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

The best thing that Friday the 13^th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan has going for it is that it is not Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning. It is easily one of the worst entries in the series, which is saying quite a lot. The earlier Friday the 13^th movies certainly weren’t masterpieces, but at least they tried to be a genuine horror movies, Jason Takes Manhattan is essentially a Jason’s Greatest Hits reel expanded to 100 minutes.  It has a few interesting moments scattered throughout, but, man, it is one awful movie.  The first time I saw it was my freshman year at high school; my dad and I rented it from a video store, and spent the entire time ripping on it.  When the nerdy character of Wayne first appeared, my dad turned to me and said, “That’s you, Bryan.” Sadly, I did have a close resemblance to that character.  Later on, when Wayne came to a fiery end, my dad once again looked at me and said, “Nice going, Bryan.” He then proceeded to laugh. What can I say? My dad has a sick sense of humor. 

Through a set of contrivances, Jason is once again resurrected from the dead and sneaks onboard a steam ship headed towards New York.  The passengers are a graduating senior class from Lakeview High School, chaperoned by the stuffy biology teacher, Charles McCollouch, and the more liberal minded English teacher, Colleen Van Deusen.  Also on board is Charles’ niece, Rennie (Jensen Daggett), an aspiring writer who has a fear of water.  Her uncle protests her being there, but she insists on coming along, hoping that by facing her fears she can cure them.  I’m sure she regrets not taking her uncle’s advice, for this cruise turns into one long nightmare.

Rennie is a likable character with an equally nice boyfriend, Sean, and a cute dog, Toby, to boot. However, at this point in the series, Jason was the real star, and the plight of the leading lady was secondary to creative the deaths the filmmakers could dream up.  Sure, it’s nice that Rennie finally faces her fears, but audiences want gore, and the filmmakers gave it to them.  No one cheers when Rennie stands up to her uncle, but I’m willing to bet practically everyone hoots with delight when he gets his comeuppance.  Poor Jensen Daggett!  The body count in Jason Takes Manhattan is around twenty, which gives Daggett very little opportunity to create a memorable character; she’s not bad and has an appealing presence, but her performance gets lost in all the chaos. 

Then there is Rennie’s crusty Uncle Charles; if Jason Takes Manhattan was a teen sex comedy, rather than a horror film, Charles would shake his fists at all the shenanigans on display and then get pushed in a swimming pool by one of our heroes.  He’s that kind of character.  However, instead of being pushed in a pool, he is drowned in a barrel of toxic waste.  Granted, character development isn’t exactly top priority in the Friday the 13^th movies, but there is no attempt at making him the least bit sympathetic. He is over protective of Rennie and is a complete asshole to just about everyone else. Yet, his fears are justified in the end, though, not in a way he could have ever imagined.  

Colleen, Rennie’s English teacher, is a counterpoint to Charles; she is warm and extremely encouraging.  She is also incredibly inept in a time of crisis; when the ship starts sinking, she tells a group of teenagers to wait in the restaurant while she finds help.  WHAT? 

As I mentioned before, the earlier Friday the 13^th movies at least tried to be real horror films by building up, and maintaining, suspense throughout; the death scenes were unnerving because  of how drawn out they were. You know Jason was going to strike, but you didn’t know when.  Jason Goes to Hell says, “TO HELL WITH SUSPENSE, LET’S GET TO THE BLOOD AND GORE!” Practically every five minutes someone is killed with little, or no, build up; Jason walks into a room and disposes of them in a gruesome manner.  Jason has also developed the power of teleportation - one second he’ll be standing behind a character, the next second he is right in front of that person. In one scene, Eva (Kelly Hu, who would go on to bigger and better things) is trapped in a dance room and, to her horror, finds that Jason is somehow standing in front of every exit.  These scenes are more jolting than scary, though, I find them to be rather laughable. 

There are a few creative touches by director Rob Hedden that make the movie watchable; Rennie imagining Jason, as a kid, jumping out of her mirror and strangling her;  while chasing Rennie and Sean through New York, Jason kicks over a boom box belonging to a gang of punks.  They yell at Jason and are looking for fight. Jason, rather than butchering them all, turns around and lifts up his hockey mask to reveal his deformed face. The punks are horrified and back off.  It’s funny a moment; Hedden, rather wisely, doesn't show the audience Jason’s face (his back is facing the camera), instead the camera lingers on the punks faces as they react to the reveal.  I guess even Jason needs a break from blood and gore every once in a while. The most memorable scene is when Julius fights Jason mano a mano with his fists. He gets a few punches in, but eventually tires out, and then Jason decapitates him with a single punch. Sure, it’s a silly moment, but at least it is something different.

There is also an extremely clever edit at the movie’s end; Rennie flashes back to a traumatic moment in her childhood when she nearly drowned.  What triggers the flashback is a flaming puddle in the street.  There is a close up of the puddle and then it slowly morphs into a long shot of a lake with rowboat paddling its way to the center of the frame.  It’s an eye popping moment and an interesting way to transition into a flashback. 

Kane Hodder is the most celebrated of all the actors to play Jason, yet he starred in, arguably, the worst movies in the entire series: Friday the 13^th:Part VII: The New Blood, Friday the Part VIII: Jason takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and Jason X.  His Jason is an extremely brutal and aggressive villain (hero); in Jason Takes Manhattan, he strangles Eva to death and then violently tosses her corpse to the ground. In The New Blood, he wraps a woman up in her sleeping bag and bashes her against a tree.  Hodder’s Jason was a force of nature that could only be temporarily defeated; this is far removed from the deadly, but clumsy mongoloid introduced in Friday the 13^th, Part 2.  

Friday the 13^th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is a terrible movie, but I have to admit that every few years I am compelled to watch it. It’s absurd screenplay and, sometimes, interesting visuals are enough to sustain one’s interest.  

Credits

Cast:  Kane Hodder (Jason), Jensen Daggett (Rennie), Scott Reeves (Sean), Peter Mark Richman (Charles McCulloch), Barbara Bingham (Colleen van Deusen), V.C. Dupree (Julius), Kelly Hu (Eva), Sharlene Martin (Tamara), Martin Cummins (Wayne),  Tiffany Paulsen (Suzi), Todd Caldecott (Jim), Gordon Currie (Miles), Saffron Henderson (J.J.), Warren Munson (Admiral Robertson), Alex Diakun(Deck Hand), Tim Mirkovich (Young Jason), David Jacox (other boxer), Ken Kirzinger (New York Cook), Peggy Hedden (New York Waitress).

Director: Rob Hedden.
Screenplay: Rob Hedden.
Running Time: 100 min.