Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan review.
A disappointment at both delivering on a promise and as a farewell to the classic Friday era.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
Directed by Rob Hedden
Written by Rob Hedden
Starring Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Peter Mark Richman, Martin Cummins, Gordon Currie and Kane Hodder
Friday the 13th Part VIII
Jason Takes Manhattan Review
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan marks the final Scare Value review for the franchise. At least until someone gets their shit together and makes a new one. There was no malicious intent behind leaving this entry for last. It is, however, understandable how it happened naturally. Friday the 13th Part VIII is one of the bad ones, sure…but it isn’t (quite) the worst one. What separates Jason Takes Manhattan from the other bottom feeders is that it isn’t as fun as the rest of the bad movies in the series. Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X and Friday the 13th Part V may be trash…but they’re occasionally entertaining trash. Sometimes unintentionally…but still.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is arguably the most boring entry in the 12-part series. A problem only worsened by its legendary failure to live up to the promise of its title. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find many positives in the way Jason Take Manhattan executes any aspect of its story. It benefits from a couple of things that have nothing to do with its own production, though. Kane Hodder returns for his second of four outings as Jason Voorhees. No matter what nonsense is going on around him…you know you’re going to be able to rely on a solid Jason performance. Most importantly, Friday the 13th Part VIII benefits from sharing the look and feel of the preceding entries in the series. This is the final installment of the original era, after all.
Things would look a lot different when Jason next appeared. Jason Goes to Hell changed production houses, adopted a slick, modern style…and felt nothing like the series people had come to know and love. While Jason Take Manhattan is, largely, garbage…you just can’t beat the classic look of Paramount era Fridays. The sad truth is that Jason Voorhees has never felt at home outside of the 80s. The look of films 1-8 has a lot to do with it. It’s a long shot that any future production (if one ever happens) would care enough to adopt the style of the original films…but it would go a long way towards attempting to restore the hockey masked king to his slasher throne.
Aesthetics aside, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is a total mess. People have been making jokes like “Jason takes Vancouver” or “Jason takes a cruise ship” for 35 years. They may be tired…but they’re still accurate. The idea of dropping Jason into the middle of New York City sends the mind reeling with possibilities. You can brainstorm a hundred amazing ideas without breaking a sweat. None of them happen here, of course. Jason doesn’t Take Manhattan so much as pop up for a cameo. Most of his misadventure is spent on a ship…the rest does, in fact, take place in Vancouver. Budget issues for the 8th installment of a franchise that had grossed nearly 200 million dollars more than its combined budgets to that point.
Taking Jason out of Crystal Lake doesn’t change the pattern of his story. A lot of people are killed…only now it makes less sense. This group isn’t encroaching on his territory. We’re so far removed from the original Jason revenge for his mother story that Jason Takes Manhattan figures…why bother leaving him on his home turf. He actively abandons it to…stow away on a cruise ship? At least it’s a magical ship capable of sailing from a lake to the Atlantic Ocean. Never mind that the canonical location of the Camp is probably a 35-minute drive from New York City in the first place. Here, the trip is treated as a grand adventure. It isn’t one.
The unlikable character curse continues from Part VII. There are a few decent people in the mix…but it’s mostly forgettable characters you have no reason to care about. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan gives us some new Jason backstory. It’s complete trash. Rennie (Jansen Daggett) is afraid of the water because of a laughable encounter with a child Jason just living underwater in Camp Crystal Lake. It’s too stupid to dive into. It gets even dumber when Jason is defeated by toxic waste and briefly reverts to his child form. I don’t know what this movie is doing most is thinking a lot of the time.
The movie does have one of the most memorable kills in the franchise. Julius (V.C. Dupree) takes the rare tactic of battling Jason in hand-to-hand combat…on a roof for some reason. He gives the big guy everything he can handle…backing him to the edge of the roof before tiring out. After asking for Jason’s best shot in return…Julius’s head is knocked clean off. It ends up in a dumpster below that slams shut on contact. A moment of success amid a series of failures. A couple lesser kills move the needle as well. A hot stone buried in a chest and a somewhat artistic guitar to the head give Jason Takes Manhattan some decently creative moments when they matter most.
But that’s about it. The acting isn’t particularly good…even by Friday standards. The length of time spent aboard the ship is best described as mind-numbing. Especially on first watch when you are expecting to see Jason running wild in the city that never sleeps. The story is downright stupid. That’s nothing new to the franchise…but this feels somehow more insulting. Some of the issues aren’t the fault of the people making it…they had grander plans than the money people would allow them. There is more than enough blame to go around, however.
Honestly, has Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan been made in the next era of Friday films…it would probably be the worst entry in the series. It skates by on the look, feel and patterns the franchise had established before it. Taking Jason out of Crystal Lake puts a dent in that armor…but it still has a floor. Jason Takes Manhattan is the original era movie that finds it.
Scare Value
Friay the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan borrows everything that is good about it. Kane Hodder returns from Part VII. The classic era’s look and feel is on display for the last time. The basic structure of a Friday film is adhered to even if the locations have changed (for the worse). Almost everything else is a swing and a miss. The new backstory, the ending, the fact that we are barely ever in Manhattan…it’s all bad. An exciting kill or two can’t make up for what’s missing. What’s borrowed leaves this a watchable disappointment.
2/5
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