Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

It’s kind of crazy how any idea can somewhat work is if you make it up as you go sometimes.


PLOT


Friday the 13th: The New Blood follows a teenage girl named Tina Shepherd who is secretly telekinetic. Her powers were originally dormant but in her youth, they emerged when she stood up to her abusive father John; She caused him to drown when using her powers to crash the docks he was standing on and has been struggling with remorse ever since. The story's present follows TIna's mom Amanda take her to a lakeside residence where psychiatrist Chris Crews tends to help her agitate her mental state when in reality, wants to exploit her powers. When she struggles through a session with him, her grief takes such a toll that storms out and wishes for her dad to come back. Unknowingly, her powers would free the zombified Jason Voorhees who has been shackled underwater for some time. Now free, he continues his reign of terror upon Camp Crystal Lake. Next door to Crews' residence is a group of teens led by Nick Rogers, who wants to set up a surprise party for his cousin Michael (William Butler). The rest of his group includes: Russell  Bowen (Larry Cox) & his girlfriend Sandra Casey (Heidi Kozak), Ben MacNeal (Craig Thomas) & his girlfriend Kate Pataki (Diane Almeida), sci fi writer Eddie McCarlo (Jeff Bennett), stoner David Peabody (Jon Renfield), perky Robin Peterson (Elizabeth Kaitan), shy Maddy Paulson (Diana Burrows), & snobby socialite Melissa. Tina doesn't fit in so quickly fit in due to Melissa jealously bullying her and seeing hallucinations of the beast she woke up. Michael never makes it as he and his own girlfriend Jane McDowell (Staci Greason) are first within to be killed by Voorhees on the way the cabin; Both are slain via tent spike. The slasher then targets another nearby couple in a tent, Dan Carter and Judy Williams; He punches a hole in the former's back before slamming the latter to a tree while being wrapped in a sleeping bag. He then continues his trail of blood once he reaches the cabin the next night, using an axe to fatally strike Rusell's face and drown Sandra while she was skinny dipping. Tina would overhear Crews talking to Amanda of his intent to commit her, causing her to drive away. That doesn't go to her liking when having a hallucination of Voorhees that causes her to crash into a tree. As she then runs away in the woods, Jason continues his killing spree by stabbing Maddy with a scythe. He then crushes Ben's head before stabbing Kate's face with a party horn just as the two were having sex in a van. Inside the cabin, he kills David with a butcher knife before hacking Eddie with a machete and throwing Robin out a window where she fatally falls to her death. By the time Nick finds Tina, they return to the cabin and find most of the people dead, as well as proof that her hallucinations are real. Amanda even went out looking for her daughter until being killed by Jason as well via spear. Tina goes back to the woods to find her mom, only to run away from Crews before Voorhees kills him via brushcutter. Only after finding her mom's body does she start to use her powers to defend herself, keeping Jason far from arms length by throwing every object she could around her, electrocuting him and seemingly slows him down by dropping a part of the house onto him. She and Nick try warning Melissa of the danger that is out there, but she doesn't believe her until Jason reaches the door and axes her in the head. Nick tries intervening long enough until Tina uses her powers some more by pushing him through the stairs. She even tries to crush his face with the hockey mask he wears, only for it to break off and he continues pursuing her until she drops him into the basement. With him still getting up, she hoses him with gasoline before using the furnace to light him on fire. Out of options, she actually summons the spirit of her dad to help her odds and it appears to work at the moment when John's spirit drags Voorhees back to the lake. Tina & Nick wake up the next day be taken in by an ambulance and the film ends with Jason's broken mask get confiscated by a firefighter.


THOUGHTS


Co writer pitched ‘Jason vs Carrie’ due to the idea of Freddy vs Jason not getting set in stone yet and Paramount rolled with it since they couldn’t help trying to compete with New Line Cinema’s Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Is this better than the preferred crossover that didn’t come to be until 2003? Not really, but it’s still a bloody good time that director John Carl Buechler still gave us a bloody good time we’re used to. Fans have a soft spot at this point because we unknowingly got the best stunt actor to play Jason so menacingly like he was meant for it. From the first second, Kane Hodder brings in all the dominance this character is all about. All the strength he puts to each kill is so shocking you become shocked of all the carnage as if you haven’t seen anything like it, despite this being the franchise’s seventh entry where you expect over the top gore. The physicality and rage he brings to it is so well done that it makes his follow up appearances all the more special because no one else seemed to do it like him. Before we see his decayed face, the rest of his body has the most decomposed looking appearance because it’s hard to not be in awe of his spine being noticeable. Buechler being part of the makeup department to bring in all the shock value we’re expecting brings in all the more authenticity they’re going for. The idea of Jason taking on a psychic is pretty random, but the credit should be given that we get something different in between an expected body count get stacked up. Even if you can’t have a straight face with the party horn being used as a weapon, you’d be still surprised of the creativity. In a simple case, he and Tina are two sides of the coin in showing the consequences of unchecked power. Lar Park Lincoln made an interesting final girl as Tina because she is someone who is rattled with something she never tended to do and has been afraid of what she is capable of. This would be be an arc of turning a curse into a blessing which is exactly what it came off as when taking on Jason. Kevin Blair made quite a naive guy as Nick who held his own better than others, but most of the credit in overcoming the slasher goes to Tina since she got really creative with every given opportunity. I mean I would’ve not used a severed head of someone I just met, but I sure respect it. Susan Blu also makes a good mom out of Amanda since she wants her daughter to move on from something that wasn’t really her fault. Sadly, she didn’t get to live to see her newfound maturity. Besides Jason though, it actually was a surprise to see some unlikable figures that kinda have it coming. Susan Jennifer Sullivan makes Melissa so easy to dislike due to being too shallow to tolerate that she’d be easily intimidated of Tina. The real douche has to go to Crews because Terry Kiser makes him such a shrewd of a guy since he only really cared about himself to the point of not only using Tina, but using Amanda as a shield to protect himself before his comeuppance shocked me big time. With a crazy moment like that, it was easy to not feel anything when he bites the dust. Even though Tina did not permanently destroy Jason as Paramount kept milking the cow of this franchise, her actions weren’t in vein since it inspired her to put her abilities to good use and I applaud the point of that. While I’ve given this movie enough credit with what was shown, there are still a handful of moments that hold it back from being better than what we got. In a technical sense, John’s spirit attacking Jason would’ve been more believable if he too was decomposed and the wounds on Maddy after she died don’t even match where she was struck. Going into the story, how has Jason not ever tried to use his own strength to break from the chains? If this zombie is supposed to be unbelievably strong, he wouldn’t need Tina to free him. That’s more annoying than how he takes so long to kill everyone. Also, how did he even sneak into the water so quietly before drowning Sandra? If he can teleport, someone please confirm. And Russell should’ve not been surprised you have to pitch in food for a party that ain’t yours. Judy also should’ve left the tent and called for help if she really wanted to live. Moving on, how did Tina lose her earring? I’m sure this happens to people but since she kept them on as she crashed, I feel lost seeing it happen as she runs into the woods. It then feels dumber for Ben & Kate to try surprising who they think is Michael, while they were just having sex in a van. I mean I don’t see the logic in this. Not even David noticed the mud on the floor and that’s crazy because anyone would’ve noticed when walking around barefoot. What tripped me out about Crews more than the fact he had enough time to take the spike without Tina & Amanda noticing in a small amount of time, is that he had a diary about Jason. I know this helps Tina confirm what she’s been seeing is real, but I don’t see the point of Crews having that if he shared no signs of obsession towards him. And lastly, whose cat was in that closet? I don’t see the point of having pets in these movies if we don’t know who they belong to. If you can ignore these issues, then you’ll still have a good time. To wrap up, Friday the 13th: The New Blood is still interesting for being somewhat of a grounded setting compared to what would come after. If slashers are still your thing, check this out.