BILL BUTLER:
That set was on fire. Jeff Bennett, Craig Thomas—they're like a gay pride parade. There was a lot of hanky-panky. I slept with half the cast. Just kidding.
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
Apparently everyone has having more fun that I was. I only really worked with the other cast during the party scenes, and being married and trying to hide it, I spent most of my time in my room, alone. I remember we all got these great crew jackets. I love doing arts and crafts, and I had one of those little engraving pens that write. So I would spend many an hour in my room, in the middle of the night, engraving the backs of big Friday the 13th buttons that had Jason faces on them, and embroidering them onto jackets. That was probably the most exciting thing I did the entire shoot.
BILL BUTLER:
When you're an actor, there's a certain pecking order. The leads who have the meat and potatoes kind of hang together, and then everyone in the smaller roles tends to form their own cliques. I was really intimidated at first, especially with Kevin and Lar. But then I got to know them—they were so nice to me. We all became friends for the two months or so we were there together. But Lar was not the most popular person on the set—I don't remember her being very nice to a lot of the crew. I remember she was especially hard on the costume person, something about the way her character looked, and her hair.
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
I was not thrilled with my hairstyle in the film. It was done very wavy, and I usually wear my hair very straight. And I thought straight looked more innocent. But I think they were trying to create a look of someone that was preoccupied and disheveled in general, but I don't think it comes across that way in the movie. I remember the poor makeup girl, she was very sweet to put up with my frustrations.
Many of the most spectacular moments that John Carl Buechler conceived and executed for The New Blood were excised to appease the MPAA ratings board. "The guy's head that gets squeezed, well, Jason eventually smooshes it down to the size of a walnut, and there's blood all over the place. It was really ridiculous, but I wanted the effects in Part VII to be over-the-top. Because Friday the 13th is not necessarily about the body count, it's about the event. You have to create something that makes the audience go, 'Wow!'"
KEVIN SPIRTAS:
It was the '80s, and I remember a lot of big '80s hair. Unfortunately, I was a victim of a bit of a hair helmet—it was the style at the time. Now, if I can get my hair to spike up at all I'm pretty happy.
SUSAN BLU:
For Mrs. Shepherd, they wanted her to have kind of a Banana Republic, Gap-esque look, but still look like the mother, too. So they tried to age me a bit because, while I certainly looked like a mother, I also come off looking kind of young. I call my hair in the movie the "old shag look." And if you really look carefully, you can see that I still have a tail—a long braided tail that went down to my back. And they wanted to cut that, but I said, "No way!" Tails were really in then, okay?
JEFF BENNETT:
I don't think I ever even spoke to Lar. Although her character had to scream and cry a lot, so I suppose she had to concentrate. But she didn't pal around with anybody. I also think the situation was difficult for some of us actors because John Carl Buechler was only talkative with Lar and Kevin. John obviously adored Lar. Everybody else were basically just pieces in a puzzle.
HEIDI KOZAK:
Lar had more experience than anybody else other than Kevin Spirtas. She had been on a TV series, and she took it very seriously. She really had that way about her: "I know what I'm doing. You guys are all beginners." But she was always so nice to me. And John just loved her. That was part of the problem, too, with Kevin, because John was so into Lar as a director that Kevin kind of became this outside, difficult thing to deal with. It created a lot of tension on set. I think it came more from Lar, because she kind of decided she didn't like Kevin.
SUSAN BLU:
I got along well with both Lar and Kevin, but they really didn't get along with each other. They weren't really friendly, but they weren't really unfriendly, either—they just kind of stayed away from each other. But you'd never know it in the film. And I think it added a lot of good sexual tension.
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
My times with Kevin weren't my favorite memories. Our personalities just really clashed. We didn't really have any fights or anything like that—we just were not connecting. I think it had a lot to do with him not knowing who he was at the time. So we had our little jokes at Kevin's expense, none to be repeated. It was a difficult situation I think for everyone, except John—I don't think John Buechler ever got it.
I did run into Kevin several years after we made the film, and he had changed his name to Kein Blair, and now I guess he's changed his name again. Then, we actually met again several years later and had a lovely conversation in a restaurant. But at the time we did not get along.
JOHN CARL BUECHLER:
It's difficult to truly rehearse low-budget independent movies with the actors, and stick steadfastly to the screenplay, because generally-speaking, screenplays aren't that well-thought-out. They're not Shakespeare. So you have to take latitude to make the words on the paper organic to the movie you're making, given the mix of your actors. And when you find very talented people who give a nuance to a line, you run with it, and maybe you make more out of the line—it becomes a double entendre that didn't exist previously. You start seeing all the levels of gray and the characters become more developed and more fun. The dynamic between the Tina and Nick characters—I thought that blossomed into something that was more real and authentic than what was on the paper. We had to edit and change some of the dialogue, and read through what they were doing a few times. I would run the lines with them, and walk it through on the set, to find out where Lar and Kevin where. It evolved.
KEVIN SPIRTAS:
I have had other movies and shows that have kind of pulled together differently, and had different family feelings that way. On Part VII, I remember fooling around a lot. And thinking this is not brain surgery, it is not Shakespeare and we should have fun. I am a 40-year-old man now, but at that time it was just like, "It's work, take it, go do, crank it out, just show up and do what they ask." That is really kind of what it comes down to. I was not looking to get something out of it. I wanted to be good in my work and I wanted to be taken seriously and I tried to relax as much as I could. I just wanted to be me, and I think I am more me now than I have ever been. So it is all good, it is all part of it.
DARYL HANEY:
After I got the job on Part VII and I went back and watched all the Friday movies, to me the uncredited inspiration should probably be Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. These films are a rotating murder dial then, for the finale, there's a battle between the sole surviving chick and Jason. I tried to approach the murder scenes from a real craft perspective. I never took it that seriously, and I didn't ever focus on the moralistic aspect of it—that kids have sex and do drugs and therefore they are punished. That was something they were all very conscious of over at Hometown Films—they used to joke about it all the time. I'd call up my friends and ask for lists of sharp household objects, so I could try to invent new ways to kill people. And I named lot of characters for ex-girlfriends I had. The bitch in Part VII was named Melissa, and that was my extreme nemesis ex-girlfriend. That was certainly very nice.
In one of the many of Part VII's kill scenes heavily edited to appease the MPAA ratings board, David (Jon Renfield) meets the wrong end of Jason's butcher knife.
BILL BUTLER:
When my character dies in the movie, oddly enough, I'm going pee in the forest right after my car has broken down. And whenever someone gets killed in a Friday the 13th movie, one of several things has to happen: you're either having sex, or your car breaks down, or you're peeing. So at least I got two out of three. I was just happy I didn't have Heidi Kozak's death scene, where she goes swimming in the water and Jason pulls her down. 'Cause not only were there crocodiles in th
at water, but it was freezing, I heard she caught hypothermia, or an actress form of hypothermia.
HEIDI KOZAK:
It was ridiculous. But I was fine. When I set my mind to do something, I just do it. And I remember when I came out of the water, John grabbed me and threw towels around me and held me. He was so sweet. They got me in this warm trailer with heaters running inside and hot chocolate. They really took care of me.
I was really unhappy with my body double. I wasn't there when they shot it, and they got a girl who was a stuntwoman. She was very stocky—she looked like a bodybuilder, or a really strong farm girl. I didn't see it until I went to the premiere, and I was so mad! I told my manager, "From now on, if I ever have a body double, we need approval." Because people are going to think that's me. She had a different body than mine and it looked ridiculous.
ELIZABETH KAITAN:
At least it was a stuntwoman. In my death scene, the funny thing is, they hired a stuntman to be my body double. Jason is supposed to pick me up by the neck, and throw me out the window. But when you see my body, it's this guy with big giant legs and a pretty bad red wig! After the movie came out, people would come up to me and say, "Wow, your legs are so muscular!"
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
It was 14 degrees all the time, and for some reason the crew felt they needed to hang the thermometer off the camera, as if to remind us. It is miserable in those conditions. I don't know how Heidi got into that water—and she did get sick that night. She is just so tiny and beautiful. You could have given me all the money in the world, and I ain't walking into that dark water. It was so cold we had to put ice cubes in our mouths just to make sure you wouldn't see us breathing. And I sucked on a lot of ice—although that's the only thing I sucked on. Apparently other people did more than that.
BILL BUTLER:
An absolute hands-down favorite death of mine in a Friday the 13th has to be Diane's, who gets killed with the party horn in the eye. I don't think in the history of cinema, anybody has ever been murdered with a birthday party product. And probably for good reason.
DIANE ALAMEIDA:
Filming my death scene was interesting because when you're on a set, you always wonder how they are going to do the special effects. And the location, being way down in the South in the middle of the woods, at three or four o'clock in the morning—it was very dark, and very real, which did make it scary. I found it really interesting how they constructed it. They did a makeup that made it look like my skin was peeled back, with guts and blood around it, for after the horn goes into my eye. And it was a piece of an actual horn. I even took a Polaroid of it. Then I remember looking in the mirror at myself afterward, and thinking, "Wow, this looks real!" In fact, my father, when he went to watch the movie, he got genuinely scared. He doesn't see many movies, so it was very real for him, which just goes to show you that the effects guys did a great job. First me without the horn on my eye, then they shot it with the horn on, then cutting, then coming back again to me, when I'm dead.
Though the only thing was, they added in a little "toot" noise on the soundtrack, after Jason pushes the horn into my eye. Where we filmed it, there wasn't a noise, and they didn't tell me that there would be, either. So I acted it like I was just feeling the fear. That was something I didn't realize until I saw the movie, and that makes the scene now kinda funny.
ELIZABETH KAITAN:
When we shot the chase scene, after Robin has sex with David and then I'm thrown out the window, the whole house was supposed to be empty and she walking around alone. I remember saying to John, "What is my motivation here, to stay in this house? It's like, if it was me, I'd be outta here!" And on the first take where Jason starts chasing me, all I can remember thinking was, "Wow, this is Jason. I grew up watching him, and being like 11 years old and imagining that he was chasing me around the house. And now here he, actually chasing me!" But the second take was just trippy. Even as we were filming it, that whole sequence, with the cat jumping out of the closet and then I scream and Jason walks in—I knew even then it was classic horror movie material.
Center: The aftermath of the murder of David (Jon Renfield) was almost completely excised from the theatrical release of The New Blood. In both the theatrical and original versions, Jason kills the character with a knife to the stomach. The subsequent decapitation was never shot, although in early cuts of the film, Jason is seen carrying David's head around like a trophy. This deleted scene is included on Paramount Home Entertainment's Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood Deluxe Edition DVD release of the film.
JOHN CARL BUECHLER:
In general, sex and horror—there is a very close association there. I think that storytellers have been effectively using sex for years because it's so powerful of an element in a good horror film. It's almost required. When you're naked, you're vulnerable. A woman naked is vulnerable, she's easy prey. And that's horrifying. Nudity is just another tool, another color in your palette that you use to create a moment. The nudity in Part VII—it's just boobs—in a scene like that, not to show nudity would be more ridiculous than showing it. This guy and this girl are in bed and she gets up and she's topless? Wow, that's amazing!? It's just natural.
HEIDI KOZAK:
I wore jean shorts in the film, and mysteriously they kept getting shorter and shorter as the weeks went by. I'm serious. I was like, "My butt's not getting bigger, what's going on?" To this day, I think somebody was cutting my jean shorts. I still don't know who.
SUSAN BLU:
The night we shot my death scene, I had one of the worst colds I'd ever had. Terry Kiser and I were the oldest cast on the show, and we were both suffering from a miserable flu. It was also my last day of filming, so I was already hoarse and raspy from running around and screaming through the whole movie. And I actually had been really frightened running through the forest for hours. I was really able to use it because it was just so horrific. Then I'd have to laugh between takes, just to kind of lighten up. But The New Blood was my last hurrah to on-camera acting before I switched over to doing voice work full time. So what better way to go could you ask for than being killed by Jason?
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
I remember coming in to work one morning at 7 a.m., and I sit down on the set and there is a head sitting next to me. I just sat there sipping my tea and I'm like, "Oh, hello head." Or people would come to lunch with an ax in their face. It was just so bizarre.
KANE HODDER:
The very, very first shot I ever did as Jason was for the dream death of Michael, played by Bill Butler. It was one of Tina's visions, and a really fast shot. I'm standing in the kitchen, holding up Bill, who's impaled on a tent stake. And in that moment, it felt really natural. I felt like I was born to play this character. This may be a sick and sad thing to say, but Jason is the most comfortable I've ever felt playing a character. I put the mask on, and it just felt right.
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
I loved Kane Hodder. He's an absolute doll and a very fine actor. I think the reason his Jason is so good in Part VII is because you could see his eyes working, him thinking. Some people would just play it like a monster. But Kane acts within, and with, the suit.
BILL BUTLER:
Kane Hodder totally turned around the whole Jason thing. In Part V, they were getting some skinny guy from the Valley to play him. The reason Kane is such a good Jason is that he is completely fearless. He would literally put his head through a cinderblock if you asked him to. He lived, loved, ate and breathed this character. So much where he insisted that when he'd get the mask on that he'd stay in character. He wouldn't talk to you. Oftentimes we'd be shooting in the forest and drive across town to go to the other part of the forest, and he'd leave the mask on. There was one night when we were driving to work and it was 4 a.m. in the morning and there were like three of us jammed in this little car and… Jason Voorhees. Kane was in the back with the hockey mask on. And we're late so the driver was driving fast. Then we get pulled over by this county mounty
. The guy comes to the car, draws a gun on us and makes Kane get out of the car. He totally starts yelling at us, "We don't take to kindly to you Hollywood types, take that nonsense off when you're driving around here!"
Kane can also vomit on command. He's the king of vomiting and farting. Right before they'd call action, he'd fart. And the suit he had to wear—it was a scuba-diving outfit and it reeked of swamp water. So everywhere he went it stunk to hell. It was hilarious.
KANE HODDER:
Bill Butler called me Stinky Voorhees. He thought the costume that I wore, with all the latex, smelled pretty bad. So that was my nickname. And yes, I can vomit at will, as a matter of fact, thank you.
KEVIN SPIRTAS:
Apparently there was a lot of vomiting on the set. I was on a special macrobiotic diet when I started the filming, and my body was just starting to readjust to regular food. And I'll never forget, one night they gave us pizza and there was nothing else to eat and I had run out of my food. I got so sick that, while waiting for my scenes to be shot that night, I had to go run behind a tree in the middle of the forest and just puke all over.
"I think we must have shot that 50 times," laughs director John Carl Buechler of the death of Melissa. "It was all about trying to get the most effective hit. We did it every which way—we smacked her in the head with a rubber ax, then we cut off a rubber ax and stuck it on her head, and did several reverse shots of that. We even hit a rubber head with a real ax a few times." Unfortunately, most of the hard work of Buechler and his effects crew wound up on the cutting room floor. "What ultimately got in the final film was only a brief part of the impact," explains Buechler. "The rest was cut out by the censors. The final result was a composite of three separate angles—one of the real actress at the door, another of a young stunt lady getting hit with an ax, and then finally a shot of the stuntwoman being thrown across the room and landing behind a television set."
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 55