Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood

I meant what I said when I yesterday mentioned how the added supernatural element of part 6 was when the series really went flying off the rails, and that is totally born out with this film. Here, we not only get a Zombie Jason, but we have him going face to face with a girl with the Powers of Telekinesis. It’s every bit as good as it sounds.

This one is a bit renowned as being more heavily mangled by censors than any other film in the series, to the point where some of the deaths are rather hard to figure out. Despite this, there’s still a pretty decent amount of blood to be had, with Jason grabbing pretty much every sharp object short of a katana to take everyone out. At one point, in possibly my favorite part of the entire film, he kills one half of a couple with a spear, then leaves the guy alone so he can feel safe, but oh no – Jason actually just left so he could upgrade his weapon like in a video game and kill him more satisfyingly. It’s that level of dedication to his craft that places Jason a notch above your standard 9-to-5er slasher.

Besides Jason, there are two characters that really warrant mention, and that is Telekinesis Girl and her lovable shrink. Telekinesis Girl, also known as Tina, spends the movie being haunted by her memories of using her powers to murder her abusive father at their cabin on Crystal Lake back when she was a child, and after freeing Jason from the lake at the start, thinking he might be her dad, she spends her time doing a terrible job of looking shocked, and screaming a lot. Despite herself, she actually does do a passable job at holding her own against Jason, due I’m going to guess that due to the low budget nature of the film, her powers weren’t able to be used in any really interesting ways. Instead we get her swinging hanging lamps at his head, and dramatically slamming a door shut and shoving a table in front of it. She’s so hardcore.

Dr. Crews is just a delight every time he’s on screen, however. Played by Terry Kiser, he has taken her to her childhood cabin to allegedly attempt some sort of immersion therapy with her so she can get her stress-based powers under control. Of course, as she suspects, he’s not interested in curing her so much as getting her powers to become more active, and has a further agenda that somehow involves Jason, though exactly what that agenda is and how he was planning on freeing Jason and then sticking around in the area without dying is left unsaid. He’s also just one of the greatest creeps in movies; at one point he’s out in the woods arguing with Tina’s mother, who’s finally realized he may not have her daughter’s best interests at heart, and Jason shows up. As anyone with a strong sense of self-preservation would do, he simply grabs her and uses her as a human shield so that Jason can use up his bloodlust on her so he can be spared. Frankly, I admire his ability to think outside the box like that. If only the other characters had been as interesting as him, this movie would have been one of the best in the series.

Rating: * ½