An uncut version of Jason Voorhees’ seventh screen outing, Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood, might be much sought-after but unfortunately it will never be released in its uncensored glory. Beginning in 1980 with the infamous teen summer camp slasher Friday the 13th, the cinematic saga of Jason has survived a short-lived TV show, a face-off against dream demon Freddy Krueger, a trip to space, a sojourn to Manhattan, and even a brief detour to Hell. That's not even counting video games, novels and other merch either.
However, despite the many Jason Voorhees starring vehicles that horror fans have seen since the original - which ironically barely featured him - there’s one Friday the 13th installment that remains legendarily hard to find. That is the uncensored original edit of Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood and, despite efforts to unearth a full version of the film, unfortunately, this cut will likely never see the light of day. Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood, or "Jason Vs Carrie" as some franchise devotees have dubbed the outing, was an ambitious sequel that saw Jason take on a psychic teen instead of his usual slew of interchangeable co-eds.
The sequel was derided by critics as a predictable and un-involving entry into the declining franchise after the surprising improvement of Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives. The movie was directed by the late FX master John Carl Buechler, who worked on everything from Hatchet to Terrorvision and went on to helm the similarly - although in this case unfairly - maligned sequel Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go To College. Given Buechler’s pedigree, it’s no surprise the original edit of Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood featured VERY gory demises for most of the cast, but the MPAA took particular exception to this sequel, forcing the director to cut most of the carnage out.
This wasn’t the first time the Friday the 13th movies, famously dismissed as ultra-violent and artless by iconic film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, fell afoul of the MPAA. The first sequel, Friday the 13th Part 2, was cut to ribbons by the censorial body too, although the content missing from Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood was more impressively gory. Among the more noteworthy removals were Ben (Craig Thomas), whose head is crushed between Jason's hands like a bloody zit, while Judy's (Debora Kessler) uncensored sleeping bag death saw her bashed against the tree at least six times, with the bag becoming soaked in gore. The nasty Dr. Crews demise via tree-trimmer is laughably tame in the finished film, but was originally much, much bloodier.
Sadly, for years this lost footage only survived in the form of a grainy VHS transfer, which revealed just how messy the uncut deaths were supposed to be. However, despite demand for an uncut, restored version, Paramount is said to have destroyed the unused footage back in the 1990s. As a result, a restored, full-blooded cut of Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood is doubtful, even more so now that john Carl Buechler passed away in 2019. There's some fun to be had with the goofiness of Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood, but watching the released edit its easy to spot where trims were made to the violence, and like Buechler himself stated of the MPAA edits, that's like setting up a joke but cutting out the punchline.