Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	84:39
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	John Carl Buechler
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Kane Hodder Lar Park-Lincoln Kevin Spirtas Terry Kiser Susan Blu
Case	?
RPI	$18.95	Music	Harry Manfredini Fred Mollin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Slovenian French German Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Arabic Turkish Polish Italian Spanish Romanian Czech Hungarian	Smoking	Yes, marijuana use
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Friday The 13th was a seminal movie which almost single-handedly created the slasher sub-genre of horror films. A review of this grandfather of modern slashers can be found round about here. Due to the fact that it made a fortune, relative to its paltry half million dollar cost, it spawned seemingly endless sequels - indeed, the latest Jason Voorhees vehicle, Jason Vs Freddy has only just finished its theatrical run. Between that first instalment and the latest release, one of the more financially successful of the sequels was Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood.

    The story begins with a brief recap of Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, showing that Jason Voorhees is dead, trapped at the bottom of Crystal Lake, with a chain around his neck and a massive boulder as an anchor. We are then transported forward in time, to the life of one Tina Shepard (Lar Park-Lincoln) as she runs out of her home on the shore of Crystal Lake, to escape a violent argument between her father and mother. When her father races after her, she jumps into a boat and causes the dock on which her father is standing to collapse, killing him in the process. She does this with the power of her mind - through telekinesis.

    The film proper then begins, as Tina returns to the house on Crystal Lake, along with her mother and her psychiatrist Dr Crews. Following several years of treatment in a mental institution, Dr Crews ostensibly believes Tina needs to return to the scene of her childhood trauma for her to be fully cured. Unfortunately for Tina, the Doctor is more interested in exploiting her telekinetic abilities to further his own career than he is in helping her. Luckily, a group of teenagers are occupying the house next door, planning a surprise birthday party for one of the group, so at least Tina will have some company - perhaps even a new love interest in the spunky Nick.

    Whilst attempting to invoke her telekinetic powers, the Doctor reinforces Tina's feelings of guilt over the death of her father, stirring up an inner rage of emotion in her. Tina runs down to the dock, wishing that she could resurrect her father, but she manages only to resurrect...Jason Voorhees. Once Jason is unwittingly released from his watery grave, it can be only a matter of time before the teenagers begin falling victim to Jason's insatiable bloodlust, in all manner of (mildly) inventive ways.

    Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood is simply not scary. It feels as though it has been heavily censored, although I cannot be sure of this. The death scenes all seem like they should have been at least a few seconds longer, as there really is surprisingly little in the way of explicit gore in this film. It is the horror equivalent of soft porn - reinforced by the gratuitous breast shots, 80s hairstyles and white high heeled shoes. The standard POV shots from the killer's eyes seem tired, and the death scenes are all a bit lacklustre - with the possible exception of that sleeping bag incident! It contains seemingly endless "is he really dead now?' moments, and the ending has to be one of the most ridiculously flawed ever to have been committed to celluloid. I have just finished watching my Region 1 copy of Wrong Turn (the Region 4 review can be found here) and it leaves The New Blood looking rather badly in need of a transfusion by comparison. For fans of the Jason vehicles, this will be worth a rental and for collectors it may well be worth adding to the collection. I would suggest anyone who hasn't seen this film before rents it before considering a purchase.

Video

    The video quality of this transfer is pretty good, although it does suffer from noticeable grain.

    The video is presented 16x9 enhanced at 1.78:1 which is marginally altered from the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is a little on the soft side at times, but overall this is a reasonable transfer of a fifteen year old film.

    The dark scenes show deep blacks with no low level noise and shadow detail which is very satisfactory at all times. There is some noticeable grain apparent, particularly against paler backgrounds such as Tina's pink shirt at 12:39 or the green kitchen walls at 21:20, but you can overlook it easily enough. Colours are cleanly rendered, albeit the palette is a little tepid on occasion - with so many dark scenes and mossy trees it feels a little wintry. There is no evidence of significant colour bleeding. Skins tones are just dandy.

    The transfer to DVD has resulted in no major MPEG artefacts. There was rarely any noticeable edge enhancement and aliasing was completely absent on my system. Telecine wobble is evident in the opening titles, but is not evident during the film itself.

    Film artefacts are present fairly frequently as very fleeting white flecks. They are always brief and small however, so they will never really prove to be an annoyance. For a film of its age, I think it has withstood the passage of time rather well.

    The English subtitles are well timed and easy to read. They follow the dialogue closely and miss only a few words for the sake of brevity. The English for the Hard of Hearing subtitles are very similar, with the addition of a few audio cues where appropriate. Either set will serve their intended purpose well.

    This disc is dual layered, with the brief (but noticeable) layer change cropping up at a scene change at 48:26. It is reasonably well placed.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The overall audio transfer is adequate without being stunning.

    The English audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 448kbps. Whilst it is not going to challenge your home theatre speakers much, it is satisfactory with only a very little hiss evident during some quieter scenes. I noted no significant clicks, pops or dropouts. Dialogue is always clear and audio sync was never problematic.

    The creator of the signature Jason sound - ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma - (Harry Manfredini) is credited as contributing to the soundtrack of the film, but the main score was created by Fred Mollin this time around. It is a functional, fairly predictable horror movie score, with stabbing strings and a reasonable ability to build tension. It is however, pretty well instantly forgettable.

    The front speakers do a good job of delivering most of the audio, with some reasonable spread across the front soundstage. The dialogue is delivered clearly at all times.

    The surround channels are used throughout to provide support for the musical score, and to carry environmental ambient effects such as crickets and general forest sounds. There was nothing striking in the way of directional sound or localised effects from what I could hear. It is nice that the surrounds are used, but this is by no means a demonstration standard soundtrack.

    The subwoofer was unused except for a single point(SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) when the house explodes at 78:50. This is to all intents and purposes a 5.0 soundtrack at best...and more often not much more than a decent stereo track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Disappointingly, there are no extras present on this DVD. Perhaps they are being saved for the rumoured (in Region 1 at least) box-set?

Menu

    The main menu is a static and silent drawing of the killer wielding a machete. It allows the options of playing the movie, choosing one of a slight fifteen chapter stops or selecting the language and subtitles.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Region 1 version of this movie appears to be on an equally bare bones disc, albeit with the movie allegedly presented at the OAR of 1.85:1 (which I believe is simply misreported by some reviewers), and with a similar Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Buy whichever is cheaper.

    Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood is a by-the-numbers slasher flick. Plot-wise it is a blend of the usual Jason shenanigans and Carrie. The telekinetic aspects of the story do add something of a twist, but fail to save this from being a mediocre horror film, of interest to fans of the Friday The 13th series only. If you want to see a really excellent update on the slasher genre, try Wrong Turn instead.

    The video quality is pretty good.

    The audio transfer is adequate, but lacks directional effects and badly under-utilises the subwoofer.

    The extras cupboard is totally bare.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall