The Damn Dirty DVD Review: Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan [Deluxe Edition]

Posted by Ron Martin on 10.09.2009

Jason in New York...something tells me he's not taking in a show on Broadway. Friday the 13th: The Musical? Don't underestimate Hollywood.

Written By: Victor Miller
Directed By: Rob Hedden

Cast

Jim Miller -- Todd Caldecott
Suzi Donaldson -- Tiffany Paulsen
Young Jason -- Tim Mirkovich
Jason Vorhees -- Kane Hodder
Rennie Wickham -- Jensen Daggett
Miss Colleen Van Deusen -- Barbara Bingham
Deck Hand -- Alex Diakun
Charles McCulloch -- Peter Mark Richman
Adm. Robertson -- Warren Munson
Chief Engineer Jim Carlson -- Fred Henderson
Sean Robertson -- Scott Reeves
Miles Wolfe -- Gordon Currie
J J Jarrett -- Saffron Henderson
Wayne Webber -- Martin Cummins
Julius Gaw -- Vincent Craig Dupree



It’s a birthday of sorts. Happy 20th Birthday, Friday the 13th Part 8! Yes, 20 years ago this year the most forgotten episode of the Jason saga hit the movie theaters. Maybe Part 5 is the most forgotten episode, who knows? Part 8 can’t even claim to be the worst episode as Jason Goes to Hell would soon take over that mantra.

We actually have the pleasure of seeing how Jason is resurrected at the beginning of this film, an advantage not provided by all the Friday the 13th movies. After his resurrection, Jason finds a new hockey mask and begins to do what it is that Jason does – kill people. He hitchhikes aboard a small ship carrying a senior class on their way to New York. The logistics of how a ship can get from Crystal Lake to the Atlantic Ocean are not explored, nor do they want you to explore them. It’s more of a “don’t think about it – turn your mind off” sort of thing. The token female survivor is easy to spot from early on in the film. Rennie’s parents have passed and she is forced to live with her not so pleasant uncle, Charles McCulloch. She has been having visions of Jason’s drowning since she was small.



Aboard the ship full of teenagers, guess what happens? Drug use and sex….I know, I’m as shocked as you. At least we get our obligatory nude scene. This is one of the sequels that suffers from Nightmare on Elm Street syndrome. In the later Elm Street flicks, it seemed every character was everything but a teenager; you had your puppeteers, your cartoonists, your martial artists, everyone had a hook. Jason Takes Manhattan is the most obvious example of this trend in the Friday the 13th. You got your rocker, your boxer, your diver, etc.

Eventually the remaining survivors head for Manhattan on a row boat once Jason has sunk the ship they were on. Now we spend the fifteen minutes in Manhattan needed in order to call the movie Jason Takes Manhattan. Guess what? In Manhattan, there are lots of people to kill. In the very short time Jason is in Manhattan, he kills about a dozen people including gangbangers, sanitation workers and cops. Jason is nothing if not predictable. Eventually, Jason drowns in the sewer/toxic waste and is reverted back to a somewhat-deformed drowning child. He is dead forever! Or for four years, anyway.



Jason Takes Manhattan is the least successful Friday the 13th film. Later in a making of segment on the special features, the director and several of the actors have clinged to the notion that the bare minimum amount of time spent in New York was the reason. Moviegoers were expecting the film to take place entirely in New York and thus, were disappointed most of it took place on a boat. It’s a nice theory, I suppose. The problem lies in the fact that no one went to see the movie, thus could not be upset that most of the movie wasn’t in New York.



Creatively, this movie has a lot of problems. The Friday the 13th formula for success could not be more simple. You only need a handful of things: 1) Horny teenagers complete with a nude shot 2) The woods and 3) Jason killing people. That’s all you need. It’s when directors and writers try to get cute and get away from this formula that the people hate on the movies (hence the dislike for 8 and 9). I can hear the board meeting now.

“Jason killing teenagers in the woods is old news. It’s been done to death. If we take Jason out of his element, and put him somewhere like New York – that’s what the kids want to see today!”

No, it’s not and this film totally misses on everything the Friday the 13th franchise does well. Add that to the awful ending (which could have been worse if the director had gotten what he wanted) where Jason reverts back to a little kid and yeah, you got a pretty bad flick, even for a Friday movie.

Juxtapose that with the fact that this is the second appearance of Kane Hodder as Jason. He plays Jason in four different movies and until the Friday the 13th Part II remake comes out (I believe Derek Mears is set for his second run as Jason), is the only multiple Jason. Friday fans love this guy because he got to know Jason best and it does show. Even though Kane got tossed a couple of stinker movies, he shines through them as Jason.

If I were to list them best to worst, Friday the 13th Part 8 would be second to last (this includes Freddy vs. Jason and the recent remake) only beating out Friday the 13th Part 9. This also would be the last time Jason would don the mask for Paramount, having sold the rights after this movie to New Line so they could eventually do the epic Freddy Krueger vs. Jason Vorhees showdown.


Video
Standard Widescreen, enhanced for 16:9. Generally, the picture looks good until the picture goes into the dark spots, but nothing to grotesquely terrible.

Audio
Dolby Digital 5.1 English Surround.

Special Features
Compared to other entries in the Deluxe series, Jason Takes Manhattan is woefully short on special features. It’s like they got to this one and got tired or something.

Commentary: No director commentary here, just a commentary by Scott Reeves, Jensen Deggett and Kane Hodder. It’s nice to hear Kane’s version of some of the scenes.

New York Has A Problem – The Making of Friday the 13th Part 8: This is the cast talking about the film. Lots of interesting stuff in this short clip. Kane talks about his love for the character as well as how cool it was to be the character in the middle of Times Square. Rob Hedden talks about how he wanted to kill Jason off and Paramount didn’t care because they were just going to bring him back anyways. A lot of the actors talking about the brutality of working on the film – all of the crappy stuff they had to do. Unfortunately, this has become a staple of the films. This is where they blame not filming enough stuff in New York on the failure of the film. They say Jason should have been at the Met, boxing in Madison Square Garden (I’m not making that up), etc. Obviously, they just don’t get it. It is interesting that they had to film the movie under the working title Ashes to Ashes because Jason was so popular they were afraid if people found out they were filming a Friday movie, they wouldn’t be able to keep them off the set. That’s how big the series had become by 1989. By the way, every person who is ever in any Friday the 13th movies hates the MPAA. It’s required.

Slashed Scenes: Deleted scenes. Aside from a couple of gorier death scenes, be glad these were cut. Especially a scene from the end of the movie where kiddie Jason was coming out of the mouth of grown up Jason or some such thing. Ugh! Who thought that was going to be a good idea.

Gag Reel: Pretty self explanatory.

That’s it. Not even a theatrical trailer.

The 411: Here's the skinny, If you are purchasing the Deluxe edition of these movies, you're not going to skip out on this one. The covers are amazing, but this one lacks the copious special features the others have and well, just isn't that good of a movie. This movie's main positive is it's a Friday movie and anyone who wants the entire collection has to buy this one. So, it's got that going for it.

Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]