‘Friday the 13th’: Why Jason Vorhees Never Fought Stephen King’s Carrie
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood started out as a movie about horror icons Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street fighting Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th films. That didn’t work. Then, it was almost a very different Friday the 13th film about Jason fighting Carrie White from Carrie. Here’s why that didn’t work either — and why Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood disappointed its director.
Why a ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ didn’t get made in the 1980s
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood was released in 1988. According to GQ, it was originally going to be a film about Freddy Kreuger fighting Jason Vorhees. However, one issue got in the way: money.
At the time, Freddy was simply a more lucrative character than Jason. As such, New Line Cinema — the company behind the Elm Street movies — didn’t want to pair Freddy with Jason. After all, the Elm Street films were performing twice as well as the Friday films at the box office.
Why Jason Vorhees didn’t get to fight Carrie White
Paramount Pictures — the studio which produced the Friday films — decided to pair Jason with a different horror icon. According to the book 1000 Facts about Horror Movies, the original script for Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood featured Jason battling Carrie White, the protagonist of Stephen King’s Carrie and its film adaptation. However, Paramount Pictures did not have the right to King’s character. Instead, the book Friday the 13th says a new telekinetic character named Tina was created to serve as a substitute for Carrie.
How the film’s director and the public reacted to ‘Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood’
The final film is a blast for slasher movie fans. It features Tina using her telekinetic powers to lift Jason into the air, hang him, and hit him with a couch. It’s a fun movie with quite a bit of production value for a 1980s horror sequel. However, its director, John Carl Buechler, was disappointed in the final film.
“I really wanted to get into the clairvoyant stuff and have Tina experience all of these surreal nightmares because I’d really done a lot of homework about the paranormal and the way clairvoyants use their powers,” Buechler said, according to the book Friday the 13th. “The producers did not like the idea.” Surreal nightmares where more of Freddy’s wheelhouse anyway.
Regardless, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood was a financial success. Bloody Disgusting reports it earned $19 million against a $3 million budget. It remains one of the more beloved Friday sequels. It did well – Freddy or no Freddy, Carrie or no Carrie.
When the world finally got to see ‘Freddy vs. Jason’
Freddy vs. Jason would finally get released in 2003. It is among the most famous horror crossovers ever. It’s so popular that many people who aren’t familiar with the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises choose to watch it. The film’s long gestation period didn’t stop it from becoming a success.
