Tina Shepard is a character in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, played as an adult by Lar Park Lincoln and as a child by Jennifer Banko. Possessing telekinetic/psychokinetic powers, Tina accidentally killed her abusive father as a child when she destroyed the pier he was standing on, causing him to drown in Crystal Lake. As a teenager, Tina is being treated by psychiatrist Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser), who secretly plans to exploit her psychic powers for his own personal gain. Returning to Crystal Lake to deal with the trauma, Tina attempts to resurrect her father with her powers, but instead succeeds in releasing Jason from his watery prison. As Jason wanders the forest killing anybody in his way, Tina experiences psychic visions of the people he kills. When Jason murders Tina's mother (Susan Blu), her doctor, and friends, she is forced to use her powers to defend herself and fellow survivor Nick (Kevin Blair). Tina eventually summons a manifestation of her father to drag Jason back underwater.
Tina is mentioned in the novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat, which is set shortly after the events of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; the book states that, due to the outlandish nature of her story and the lack of evidence supporting it, Tina and Nick were arrested by the authorities, who suspected they were the ones who murdered the people they claimed Jason had. The epilogue of the book mentions that due to the revelation that Jason actually does exist, Tina and Nick were both released from custody. In the Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors comic miniseries, Tina appears under the care of doctors Maggie Burroughs and Neil Gordon, one of the first recruited to their group of those who have survived Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger.
A New Blood was initially conceived as Freddy vs. Jason; when studios failed to agree over rights to the respective franchises, the concept became Jason vs. Carrie instead, with Tina created to fill in for Stephen King's telekinetic character Carrie White. Screenwriter Daryl Haney believed giving the character telekinetic abilities would add a new twist to the commonly seen final girl in the films. Director John Carl Buechler sees similarities between Tina and Alice Johnson, the protagonist of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. He says, "Both films are about heroines who take on special powers which they use to fight the monster. In The New Blood, Tina's able to fully harness her telekinetic powers by the end of the film and she uses the powers to defeat Jason which is what happened, more or less, in The Dream Master." Buechler was disappointed that the film did not explore Tina's powers more, "I wanted to really 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 that clairvoyants use their powers. The producers did not like the idea." One of Beuchler's plans involved Tina seeing her mother holding Pamela Voorhees's head, which would have cried, "Help me, help me." The idea was vetoed by Barbara Sachs for being too "out there". Composer Fred Mollin came up with theme music for Tina "because she was a psychic and I felt like she'd project a certain aura since there had never been character like her before in a Friday the 13th film. When developing the comic miniseries, The Nightmare Warriors, the creators felt that Neil Gordon from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors would be a natural replacement for Dr. Crews as Tina's doctor.
Actress Lar Park Lincoln was intrigued by the role of Tina and her telekinetic powers, saying, "It was a complex story and it would allow me to play something other than a drug addict or a prostitute. So I said sure." Lincoln was already a Friday the 13th fan, and was proud to have seen every one of the films. She claimed, "I don't think anybody really set out to change the world with these movies. Nobody will ever be accused of trying to make a social statement or great art. What these films are is entertainment." Serious about doing the movie justice, Lincoln took it upon herself to study with real life psychics. She explains, "I knew how important Tina's telekinetic powers were to the character so I went out and met with real psychics and learned about psychic visions and the way that psychics can relate their visions because it's one thing to have a vision and another to be able to explain it." Lincoln admits she does not know how genuine the psychics she met were, but claims it was an interesting experience. Another area of Tina's characterization the actress took interest in was her guilt over her father's death; "It gets worse by the end of the story because so many people die, including her mother, and it's really her fault because she brought Jason back."