At the end of part six, an adult Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews) secures a recently resurrected Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) with chains and a giant rock. One push off the edge of the Camp Crystal Lake pier, and our villain is sent to a watery grave. Now, 10 years after the death of her father (which she blames herself for), troubled teen Tina (Lar Park Lincoln) returns to the area with mother (Susan Blu) and psychiatrist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser) in tow. They hope that by revisiting the place where her trauma occurred, they can unlock the source of her guilt. Turns out, Tina has the uncanny ability to move objects with her mind. During one mental fit, she sets Jason free. Soon, he is tormenting the young girl, as well as the standard group of paint-by-number victims camping around the locale.
Until the last act payoff, in which Jason and Amy go brain-to-brawn in an effects-heavy showdown, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is a truly tedious affair. Thanks to the films series' notoriety and the MPAA mandate to clean up the rampant violence in the genre, the movie is excised of almost all its gore. What remains is implied and mostly left to the imagination -- not the best approach for a series that sells itself on its inventive kills. Even worse, director John Carl Buechler brings nothing to the proceedings. There's none of the humor or inherent danger of Jason Lives, none of the atmosphere or aggressiveness of the original film. Instead, we are saddled with silly teen clichés and way too much doctor/patient psychobabble.
If there is a bright spot here, it is actress Lar Park Lincoln. With an unusual name (shortened from Laurie) and an even more exotic look, she carries this mess, almost getting us to believe in Tina's inner torment. Even when the rest of the no-name cast is carousing like sailors on shore leave, she's trying to keep things centered. The key word here is 'almost'. The script by Manuel Fidello and Daryl Haney is so hamfisted, so overwrought in its 'dead daddy/mad scientist' complications, that we grow tired. It's only the moment of eventual confrontation, when Tina takes on the single-minded slayer that we find our interest reinvigorated. Sadly, the attempted twist ending makes absolutely no sense, sending this installment back to its weak, waterlogged beginnings.
For a franchise recently revived, The New Blood does little to trade on said second chance. Instead, it takes things in a direction that even a zombie Jason would have a hard time tolerating. It's no big surprise then that after the exceptionally poor showing of Part VIII's Big Apple debacle, Paramount sold the dread dynasty to competitor New Line Cinema. Apparently, even a money-oriented operation like a film studio can only take so much mythology mangling. While not the worst installment in the Voorhees legend, this New Blood is definitely defective.
