Trivia / Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

• Alan Smithee: Manuel Fidello (one of the film's two credited writers) is an alias for an unidentified WGA scab who violated the then-ongoing writers' strike to work on the film after the firing of original writer Daryl Haney. Any admission of working on the film would be grounds for instant expulsion from the WGA even well into the 21st century, so their identity will likely remain forever unknown.
• Completely Different Title: In Germany, the film was released as Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason in a Bloodlust
• Creator Backlash: Director John Carl Buechler has repeatedly voiced his discontent for this, going so far as to say the MPAA raped his movie. Considering the results of the MPAA's meddling and his on-set feud with producer Barbara Sachs mentioned below, it's not hard to see why. ^note  For anyone who's curious, Barbara Sachs went on be an associate producer for Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and never produced anything ever again, becoming a storyboard coordinator for several cartoons during the early 90s before vanishing from the industry completely in 92.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • One of the series signature moments, Jason kicking the sleeping bag murder victim, was a result of Kane Hodder getting frustrated from several retakes of the scene.
  • Another well-known scene, Jason catching on fire at the climax of the film, was the result of the suit Kane Hodder was wearing catching on fire and not having it put out until the scene was finished.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The reason why Tina's dad doesn't look even remotely dead.
  • The films associate producer, Barbra Sachs, veto’d a lot of ideas Buechler had, such as having Tina have a vision of Jason as a boy holding his mothers decapitated head instead of Jason Killing Tina’s mother.
  • Sachs hated the way Jason's face looked unmasked, claiming it looked too much like a frog and told Buechler that he couldn’t do it because Frank Mancuso Jr. wouldn’t have approved it. Buechler, already frustrated by the many ideas she shot down previously, instead took it upon himself to go behind her back and shoot the rest of the climax with Jason unmasked, much to Sachs’ disapproval. The kicker in all this? Mancuso loved the look for unmasked Jason.
    • Although it did lead to the above bullet point where Sachs veto’s Tina’s dad being zombified.
• Missing Episode: All original negatives, including the cut gore footage, were destroyed by Paramount sometime in 1992.
• The Other Darrin: Kane Hodder replaces C.J. Graham as Jason.
• What Could Have Been: According to Crystal Lake Memories, the house exploding sequence was going to be much longer and shot from different angles. However, the special effects guy screwed up and instead detonated all the explosives at the same time, not only making the explosion shorter but also much stronger, destroying almost all cameras, lenses, and reels in the process. The seconds of footage shown in the film came from the only two reels that survived.
• Working Title: The movie was under the name Birthday Bash during the casting sessions.

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