Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Although their duel offers original effects-laden thrills and stunts, it’s too little and too late. Read full review

The New Blood only wishes it had something really new to add to the formula...There is a lot less blood, less screaming, less energy in this installment, as if Jason has become rather bored with his job. Read full review

The series went from self-parody back to normal with this dull entry. Read full review

This would all be a lot more fun if Jason were ever in jeopardy, but since we know he can't be killed -- the best one can hope to do is bottle him up and store him, like toxic waste -- the charm of the film depends on action in the margins. Part VI, for instance, had a sense of humor; II and III had a splendid variety of weaponry. No jokes this time, however, and Jason contents himself for the most part with the ax blow, the tent-pole stab and the simple head-twist. He's old, and he has lost a step. [17 May 1988, p.B4]

The result is a weak "Carrie" versus Jason finale after Jason has impaled about eight young people, mostly women. The filmmakers have mastered the blood but not the tedium of all of the predictable killings. Nor have they eliminated the "hate-women" subtext to the entire series of films. [20 May 1988, p.A]

It relies heavily upon the cliches of the genre: sorties into garishly lit woods, crackling twigs, indiscriminate lightning bolts, sudden power outages and flickering flashlights. Only a mote of humor graces the film, and that is Jason's cunning ability to come up with ever more dreadful weapons for each successive crime, graduating from stake to machete to circular saw. Dare we hope, in Part VIII, for a neutron bomb to obliterate the series altogether? [16 May 1988, p.C7]

What we have here is basically "Jason vs. Carrie" with neither the visceral shock of the first "Friday the 13th" nor the subtleties of the Stephen King tale. In fact, "VII" is a catalogue of cheap self-imitation, from director John Carl Buechler's constant pulling of visual punches to the script's regurgitated cliche's from earlier "Fridays." The ending is the stupidest one ever and that's saying something. Read full review

It's been theorized that the popularity of the "Friday the 13th" movies is because the juxtaposing of scenes of lovemaking and extreme violence somehow eases young people's sexual fears. However, this "Friday the 13th", which was written by Daryl Haney and Manuel Fidello and directed by John Carl Buechler, is so dumb and contrived it's hard to imagine it working up any feelings except boredom. [17 May 1988, p.C3]

It's the same old story, seven times around, you just can't keep a good corpse down. ’Spite a massacre the film before, To Crystal Lake, they keep coming more. And one by one, they end up dead – a sliitted throat; an axe in the head. Read full review