Jason Vs. Carrie
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is one of my top five Jason movies. I’ve seen it a handful of times and with each viewing I love it more than I did the last time. There’s so much to unpack in this one it’s hard to know where to begin. So, I’ll start with the premise.
This movie is essentially Jason vs. Carrie. Yes, this means our protagonist, Tina Sheppard, is a teenage girl with telekinetic powers. On the surface, this sounds like one of the dumbest plots ever pitched for a Friday the 13th movie and rightfully left on the cutting room floor. After all, who would want to see a slasher beast like Jason Voorhees in a movie most likely bogged down by parapsychology?
“Nobody wants to see that,” is the answer most people would give. I’ll admit, I was one of these people when I first heard the premise. Then I watched it and my outlook on films hasn’t been the same since. You know the old saying don’t judge a book by its cover? Well, thanks to The New Blood, I’ve become a strong advocate for don’t judge a movie by its premise.
Telekinesis doesn’t hold this film back at all. It enhances it. The final showdown between Jason and Tina is executed well. She crushes him with a veranda, sets him on fire, electrocutes him, and sends him back into Crystal Lake. It also aids character development. Through her powers, we learn a lot about Tina and her psychologist, Dr. Crews.
Tina Sheppard
In one regard, this film is essentially a character study of Tina Sheppard, who certainly has more depth than the other final girls in the franchise. When she was a little girl, she accidentally killed her father. He had an argument with her mother and put his hands on her. This upset Tina so much, she accidentally drowned him in Crystal Lake using telekinesis. Years later, she returns to the area with her mother and Dr. Crews as a form of exposure therapy.
Tina ends up having to wrestle three different scenarios at the same time. She tries to overcome her guilt, fit in with a crowd of teenagers hanging out at Crystal Lake, and battle Jason. As you can imagine, she spends much of the movie in an intense emotional state. During these high stress states, her powers are triggered. For example, when Melissa, the mean blonde, makes fun of her mental health struggles, Tina rips the pearl necklace from around her neck without touching her.
Tina also elevates the people around her into dynamic characters. The more Dr. Crews interacts with Tina, the more he reveals he’s not a nice guy. His interest in her well-being is a facade. He simply wants to keep her in highly emotional states to trigger her telekinesis and document his findings for career advancement. She even elevates Jason, who becomes the symbol for her guilt. He rises out of the same lake her father died in, is the subject of her hallucinations, and becomes the major obstacle she has to overcome. Their battle even culminates on the dock near the lake, the exact spot where her father died.
Friday the 13th Part VII was Almost Freddy vs. Jason
The original plan for this film was to have Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees go head to head. However, these plans never came to fruition because New Line Cinema and Paramount Pictures couldn’t reach an agreement on distribution rights. If this movie was released in 1988, it would have been vastly different from the one horror fans received in 2003.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors came out the year before. In that film, we learned more about Freddy Krueger’s backstory, the dream world, and dream powers. In the third act, Nancy Thompson dies and Freddy is laid to rest using holy water. With that in mind, here’s how I would transport the survivors of Dream Warriors from Elm Street to a hypothetical Freddy vs. Jason scenario.
Hypothetical Scenario
Kristen Parker, Joey Crusel, and Roland Kincaid, the survivors of Dream Warriors, take a summer trip to Camp Crystal Lake and rent a lake house. They meet up with other teenagers and make new friends upon their arrival. Unlike Joey and Kincaid, Kristen is still haunted by the memory of Freddy. This fear manifests itself in her dreams, dreams where she ventures into Krueger’s boiler room and the infamous Elm Street house.
Her fear eventually gives Freddy enough power to resurrect himself and enter dreams outside of Springwood. Naturally, he sets his sights on the “last of the Elm Street children” first. At some point, Kristen accidentally uses her dream powers to bring some of her new Crystal Lake friends into her dreams. This gives Freddy fresh targets to go after. One of these friends accidentally brings Freddy into the real world by grabbing hold of him the same way Nancy did in the original film. From that point, everyone’s worst nightmares become reality.
Meanwhile, Jason has been on the prowl the entire time. No surprise there since Crystal Lake is his domain. Once Freddy is brought into the real world, the entire third act becomes a clash of the titans battle between him and Freddy. As for the teenagers? They must race against the clock and stop both of them before its too late and everyone becomes a victim.
If someone transformed this version of Freddy vs. Jason into a fan-made short film similar to Never Hike Alone, I’d watch it a million times.
