This Underrated Friday the 13th Sequel Sees Jason at His Most Terrifying
The Big Picture
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Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
introduces a telekinetic protagonist, providing a contemporary twist to the iconic slasher collection. - Kane Hodder’s portrayal of Jason Voorhees in
The New Blood
is brutal and iconic, setting a brand new customary for the character. - The design of Jason in
The New Blood
is visually placing, that includes a decomposed, zombie look with spectacular sensible results.
Few horror icons have grown to the titanic standing of Jason Voorhees. Across eight Paramount-produced movies, three New Line Cinema entries (together with the crossover hit, Freddy vs. Jason), and a 2009 remake by Michael Bay‘s manufacturing firm, the Friday the 13th franchise has thrilled audiences for many years, and that is principally because of the power of the collection’ hockey mask-wearing slasher villain. Although Jason didn’t placed on the hockey masks till Part III, it rapidly grew to become the defining search for the character. Throughout the subsequent few sequels, Jason’s look would range in small methods, and he would at all times be performed by a distinct performer. That is, till the seventh chapter when a fan-favorite actor lastly stepped into the position of Jason Vorhees. Kane Hodder joined the franchise with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, the place his bodily prowess, intense stunt work, and the character’s creepy new design would coalesce in a Jason Voorhees that was extra terrifying than any of his previous iterations.
‘Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood’ Gives Jason an Equal Opponent
The New Blood continues the pattern of the previous few motion pictures making an attempt to tell apart themselves amongst the camp slasher style. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning did this by creating a brand new copycat killer. Part VI: Jason Lives, took on a extra comedic tone. The New Blood deviates from the system with a predominant character that feels pulled straight out of one other horror film. Tina, performed by Lar Park Lincoln, is an adolescent who’s revisiting her household house at Crystal Lake the place she had a traumatic incident that led to her abusive father drowning. What actually units Tina aside from her contemporaries in the movie, a cabin filled with teenagers throwing a birthday celebration, and the protagonists all through the remainder of the collection, is that Tina has telekinetic talents. She is basically a riff on Carrie White, the bully victim-turned-mass assassin of Stephen King‘s novel Brian De Palma‘s movie adaptation.
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While some may assume it’s a lazy workaround to make the lead character of this sequel fascinating, it reveals an effort to proceed branching out from the customary camp-based slashers that started the franchise. The New Blood bumped into some manufacturing points attributable to the MPAA’s elevated bias towards the violence depicted on this collection, leading to kills that have been extra cold and reserved than ever. However, the movie’s wild inclusion of telekinesis lastly offers Jason a protagonist who’s a worthy opponent and makes The New Blood an exciting entry.
‘The New Blood’ Introduced Kane Hodder, The Most Iconic Jason Voorhees Actor, Into the Franchise
One of the biggest impacts The New Blood had on Friday the 13th is that it launched Kane Hodder to the franchise. Hodder is the solely actor to play Jason in multiple movie. He would go on to painting the killer once more in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and Jason X. Hodder’s stunt background and full dedication to placing his physique by intense bodily labor for the half is a big think about him changing into the definitive Jason performer.
Hodder’s Jason will get thrown by staircases, set on hearth, and has a complete porch facade collapse on him. He takes hit after hit, including to the immortal nature of the character with a formidable aptitude. One of Hodder’s most spectacular moments on this film even set a file (at the time) for the longest stunt involving a performer set on hearth. In addition to the intense stunt work that Hodder brings to the desk, his efficiency as Jason feels extra brutish and decided than ever. He strikes like a Terminator, in distinction to previous Jason performers who’ve been extra erratic, and even barely clumsy. His physique language and huge construct make fora Jason who performs like a chilly, brutal killing machine.
Jason’s Design Has Never Looked Better Than in ‘The New Blood’
Fans of the iconic slasher franchises, particularly Halloween, perceive how necessary it’s to nail the character’s design. The Michael Myers masks modifications from film to film, and die-hards are inclined to agree on which of them are nice, and which of them are so off that it hurts the film. Despite Jason’s masks being extra simplistic, the identical definitely applies to Friday the 13th. Jason’s look goes by a number of modifications over the course of the franchise, and there’s a magic to nailing the appropriate form, coloring, and injury sustained on that iconic hockey masks.
On prime of the masks trying nice in The New Blood, Jason is sporting a very contemporary take care of being resurrected in the earlier movie and left chained to the backside of Crystal Lake for a few years. The zombified Jason did not have a particular makeover throughout his introduction in Jason Lives, however right here he’s visibly decomposed. His again has rotted away to disclose his backbone beneath, and in a primary for the franchise, Jason’s masks is destroyed fairly early throughout the remaining battle, leaving his face uncovered for a protracted interval. We are given an prolonged look at some grotesque, spectacular sensible results as Hodder dons heavy prosthetics and make-up to depict a rotten, zombie Jason Voorhees.
The new Jason look, and the unusual “Carrie vs. Jason” mashup of a plot makes The New Blood form up as considered one of the finest sequels in the collection. In spite of the MPAA cracking down on the movie’s violence, The New Blood provides just a few haunting moments that stand out amongst the franchise’s finest. While The New Blood will not be the most beloved of the Friday the 13th movies, this installment delivered by making Jason scarier than ever earlier than.
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is on the market to stream on Max in the U.S.
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