Since Paramount plans on releasing a 13th Friday the 13th film next year we’ve been looking back at prior Friday films in search of trivia and answers to long simmering questions. We previously covered Friday the 13th, Part 2, Part 3, The Final Chapter, A New Beginning, and Jason Lives. Now, it’s time for: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), aka, Jason Vs. Carrie.
[My sources from this point forward are: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th documentary & the companion coffee table book of the same name]
1. It was originally supposed to be Freddy Vs. Jason
In 1987, Paramount owned Friday the 13th, which was still profitable but on the definite decline, and New Line owned Nightmare on Elm Street which had become the creme de la creme of horror film franchises. Paramount approached New Line about doing a team-up film, offering to distribute it domestically while letting New Line distribute it internationally. That was a sucker’s deal (remembering that back then the international market wasn’t nearly important to American film as it is now), and New Line knew it. Plus, each company wanted to license the other company’s character so that they alone could dictate the storyline and control the making of the film. Friday the 13th Executive Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. asked Friday the 13th Part VI director Tom McLoughlin to brainstorm a potential story which would bring Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger together. However, it didn’t matter – Paramount and New Line were never close to agreeing to a deal.
2. Why did they make it Jason Vs. Carrie?
Jason Vs. Tina Shepherd (aka, Carrie knock-off)
The story used to be that Paramount failed to make something work with New Line, but they were still so high on the “Jason Vs. Blank” marketing angle that they substituted Stephen King’s telekinetic, troubled teenager Carrie in for Freddy Krueger. That is essentially true, but it wasn’t nearly as calculated as all that. According to screenwriter Daryl Haney, New Blood‘s Carrie-like Tina Shepherd was actually the product of a last second idea during a story pitch meeting:
“Barbara Sachs [Part VII and VIII's Associate Producer] was the first person I had contact with. I pitcher her a few ideas over a payphone and she shot them all down. I only had one more. I said, ‘I notice that at the end of these movies there’s always a teenage girl who’s left to battle Jason by herself. What if this girl had telekinetic powers?’ Barabara immediately said, ‘Jason Vs. Carrie, huh. That’s an interesting idea.’”
Within days of that call, Sachs contacted Haney to inform him that he had the job.
3. It was almost Jason Voorhees Vs. Filthy Capitalists
Barbara Sachs made her feature-length film producing debut with New Blood, and she had some big ideas to elevate Friday the 13th to something more than it was. According to Daryl Haney:
“Barbara had already done this preliminary outline for Part VII, this whole concept that it was going to be like Jaws. There was a corporate guy who was going to build these condos at Crystal Lake. The community was saying, ‘You can’t do that because all these murders happened here and Jason will come back.’ But the corporate people were like, ‘No, we don’t care. We just want money.’ It was great to take some jabs against capitalism and all that, but I never believed in it. It took a long time for Jason to re-appear. The climax she came up with had this girl trapped in a boat or helicopter while Jason closes in.”
Jason vs. the capitalist mayor from Jaws
Haney spent months adapting this outline into a script, but all of that work was trashed when Frank Mancuso, Jr. read it, hated it, and ordered Haney to start over and model the structure of the story on Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter.
4. From prep to the day of its release Part VII was made in under 6 months
Friday the 13th Part VI came out in August of 1986. Paramount then spent the early part of 1987 negotiating with New Line. Once that failed, Haney was hired to write the screenplay in June, but his initial draft was trashed sometime in the fall. John Carl Buechler was hired as director in November meaning they weren’t really into doing their pre-production work until December. As such, they had to prep, cast, shoot, edit, and score the film all in the span of just under 6 months to make their May 13, 1988 release date, which was impossibly quick, even by Friday the 13th standards.
5. They almost accidentally cast an actress who had already appeared and died in a prior Friday the 13th film
Hi. I’m Kerry Noonan. I played a girl who died in Friday the 13th Part VI. So, why did they try to cast me in Part VII?
By the time New Blood came around, they’d already made 6 of these freaking movies meaning there were a lot of young actors in Hollywood at the time who’d had the (dis)honor of getting killed by Jason in a Friday the 13th. In fact, there were so many that the casting directors couldn’t keep track. Kerry Noonan had died as Paula in Part VI, yet she was called in to read for the part of Tina Shepherd in Part VII: New Blood. Noonan didn’t know this until she got to the audition and realized this film called “Birthday Bash” (a fake production title) was actually another Friday the 13th. She came clean to the casting director, who responded, “I knew you looked familiar.”
6. Kane Hodder ate live worms to get the role of Jason. Kind of.
While working as the stunt coordinator on the 1988 film Prison, Kane Hodder was asked by director Renny Harlin to place live worms all over his body as part of a stunt. Hodder, whose character would be emerging from the ground as part of the stunt, countered that it would be even cooler if there were worms coming out of his mouth. So, he happily put live, night crawler worms in his mouth.
Kane Hodder in Prison
This left a lasting impression on Prison‘s makeup effects supervisor - John Carl Buechler, who insisted that Hodder be his Jason for New Blood. Screwed over in this scenario was Part VI‘s Jason, C.J. Graham, who was supposed to return as Jason in New Blood. Instead, Hodder became the quintessential Jason, playing him for parts 7-10.
7. The original screenwriter was fired for asking for too much money
Daryl Haney was dropped from New Blood as screenwriter, and the final re-writes were performed on the quick by an unknown who went by the pseudonym Manuel Fidello, naming himself after Spencer Tracy’s character in Victor Fleming’s Captains Courageous (1937). Haney says he was supposed to get $30,000 to write the story treatment, first draft, revision, and polish, but that evolved into writing 15 different drafts. Even after that, they still didn’t want to pay him the full $30,000 which is when the salary dispute arose and when he was fired. In his telling, he didn’t actually ask for more money, just what they’d promised to pay him.
8. The infamous sleeping bag scene originally had more carnage to it than you might realize
You remember the kill :
A sleeping bag is a horrible hiding place when attempting to evade Jason.
Part of what makes it such a funny, memorable kill is that it only takes Jason one whack against the tree to kill the poor kill. It’s just so sudden. However, that’s not how it was filmed. Originally, Jason slammed that sleeping bag against the tree six times, with plenty of blood splatter. The MPAA kept forcing them to cut the number of swings against the tree down until it was just the one. In fact, the MPAA forced them to submit New Blood 9 times before they were granted an “R” rating, making New Blood the most censored Friday the 13th ever. However, in this one occasion the MPAA’s nitpicking actually improved the scene.
9. Where did the idea for the “sleeping bag kill” come from?
Even though he was ultimately fired from New Blood, the sleeping bag kill is a remnant Haney’s script, “I used to shove my brother into a sleeping bag when I was a kid. I once had a fantasy of killing my kid sister that same way. I guess that’s why it became so popular – people can really relate to it.” First of all, that is not why it became so popular, or at least I hope not. Also, could someone please check on the whereabouts of Daryl Haney’s sister? If she’s dead, and it somehow involved a bloody sleeping bag might we suggest a prime suspect.
10. That ending was never going to make sense, but it was originally supposed to look a lot cooler
This – the way Jason dies in New Blood – is straight up nonsense, even by Friday the 13th logic:
Who is that? Tina’s long since dead daddy she accidentally drowned in Crystal Lake when she was a little girl
What’s he doing? Saving Tina by pulling Jason down to the bottom of Crystal Lake – duh.
If Jason actually had any kind of capacity for cogent thought at that point in his existence he might be pondering two rather obvious questions, “Who the hell is this middle aged man, and why is he pulling me to the bottom of the lake?”
Hindsight being what it is, the screenwriter now admits this conclusion was a stupid mistake, but it was there from the very first draft, except at that point the climax was in a condo. However, John Carl Buechler thought if they were going to do it then Tina’s dad needed to come up out of that water looking almost as gnarly and decayed as Jason since he was supposed to have been dead at the bottom of the Lake for just as long. So, this is what the dad was supposed to look like:
However, Buechler was overruled by Sachs who thought it looked unpleasant, disgusting, and silly. So, instead they threw just some traces of mud on the guy’s face and called it good. Muddy-faced or full-on zombie, either way that ending is so goofy it was going to get laughs, no matter what.
11. They set a record for longest uninterrupted on-screen controlled burn in Hollywood history
Fire! Fire! Fire!
During Tina’s epic, telekinetic beat-down of Jason at the end, she causes the furnace to shoot flames at Jason. They used a rigged apparatus to actually capture the ignition on film meaning in that moment you are actually watching Kane Hodder truly being set on fire, an effect normally accomplished via trick photography. Hodder stayed on fire for a full forty seconds, a record at the time.
12. Fatal Attraction ruined New Blood‘s original ending
Friday the 13th movies usually end like this:
Boom – patented fake, last-minute scare
So, they were going to do it again in New Blood. A fisherman on Crystal Lake – presumably having missed the “No Fishing – Beware Homicidal Zombies” sign – would pull a fish out of the lake only to have his boat start rocking and Jason emerge from the water. They actually filmed it, but then this happened:
What the what? Did Fatal Attraction, released while they were making New Blood, seriously just steal the one last scare trope from the slasher films? Yes, they did, and people ate it up. That film was a huge hit, but its usage of a slasher genre cliche so often used by Friday the 13th brought unwanted ridicule to Friday the 13th EP Frank Mancuso, Jr. So, he decided to drop the business with the fisherman entirely.
13. Not even the director knows what the heck “New Blood” is supposed to mean
New Blood probably refers to Tina Shepherd, the series’ new heroine thus replacing the role the adult Tommy Jarvis occupied in Parts V and VI. However, that title didn’t come from either the screenwriter or director. According to Buechler, ”Plus the title – that was all marketing. I just wanted to call it Friday the 13th: Part VII, because seven is sort of a magical number. The New Blood? I still don’t know what that means.” You just know Paramount was dying to go for broke and simply call the thing Friday the 13th VII: Jason Vs. Telekinetic Teenage Girl Who We Are Not Legally Allowed to Refer to As Carrie. Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, though, does it?
The final damage for Jason Lives?
- Body Count: 16
- Box Office: New Blood debuted at #1 on the box office top 10 its opening weekend in May, an encouraging sign since Jason Lives had been the first Friday the 13th not to debut at #1. Unfortunately, New Blood faded fast, ending with $19.1 million domestic (like $38.9 million at current ticket prices) which was slightly off of the $19.4 million Jason Lives had earned. They were going one direction (down) while Nightmare on Elm Street was going another (up), Nightmare on Elm Street 4 opening later in 1988 and grossing $49.3 million (like $100 million at current ticket prices). Until Freddy Vs. Jason came around that total made Nightmare on Elm Street 4 the highest grossing of any of the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th films.
Next Friday, we’ll tell why Jason’s Manhattan looked so much like Toronto (the answer is pretty obvious).
The Making of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood: