Fridaythe13thPart8

Friday the 13th part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

This time around Jason is again awakened from the bottom of Crystal Lake by a jolt of electricity. After doing away with the first couple of kids he runs into Jason then catches a cruise ship from Crystal Lake to NYC. The ship is filled with graduates of the local high school and before you know it Jason is killing them off and hacking his way thru the crew as well. Eventually Jason manages to do enough damage to sink the ship, but follows the survivors to New York City where he continues hunting them down, while killing a few locals as well. Though the big city does seem a bit too much for him and he meets his fate at the hands of some nasty toxic waste in the sewers beneath the big city.

This movie should have been titled Jason takes a boat ride, because most of the movie takes place on the ship, with very little happening in the city. This is one of the few movies in the series that I actually find really boring. The movie starts off pretty cool with Jason stalking the couple on the small boat and killing them, but after he gets to the cruise ship the movie dies. I found the whole stalking and killing on the ship to be really poorly done without any tension or atmosphere. Plus the female leads connection with the young Jason makes no sense at all and is kind of a stupid plot twist. I mean her uncle tosses her in the lake to teach her to swim and the ghost Jason grabs at her? I think this is a case of the movie trying to hard to be clever and reinvent the series instead of doing what works. Now the movie does pickup a bit once they hit the city and the scenes of Jason on the Subway and in Times Square are really cool. But then they spoil the whole thing again with an incredibly dumb ending that involves the regular scheduled dumping of toxic waste in the sewers under New York City. But then again is that any dumber than catching an ocean going cruise ship from Crystal Lake to NYC?

So lets talk special effects and kills. Jason without the mask looks like a Halloween mask in this movie. I mean it is really bad. This movie is also the only one that I can think of in the entire franchise that lacks a single memorable kill. There is barely any gore in the movie, and unlike other entries I don’t think it has anything to do with the MPAA. Most of the good stuff happens off screen, which sucks. The only good things that I have to say about the movie is that Kane Hodder nails the Jason character again, giving another performance that cements his legacy as the best Jason. I also thought the music and credits gave the movie a distinctly 80s vibe and feel that I enjoyed in a nostalgic kind of way.

This is one of the weakest in the series, but then at least it has Jason in it and not some evil damn worm thing! That said I still can’t recommend it to anyone but the most diehard fan of the franchise.

1 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer