The New Blood and Jason Takes Manhattan Crews Talk New DVD’s
Bloody Disgusting posted some great information about the new DVD releases yesterday. They were invited to a lunch to celebrate the release and were joined by Kane Hodder, John Carl Buechler (writer/director of The New Blood), and VC Dupree (Julius from Jason Takes Manhattan) as well as Daniel Farrands and his editor Andrew Kasch. They discusses a lot about the movies, what was cut and some inight into how the movies were made. Check out what transpired, below.
The big question is, of course, why the films (particularly New Blood) are still sans the bloody kills? Buechler says that the negatives for that footage are probably forever lost. “Ours was one of the single fastest movies ever made. I had my signed deal to make the movie in January, and it was in the theaters on May 13th.” Because of the rush to get the film in theaters, the usual careful cataloging and storing was presumably rushed as well, and thus the footage may no longer exist as studios occasionally destroy unclaimed footage rather than sort it out. The DVD (read our review HERE) does have some of the footage courtesy of a low-quality VHS cut of Buechler’s workprint, but even that is incomplete. “It was actually an assembly that I made prior to doing additional photography, so even if it were restored and you found that negative, it still wouldn’t be the whole movie.”
Various other “wish-list” items, such as Manhattan’s hilarious teaser, are also absent, but that is mainly due to a lack of space on the disc (hardly anything to complain about – a full disc is a GOOD thing). Blu-rays for 4-8 have been brought up, but Farrands tells us that nothing is set in stone yet. On the plus side, that means that they weren’t holding back for an eventual double (triple?) dip. Says Farrands: “There would be more room on the Blu-ray discs, so maybe there’s an opportunity to find more material. A lot of this depends on how the DVDs sell, and what the fan reaction is, but there’s always interest in doing more. If there’s more to be found, they will give it to us; I know for a fact they weren’t holding back on, like, let’s reserve this for Blu-ray. They never took that attitude, and if it was there, we put it in.”
Speaking of that teaser (featuring Jason standing on New York harbor, looking at the water while a Sinatra tune plays over shots of screaming yuppies and commuters), Kane drops an interesting tidbit – that’s not even him! “We were shooting in Vancouver when they shot it… I don’t know who it is… he looks kind of small. I don’t know why they didn’t just wait until we got to New York. My Jason wouldn’t turn like that!”
Replacements and stand-ins seemed to be the order of the day for the 8th film. Not only was Vancouver used instead of New York (except for the Times Square scenes, which Kane claims was “the single most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced in film – being in Times Square in the full costume”), but the script sent out to actors was disguised as a generic slasher film to keep fans from raiding the set. VC Dupree tells us that his script was titled “Ashes To Ashes”. Laughing, he tells us about the script’s rather goofy attempts at tricking people. “I guess they had the name changed from Jason Voorhees to Ethan Dearborn; Crystal Lake was changed to something else, just so you could plug the letters in there.” It was co-star Kelly Hu that tipped him off, a tale he recounts on the DVD’s retrospective piece (which features several co-stars, as well as writer/director Rob Hedden, editor Steve Mirkovich, and composer Fred Mollin – read our review HERE).
Dupree and Hodder also waxed nostalgic about their boxing match, easily Manhattan’s highlight and according to Kane, “one of the kills I get asked about the most.” According to Hodder, Dupree was really hitting him through most of the punches (“66 punches”, Hodder claims, using the number provided by a fan), and despite wearing a catcher’s pad, he was pretty bruised up. The scene took a toll on Dupree as well; he tells us his knuckles really were all cut up from punching the hockey mask.
These two films didn’t perform up to par at the box office, resulting in Paramount essentially ending the series and selling the rights to New Line (who gave us Jason Goes To Hell, Jason X, and Freddy Vs. Jason), but it’s clear that they are held in high regard by both fans and their creators. Buechler recalls his film with a big smile on his face: “I’m pretty proud of the film; I think the fact that we had a full-blown subplot of a telekinetic girl kicking Jason’s butt was lots of fun. I got to do a lot of cool stuff with the makeup effects – we designed and engineered something that I thought was unique at the time – that was all just fun stuff that we got to do, and the fact that we got a great guy inside of it to play the role, we both were of a single mind. We wanted this to be a more energetic, more dynamic version of the character than we had seen before, and I think we accomplished that.”
With the new discs giving the films their best representation ever, there has never been a better time to see if you agree. The new discs are in stores; complete your collection and get rid of that old boxed set once and for all!
I for sure hope that farrands gets to treat part 4-8 on blu-ray, i will not buy part 1-3 on blu-ray and the rest on dvd, thats not cool collection. i am waiting for another boxset on blu-ray
and i hope that they put those scenes they´ve already found back in the movies. if not uncut editions then directors cut would satisfy my wish to my perfect friday the 13th collection, i want to believe that they can edit some of the scenes in the movies so they could be acceptable for the viewer.
Please god make it happend!
The Box set from 2024 sudcked but i was happy to finally get that trailer from 7 and 8 also I like the commentary on part 3 and part 3 and 4 are my fav trailers I think part 4 looks the best out of these rereleses mainly cause i always thought it looked bad video and dvd Im just happy there all in 5.1 surround but i would def buy a blu ray box set been a fan since iu was 4 :)
I have to say that I’m not getting the DVDs, because I’m waiting for the blu-rays, so I hope they aren’t basing whether or not to do blu-ray editions based on DVD sales alone!
i’m really bummed that there’s no announcement of blu-rays yet, but i simply could not wait to see the new cut death footage. i got 4 already & 8 is on it’s way. …but i won’t be getting the dvd of 7; i can wait for some more ‘character moments’ from that crappy workprint. i’ll dip again for the blu-rays. the great thing about having them on dvd is i can import them to my computer and reinsert the death scenes. it will be years before i get a computer blu-ray player.
at least for those 2 entries, the director’s should do a director’s cut for the blu-ray set. there’s no reason not to. it’s easy & costs very little…if i can do it with windows movie maker in a week, they can do it twice as fast and twice as good. and for the rest they can give us the slashed scenes as an extra.
For me, I already have these movies on VHS, bootleg VHS (4,5,6), the first DVDs, and the box set, so I’m holding out for blu-ray no matter what.
I thought part 6 dvd was worth buying. I probably will get the rest, just thought I would get some reviews before I would re-buy the movies that I have in the box set.
In the headline don’t you mean “The New Blood” and not The New Beginning?
Thanks Jonathan. The titles start to meld together after awhile. ;)
Yes they do, but thats an ok mistake!
do you guys ever wonder if things would have been better if Paramount kept the franchise instead of selling it to New Line?
Aside from Jason Goes to Hell, I didn’t like X or vs Freddy at all.
And even though I think I read that Paramount thought they were done with the series, that undoubtely that would have changed eventually, especially in light of renewed interest in the 80’s slashers. And they certainly had their hands out for a piece of the remake proceeds.
Just wondering what you guys think. The paramount mountain in the beginning was always a favorite of mine before a friday started.
I don’t think it would have been any better. The slasher genre was dead by the late 80’s and if Paramount would have retained the rights, they would not have made any new movies period. Paramount was actively trying to get Freddy vs Jason done with New Line, but they never had any intention of continuing the franchise outside of the versus movie.
At least New Line and Sean Cunningham had a real want to make some more Jason films. I know that a lot of fans are disappointed with Jason Goes To Hell and Jason X, but those movies each had their own bright spots and kept the franchise going into the millenia.
i agree, but i sometimes wonder if it would have been better if new line never got it’s hands on the series. sure they kept the series going, gave us our first director’s cut, etc…but the series definitely lost something. the new line entries don’t have that friday feel to them…even the reboot struggled to capture it. yet even the worst of the paramount (just paramount) entries seems to have it without even trying.
it may have been better with a little downtime…then as paramount’s old conservative douchebags retired and moved on to make room for younger, more abitious people, the need to bring the series back could have been realized. nothing’s ever set in stone in hollywood.
The F13 franchise is fortunate to have lasted as long as it has with as many sequels as it has. Even if you just look at the movies released by Paramount, Jason has more films under his belt than Freddy, Michael Myers, Chucky, and Leatherface. I think Paramount did a good job at trying to keep the franchise fresh after the fourth film (overall) and its an added bonus that fans got the films that they got from New Line at all. I think Paramount did a good job overall and knew a little more about making good horror films than New Line. Either way, I will be looking forward to the remake sequel and any other F13 films that may come our way in the future.
Now that we have DE of the Paramount films, Daniel and DE DVD crew should consider making SEs of JGTH and Jason X.
I’d like to have them on Blu-Ray so I’m gonna wait.
Since I already started buying the Blu-Rays, I won’t be getting the DVDs. It truly sucks that Paramount put the first three on Blu and then stopped. In fact, I think it’s pretty damned asinine that they did that!
Waiting for parts 4 and beyond on blu-ray is just killing me. I thought, since 2 and 3 on blu came out around the same time as 4 to 6 on dvd, then 4 to 6 on blu would be released when 7 and 8 came to dvd. When talk of a blu-ray box started, and I didn’t hear anything about 4 to 6 on blu for a while, I decided to wait til the box set came out.
Of course, the talk of the box set stopped for a while now too. Talk of the aspect ratio on the part 1 on blu didn’t really convince me to buy the separate releases either.
But, I just couldn’t wait any more, so I bought 2 and 3 on blu. 1 was out of stock when I went to buy 2 and 3. In the back of my mind I keep wondering if Paramount would be gracious enough to re-release 1 on blu with the aspect ratio restored.