JasonVoorhees

By: Todd Gilchrist

Members of the cast and crew of Friday the 13th Parts VII and VIII sat down with a small crowd of genre press to discuss their experiences on the films and delve into the extras on both films' forthcoming DVDs. Vincent Craig "VC" Dupree, who played Julius in Jason Takes Manhattan, said he was amazed people still had so much affection for his death in the film, in which Jason literally knocks his block off. "People just have a lot of love for that particular kill," Dupree said at a press event Wednesday on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. "As Kane and I were just talking about, the fact that I'm one of the only black guys who's like made it towards the end of the movie [is significant], so the response from it is really cool. More recently I started doing these conventions, and I didn't realize how much love people had out there for that kill."

Kane Hodder, who played Jason in the film, corroborated the fans' love for that particular scene. "It's one of the kills that I'd done that fans talked about the most," he revealed. "In fact, I was just in Atlanta at DragonCon and a guy came up and was talking about that kill. He says, 'do you know how many times he punched you before you knocked his head off?' I said no. 'Sixty-six!' The guy knew that. Then I was looking at them and it was hard to count because he was throwing body punches really fast. I'm not kidding – he was hitting me. I had a catcher's pad on."

If you feign surprise when you hear that a Friday the 13th Part 2 is in the works, you're officially insane. This year's F13 remake is based on a series that spans no less than 12 chapters, so it's pretty much assumed that the remake will earn its own sequel relatively soon. (But the Platinum Dunes guys are knee-deep in their Freddy remake, and remakes take priority over ... sequels. I guess.)

Anyway, the ridiculously large man who now plays Jason Voorhees is also a ridiculously nice guy, and he recently chatted with FEARnet about the inevitable sequel: "I don't know what they are planning on doing for the sequel, honestly, but in my opinion, I think less is more. If you just touch on aspects of his past, it's like the monster outside of the box theory; it's scarier when you don't know. I myself wouldn't want to see what he was like when he was younger. I would like to touch on it, but then move on." I think that's Mears (subtly) smacking the Halloween remake, and if that's the case, then Yay Derek says I.

Click here for the full interview, and don't forget that Marcus Nispel's version of Friday the 13th hits DVD next week.