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Fansided

Ranking every Friday the 13th film from worst to best

By Wesley Lara

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 09: Actor Derek Mears arrives at the premiere of Warner Bros.' "Friday the 13th" at the Chinese Theater on February 9, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 09: Actor Derek Mears arrives at the premiere of Warner Bros.' "Friday the 13th" at the Chinese Theater on February 9, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) /
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6. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Directed by John Carl Buechler

If you thought Part VI delved a little too hard into the world of fantasy, then Part VII will serve as a rude awakening for you. Not quite content with leaving the previous film to be the final installment (and they’d be pretty dumb to do, considering the film’s success), Jason Voorhees took literally another stab at the silver screen, this time going toe-to-toe (sort of) with a girl possessing psychokinetic abilities.

No, it’s not a Freddy vs. Jason-type duel, but the strangely fitting chemistry between mind powers and the undead made for a wild Friday the 13th entry that, for some reason, doesn’t seem to get as much hype as some of the other films.

In a way, I do get that. The story itself is fairly cut-and-paste beyond the unique character traits of Tina who accidentally unleashes Jason with her mind powers. Jason, in his permanent state of murder spree, goes after the nearest living humans, which in this film are filled by Tina, her mother, her cruel doctor, and a nearby house of generic slasher-trope teenagers.

While the film follows the formula of every Friday the 13th film to a tee, A New Blood has Tina up its sleeve, changing up the power dynamics with her Professor X-like powers matching Jason’s brute force at every turn.

In fact, this served as the first time somebody was able to match Jason’s force to the extent that Tina did. Even during all of his “defeats” in the previous films, Jason pretty much had the fights won until he slipped up. Here, we get a protagonist actively kicking Jason’s ass through the use of mind powers and Kane Hodder’s debut as Jason made the confrontation feel all the more ferocious.

Even if the rest of the characters were vanilla in comparison to Tina, her contribution to the film is enough to drive this film to the top half of the Friday the 13th series.