There are still many parts of my score that work quite well for me. I do like the opening credits. I went with a non-melody motif. I thought if it were very percussive, it would add a lot of tension. We did briefly discuss early on giving Jason his own theme, but there was no benefit to put a melody there—we already had the famous Jason effect. That's one of the reasons why maybe Harry and my score worked okay together, because that same sound effect went over both so it helped make it sound like the same score. And the end credits I thought worked well, too. So to hear that John liked things, like Tina's theme, that makes me feel good.
A scant six months after the start of pre-production, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood debuted on May 13, 1988, on 1,796 screens across the United States. The film's opening weekend suggested the "New Blood" of the title was apt, for the film returned the franchise to the number one spot at the box office, earning $8.2 million in its first three days. The subsequent fall-off, however, did little to reverse the financial slide that had begun with A New Beginning. With a final gross of $19.2 million, for 4.7 million paid admissions, the run-of-the-mill performance of The New Blood seemed to indicate that while the franchise continued to bring in its dedicated fan base, it wasn't winning over any new audiences—or enticing those who had abandoned the series after The Final Chapter. As if to twist the knife in Jason's side even further, 1988 would prove to be a banner year for Freddy Krueger. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master debuted on August 19, 1988, earning a franchise-best three-day opening weekend of $12.8 million. With a final tally of $49.1 million, Nightmare 4 not only exceeded the commercial success of the original Friday the 13th, but Freddy had done it on his third sequel. It seemed that, finally, Jason had been unseated by the competition. But that didn't matter much to Jason devotees who turned out in droves for the latest exploits of their favorite masked maniac. Jason may have been buried by the competition, but he was still a long way from being dead.
JOHN CARL BUECHLER:
The day that Part VII opened, we had a premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The audience was going nuts, absolutely reacting to all the things you anticipated they would react to. It's always a rush—that's the moment where it all becomes worth it.
KANE HODDER:
Even to this day, that movie got the best audience reaction out of any of the Fridays I've seen. That was such a great feeling—just knowing that people were enjoying my work so much. I had never had that kind of feeling before, as an actor or a stuntman, ever.
KEVIN SPIRTAS:
We put our feet in the footprints in front of the Chinese and kind of did the tourist thing. Then we walked in there, and it's a huge screen and a completely sold-out crowd. And as one death would happen, and another, and another, the crowd would be counting. "One, two, three…!" Then the next day I had to fly to New York, and at the Loews in Shubert Alley, Part VII was also playing. And in the background was a billboard for A Chorus Line, which is the show that started my career. So there is this big marquee of A Chorus Line in the background and Friday the 13th Part VII in the foreground. It was a really nice moment.
SUSAN BLU:
The premiere was so cool. I invited all my friends and we for a big dinner and then to the Grauman's Chinese. I had never been to a premiere before, and it was so much fun. I loved the movie.
LAR PARK LINCOLN:
I remember seeing the advertising—it was the first time I ever saw myself on a big billboard. It was so exciting. And the premiere, I loved it. Then I saw it again in Westwood with a bunch of friends and I wore big glasses and tried to disguise myself. It was really stupid, and I got chased out to my car. It was one of those memories that, as an actress, you never forget.
DIANA BARROWS:
The premiere was fantastic. There is no better venue than the Mann's Chinese in Hollywood. It was unforgettable. The whole audience was so interactive, and personally, it was loads of fun to receive vicariously, through Maddy on the screen, all this advice, and live reactions from people in the audience.
BILL BUTLER:
I first got invited to see a rough cut and I thought I was going to have a heart attack, because there was no music—you can never watch a horror film without music. I thought it was the worst thing I saw in my life. I left there crying, thinking I would never work again. I thought John Carl Buechler had failed miserably. I even told my agent not to tell anyone I was in it.
Then I saw the finished film at the premiere. My parents went and I invited all my friends—I even warned them that it sucked—but with that music, I could not believe how good it was. I was thrilled. They also let the public in that night, and when I got killed, these black girls behind me were like, "Fuck him! He's a nerd anyway!" And my mom stands up and says, "That's my son you're talking about!" It was nearly a brawl. It was awesome.
ELIZABETH KAITAN:
When I saw Part VII, it made me appreciate doing horror movies again. I thought it was really well done, and the people I worked with—it gave me a new perspective. Because right before I did this movie, I decided not to do any more genre films. I had done two horror movies and a science fiction movie and I was really trying to get away from that. Plus, I had just done a comedy and wanted to go more in that direction. But Part VII gave me a new respect for horror movies. I no longer put those limitations on myself, to no longer do a certain kind of movie.
JEFF BENNETT:
I had loved the first Friday the 13th, and I also thought the acting was good in the first couple of them. But this one is really bad. I thought it stunk. The writing was awful. And I know I was bad in it, too. I went with my agent to a screening before opening night at Paramount. She was quiet throughout the whole movie. And after it was over, she said, "You did okay. I thought you tried too hard in that one scene." So she obviously didn't like me in it. At the time I thought my acting was pretty good. But I look at it now, and it's like, "Wow. I should have been a CPA or something."
DIANE ALAMEIDA:
It was interesting, when Part VII came out the fanfare for me was in my own personal life. With family and friends, and people I would meet, who had already gone and seen the movie, or would finally see it when it came out on video and on cable. When people heard I was in a Friday the 13th, they would immediately get very excited. They would ask me which one I was in, and how did I die. And it still is that way today. It was a very exciting time.
DARYL HANEY:
I was walking down Times Square one day, back when it was all crack addicts and stuff, and I saw Friday the 13th Part VII playing on a triple bill with like a chop socky movie and something else. I thought, "What the fuck?" So I paid my money and I walked in, and it was already showing. And everyone was talking to the screen—which is the ideal scenario under which to see these movies, I guess.
I was immediately struck by how horrible the movie looked. It had this ugly white and blue light on everything, like a really bad slide show, which is exactly how that Buechler movie Dolls had looked to me. And once the movie finished, I would have had to sit through two other movies to see the beginning of it, and it was already so depressing. Why depress myself even more? So I never saw the whole thing. I think fucking Part V is better than Part VII. It's horrible.
Ultimately, I got into a contract dispute over Part VII. I was to be paid $30,000 for the treatment, a first draft, a revision and a polish—the standard thing. But they didn't want to pay me the $30,000. I did like 15 drafts on the script, and then I was released. They gave the final polishes to some union writer who didn't even use his own name. Manuel Fidello, the other credited writer on the movie, that's not even a real person. So here is this pseudonym getting a credit and he was paid with half my bonus, and the other half went back into the movie.
It was all sort of anticlimactic in the end. I was ripped off money. I was made the fall guy in this strange scenario with Barbara Sachs, who was whimsically changing the script from minute to minute. It was all sort of like wham-bam-thank-you-
ma'am. It's like a machine, and they ran me through it and ground me up and threw me out the other side. It was a very, very bitter lesson in the ways of Hollywood, but I guess that's how we get wiser. It's really quite tragic because I do think I'm a good writer. Looking back, I should have written under a pseudonym, but everybody has to do sub-par stuff at the beginning of their career. I didn't realize the Internet was going to come along and it would never be forgotten. In addition to the low standing of the films critically, I was treated so shoddily on the project and was ripped off money and just had such a horrible experience. But then you think, "It was a Friday the 13th movie. What did you expect?"
MICHAEL SHEEHY:
Friday the 13th—it's a double-edged sword. Yes, there is an established formula, and there is a lot more security in that than in making a movie from the ground up. At the same time, when you've got that much success, you can really end up with egg on your face if one particular movie doesn't perform. You've got a history of six movies that have worked fairly well. If this one doesn't work, then you feel responsible.
Certainly we wanted our box office to continue to do well, but I think each time we just set out to make the best, scariest movie we could make. Part VII still made millions and millions of dollars and allowed us to do all sorts of other movies because of its success. I only remember a sense of fun with it at that point.
FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:
You rarely know the real reason why you're doing something, especially early in your life, when you're doing it. At this point I had this very peculiar love/hate relationship with the Friday the 13th movies because, on the one hand, they gave me very significant wealth very early in my life, and on the other hand, they defined me in a way I wasn't prepared to accept. Because Friday the 13th was the first stuff I had done, people always identified me with it. I don't think anybody looked at those movies and said, "Wow—what a filmmaker." It was more of a successful execution of a marketing scheme that people related to more than the virtues of any particular movie. More often than not, my contemporaries in the industry would never see them. All they'd say was, "Look at this fucking Friday the 13th. It knocked out our movie that was really good, and it's a piece of shit."
Other films we made at Hometown at the time, like Permanent Record and, to a lesser extent, April Fool's Day, are interesting by-products of the Friday the 13th films. Permanent Record, especially was, for me, a personal statement to the people who didn't like the Friday films, or more precisely, thought they were out there to do ill to the world. Permanent Record was my way of saying, "This is me. This movie, from a content point of view, is more about what I think is relevant." And ultimately, it introduced me to an experience I hadn't had before with Friday the 13th—suddenly people were appreciating the filmmaking and its courage.
To be honest, the lack of box office for Permanent Record at the time had far more of an impact on me than whatever happened to any of the Fridays. I was very intimately involved with Permanent Record, and I was surprised by the fact that it didn't do business. I must say that while it felt rather empty, at the end of the day I was still proud of what I accomplished. Whereas the Friday movies were such exercises in commerce that, clearly, if one of those movies didn't perform, I don't know that I would walk away saying I was still glad I made the movie.
JOHN CARL BUECHLER:
Really, the only reason why Part VII fell down at the box office in its second weekend was because Paramount took it out of a lot of theaters to make room for Crocodile Dundee, and even then it held its own. I also think there is still an argument to be made that had the film been preserved in its original, uncensored form that it would have been more enjoyable to the audience. Plus the title—that was all marketing. I just wanted to leave it Part VII, because seven is sort of a magical number. The New Blood? I still don't know what that means.
Looking back, Part VII allowed me to explore different worlds of filmmaking. Yet I don't know if I learned anything from it. It was profoundly satisfying in many ways and profoundly upsetting in many ways. It was an independent movie made on a studio lot, but then Paramount wouldn't stand behind it. They took a totally different approach than, say, New Line did. They had Freddy appear on MTV. They'd bring press out to the set. They didn't hide it. They screamed it from the rooftops. Paramount hid their stuff. They were terrified of people knowing they were doing these films. Prior to that I had been in magazines all the time, but Frank Jr. gave me a gag order, saying, "Don't tell anyone about this movie. Don't let anybody know you're doing it." I had people call all the time and I wasn't allowed to talk to them. That was frustrating as hell.
It is also a real challenge doing a Part VII to anything. On one hand you've got the whole background of all of those other movies behind you, and the understanding and the legend is set. On the other hand, how do you bring something new to it? So we chose to go more visual, more profound, to get bigger with the effects and deliver a story that got people more involved. I don't think my movie was the same as all the others. It had different levels to it. Sure, it had the elements that drew the core slasher crowd. But if I did give anything to the Friday franchise, it was a more classic gothic horror element—I took the most popular slasher in the world and moved it into the arena of the metaphysical. That's a big step.
I'm satisfied, creatively. There's a lot of things in Part VII that I'm very proud of. I love the performances of Dr. Crews and Tina. I think Kane Hodder became the definitive Jason and is a force to be reckoned with. I love the final battle between Jason and Tina. And now, it actually has a new life on video and DVD. Groups get together and watch these things. In the end, all you can do is take the resources that you have available to you, and make the best picture you can.
8. Terror in Times Square
1988 had been a year of mixed blessings for Jason Voorhees. His seventh cinematic adventure, The New Blood, narrowly survived a highly compressed production schedule and the cutting blades of the MPAA ratings board before landing atop the box office charts in its opening weekend, but the film was still unable to reach the profit levels of some of the earlier installments of the franchise. Even more disconcerting for the producers and Paramount Pictures, Part VII came in a distant second to A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, the latest bloody offering from Jason's biggest rival, Freddy Krueger. Yet even if the box office edge of Jason's machete had dulled slightly, the outlook was still good for the future of Friday the 13th. All seven films in the series remained highly profitable motion pictures whose core audience showed little intention of abandoning their favorite franchise. Its durable (if not already shopworn) formula also proved that it could withstand the injection of fresh creative ideas, including supernatural elements, bigger action sequences and even ironic satire. Moreover, the syndicated television drama Friday the 13th: The Series continued to fly high in the ratings, a success that, with or without Jason, only helped to increase the awareness of the Friday the 13th brand.
Yet no one in "Camp Jason" could deny that the film series, however enduring, needed to take even greater risks if it was to remain relevant as a new decade approached and anything resembling the 1980s already began to look passé. Although there were discussions of continuing the Tina Shepherd storyline introduced in The New Blood, ultimately it was decided to take the series in yet another fresh direction. Many of the young fans that had grown up on the early Friday the 13th films were now well into adulthood and dealing with real-world issues and concerns, and perhaps even starting families of their own. For many, the terrors experienced by the flighty and flirtatious teens of Friday the 13th were now but mere footnotes to past adolescent angst. The once Jason-hungry teens of the early 1980s had, both literally and figuratively, graduated to the horrors of a much larger world. How Jason could continue to terrify "Generation Y" was a question left for the creators of Friday the 13th Part VIII to answer.
ROB HEDDEN, Director and Screenwriter:
I started making movies when I was 12 years old. I did all the
stuff that kooky kids did, only I took it to extremes—wacky little Super 8 comedies I'd make with my brother, and we'd record all the sound and sync it up in ridiculous ways. By the time I was a teenager, I was getting friends and co-workers to do extremely crazy things that, honestly, often involved clothes coming off—nothing soft-core of course, just stuff for laughs. One film we did was called The Life and Times of Grizzly Anus. We had a guy out in the wilderness trying to spiritually become "one with the bear." So you see him get attacked and all this stuff flying all over, then he comes walking out and he's got these two big bear prints on his ass. That's the kind of stuff we were doing.
Eventually I ended up in a place called the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, with a double major in motion picture production and photography. And the day I graduated, I snuck onto the Universal Studios lot and started hanging out on sets and met all kinds of people. I spent time on the set of Animal House and I had dinner with John Belushi on his birthday. Then snuck onto "The Rockford Files" television show and James Garner invited me to stay for a week. After a couple years I finally got a job doing advertising and publicity on these big movies, which I eventually parlayed into making behind-the-scenes documentaries. One I did, for a Terry Gilliam movie called Brazil, won a bunch of awards. That's when I finally said, "That's it. I'm going to start writing and directing actual narrative movies."
Around 1987, I was writing for a show called MacGyver when the producers of the Friday the 13th television series offered me an opportunity to write an episode for them. And I said, "I'd love to, but I want to direct it, too." They said, "No, we already have directors. We just need you to write." I insisted, and didn't hear anything for about two months. Then I got a call from Barbara Sachs, one of the show's producers, and she said, "We start shooting in four weeks, and we don't have any scripts. We need you to come in and help us." I said, "I really, really want to. But I want to direct." She said, "Fine, fine. We'll give you one."
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 58