vincent craig dupree

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."