Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is the sixth sequel to the original Friday the 13th, and is considered to be the darkest film in the series. It also marked the first appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason Voorhees. The film underwent extensive editing in order to avoid an X rating for overly violent content, but some of the omitted footage was included as a supplemental feature in a box set of the series.

Release and reception

All existing home video versions of this film, including the box set released by Paramount Home Video have the infamous "sleeping bag death" cut to one hit, whereas the original theater-shown version had the uncut, six-hit sleeping bag death scene, with blood all over the sleeping bag, intact.

The film took in $19.1 million at the domestic box office, making it the fourth lowest grossing entry of the series.

The film is mentioned in the novels American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (p. 112) and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Trivia

• There were a number of filmed scenes that were edited out of the final cut in order for the movie to gain its R rating including: Maddy's face getting stabbed in the wood shed, Dr. Crews' body being cut in two in the woods, a longer death-in-sleeping bag scene, Russell's axe in the face by the lake, Jason holding David's head, and an ending scene of Jason jumping out of the water and grabbing a fisherman.

• Kane Hodder did all his own Jason stunts in this film, including falling through the stairway, and having the porch roof fall on his head.

• Kerry Noonan, who played Paula in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), read for the role of Tina, but when John Carl Buechler discovered she'd been in the previous film he decided not to cast her.

• Walt Gorney, the veteran actor who played Crazy Ralph in the original Friday the 13th and in Part 2, returns as the voice of the narrator during the opening of this film.

• Jason's mask in this film was cast from the same mold as the original mask from Friday the 13th Part III (1982), but was modified slightly; in addition to the damage seen in the mask (the axe cut and propeller damage), the edges of the mask have been trimmed to make it smaller, to allow more of actor Kane Hodder's head to be seen around the mask.

• There were several different stuntwomen who played Sandra during her drowning scene; two for the underwater shots, and one for her corpse being pulled onto the shore by Jason.

• The film's original title was "Birthday Bash".