A Nightmare from Friday to Halloween: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

The three most prominent American horror franchises (Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street) have influenced American cinema even beyond the horror genre. As of 2021, there are exactly 31 movies across all three franchises, and I am going to attempt to watch all of them, for this Halloween, one per day.

I knew that I shouldn’t have expected much with this movie, even though I Iiked Jason Lives quite a bit. It’s kind of more of the same mayhem with equally forgettable teens and predictably gruesome kills. I could feel my eyes glazing over with the typical teen drama of cheating partners and whatnot. The Friday the 13th franchise desperately needed a hit because the Nightmare on Elm Street filims were outgrossing them considerably (rightfully so). My interest did perk up a little bit with the character of Tina Shepherd (Lar Park Lincoln) and her telekinetic powers. I had been kind of itching up for a hero that was somewhat equal to the villain in terms of how much havoc they could wreak, especially since I had been a bit disappointed with Dream Warriors and how it didn’t exactly deliver on that promise to the extent I wanted it to. And I will say that the last fight between Tina and Jason actually scratched that itch a little bit. It’s too bad that the franchise wasn’t smart enough to try to continue Tina’s arc and possibly make a new hero in her. Perhaps if they had cast a more charismatic actress than Lincoln (who is fine here, not amazing) then that could possibly have happened. I’m kind of amazed that this franchise stuck around so long with its many wasted opportunities and overall poor quality of its films.