulled an Ike Turner on her. There's also a group of teenagers/twenty-somethings nearby, as they have gathered for a birthday party. Oh yeah, this one is nicknamed "Fri-Gay the 13th" because the majority of the male cast are, including the potential love interest, played by Nick Spartas. He was actually closeted at the time but everybody knew what was up, which made him miserable and ruined any relationship he might have had with the secretly-married Lar Park Lincoln, who played Tina. Thus, the main love story sucks because the two have no chemistry and in truth could barely stand to be around each other.

After a troubling session with Cruise, Tina has another freakout, and of course accidentally resurrects Jason, who does what he does. Of course, he first has to go out of his way to leave the immediate area to take care of the late-arriving birthday boy and his girlfriend, who are having car trouble and have to walk. This movie is most notable as being the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason, and he has Buechler to thank for it, since the director fought to cast him after he was the stunt coordinator on Buechler's previous film Prison.

The kills are mostly of the arrive--->kill--->leave variety with little suspense, as the focus of the story is on Tina, who has visions of Jason doing the deed. The side characters are stock. There's the bitch, the nerd, the stoner, the uptight weenie, and even a "girl who goes from geek to hottie by taking off her glasses", and that hasn't even become a teen romance trope yet. There is one really inspired moment during the "Jason offs the unimportant people" section of the movie, in which the stoner Eddie heads to the kitchen to get some food. The lights are out, so it's dark, but it's storming (or course) and the lightning illuminates Jason, who is standing in the corner, unseen by his soon-to-be-victim.

The kills are gutted by the MPAA, with a lot being changed or simply cut. One character originally head his head squeezed until it was the size of a baseball, but that was left on the cutting room floor. Even the one kill everyone seems to like, the sleeping bag, was cut from several hits to one. The brutality of the final edit is in part due to Hodder getting frustrated at having to swing the heavy meat-filled sleeping bag over and over. 

The body of the movie seems to be mostly an effort to kill time until the lengthy "final girl" battle, which may have more parts than a battle with Gannon in one of the Legend of Zelda games. There are some attempts at humor which mostly fall flat.

The final stretch of Tina VS Jason is pretty spectacular though, and at least an attempt to pit the monster against someone who can do more than run while screaming. A lot of effort is put into Jason's look, and both that and the removal of his mask are battles that Buechler would win, which would cost him dearly later.

I hope seeing this face was worth it, because it ruined the ending.

The only actor who really comes out of this looking OK is Kiser, who does a wonderful job of playing the asshole doctor who is more interested in using Tina to make him famous than doing anything to actually help her. 

Because Buechler won the battle over how Jason looked, he lost the battle over how Tina's resurrected father would look. Instead of looking like he spent ten years underwater, we got this:

Oooooh scary!

In the end, this movie is mildly interesting because of Buechler's grand ideas, but he had so much working against him, and even if he got everything he wanted, I'm not sure Buechler is up to that challenge as a director. There's a reason he's spent the majority of his career in special effects, which he is great at. It's not good by any means, but it's not terrible either. 

** I would file this one under the category of "interesting failure".


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