Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: Review By Vamp

I remember my Mom telling me about this particular "Friday the 13th" film during Halloween one year, the same year that I was getting into the slasher movies big time because I saw "Halloween." I remember her telling me how terrible and stupid it was, and how funny some of the parts involving Jason was. I remember the first time I saw this all the way through, which was when I bought my "Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan" box set. I remember thinking that it was one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen. Watching it again last night helped me remember why. There was so much done wrong with this movie that it was slightly ridiculous, but THAT is why I liked it. It was funny. Now, before you start questioning me, I DO know that it wasn't SUPPOSED to be funny, but I don't know what they were thinking with this. Now, I do applaud them once again for adding something fresh to the story, so that the fans wouldn't be seeing the same old scenery and sh*t, but a lot more time could have been spent getting some good actors, some good visuals, and a better storyline. Now, I know that after "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives" and "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," their budget must not have been terribly high, but at least a better script could have been put together. Some of the dialogue in the movie was rather drawl, and hard to get through. What I did like a lot, though, was that Jason finally got away from his hunting grounds in Crystal Lake. They still stuck with his "burial at sea" story from the end of "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," so if you haven't seen it, there isn't need to freak out, you DO get a glimpse of the familiar Crystal Lake scenery and such. It just goes to a cruise from there. Which reminds me, why is it called "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan?" I mean, sure, he goes to Manhattan, but most of the movie is spent on a cruise ship headed TO Manhattan. Oh well, THAT'S not really that big of a problem. It's an enjoyable movie, if you're ready to laugh a lot, it's just not up to the standards of the "Friday the 13th" series, which, we've been seeing decline after "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning." So it's a funny movie, even though it aims at scaring.

Rob Hedden takes the director's chair for this movie. Hedden is known for his directorial hand in other movies such as "Boxboarders!" and a few other made-for-TV movies, like "What is Brazil?" and "The Commish." He's also directed two episodes of the "Friday the 13th" television series, which means he's had his hands in "Friday the 13th" before. I've never seen a single episode of the show, so I can't really say whether or not he did good in those, or any of the other movies that he's directed, be they the made-for-TV ones, or his theatrical releases, so I'll have to go about this review by his performance solely with this movie. The directorial job done by Hedden wasn't terrible, but it defintiely wasn't awesome, either. He manages to get some interesting filters in there, and some interesting angles here and there, though his choice of direction for the actors wasn't the greatest thing ever. One example of his GOOD angles and filters, is in the power room scene, which I'll talk about later on in this review. A bad angle, would be the scene where Jason kills Suzi Donaldson. So there's a mix of both good and bad with this movie. Hedden also, believe it or not, wrote this movie as well, basing it on Victor Miller's Jason Voorhees character. He manages to create a semi-OK story for the movie to go by, but you could tell he was rushed for time, or just went through it quickly. The dialogue of the movie was on the verge of awful, but it does manage to create some funny scenes for it. Also, you could tell that he wanted to make it a slightly longer movie, but had to shove everything into at the end. I'm not sure exactly what made him choose MANHATTAN to go to, but it was an interesting concept to introduce Jason into a highly populated area, rather than his usually secluded woods. THAT was the part I liked best. Anyway, Hedden makes a nice attempt, but ultimately this movie turned out to be more of a comedic experience, than it was a scary movie to hit the audiences who love the series. This was the first sign for people that the "Friday the 13th" series was losing it's luster. This isn't exactly Hedden's fault, but his work could have been done better.

The Visuals of this movie definitely took a giant step downward, unfortunately. First of all, I will mention the point of view for our big buddy, Jason Voorhees. Like it was in the last two films, and a couple more before those, you see Jason coming the entire time, so you pretty much know what's coming for you. However, somehow I don't know, it lost it's luster, though you still have that feeling of apprehension for what's going to happen. I don't know whetehr it was the fact that the Director changed the way he did it, or what. Though, Kane Hodder, whose returned as Jason Voorhees, still manages the big guy as spookily as ever. Speaking of Jason, this movie offers up the dumbest looking face for him that I've ever seen. Look for the ending fight scene, and see how ridiculous he looks. It's just hilarious, really, what he looks like. Somehow the older movies did a better job at making Jason look crazy scary than the newer ones did. That really disappointed me. Jason does come about a new mask in this one, after the ruination of his original mask at the end of "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," and that's cool, though this one looked weird on him for some reason. I'm thinking it's the fact that it's missing the axe mark from where Chris buried it into the mask at the end of "Friday the 13th Part III," which I always thought was an excellent effect for the mask, making it look, in some odd way, as invincible as Jason Voorhees himself. It's probably because it survived as long as he did, but whatever. New mask, makes Jason look somewhat newer, even though his pretty decayed and his bones are showing. At any rate, next up are the blood and kills. The blood in this movie does actually look pretty realistic, so they did that much right, at least. Also, the kills in this movie ARE more creative than they were in the previous installment, "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood." The one that really stuck with me in this one, was the death of the rocker-girl, J.J. Jarrett, who gets bashed in the face with her guitar. I thought it was a very interesting pick for killing her, and I liked the creativity and weaponry choice. While the visuals department seem to have downsized in their quality, they do manage to make Jason look a little newer, as well as come up with some new and interesting kills for the movie, too.

The Storyline of this movie is a tad bit ridiculous. It was definitely done in a rush... And if it wasn't, then someone needs to take some classes. Like I've said before, I like the premise of introducing Jason to a new area because it brings something fresh to the series. However, in this one, it was sort of made apparent that they were reaching for straws when it came up to ideas for what to do with the storyline of it. The cruise idea was a fun choice, in my opinion, though I would have rather seen more of Jason in Manhattan, and less of him on the boat, however, stalking some teens on a large ship in the middle of the sea, was a very interesting choice, and the concept, though not really executed that way, was slightly creepy. It also made for some interesting ways of disposing of characters. That was fun, however, the movie, even in it's title, "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan," advertises that Jason will be killing on the streets of Manhattan, New York, with lots of people to satisfy his bloodlust. So it's kind of a let down to expect a whole lot of killing in the city of lights, and instead get a terrorized ship. It was a nice concept, yes, but the script and storyline needed to be developed a lot further, and as I said, Jason needed to spend a little less time on the ship in the middle of the sea. Now, the graduating class of the local Crystal Lake high school going on this cruise, I thought, was a cool idea because it gives an entire class for Jason to stalk. Lots of teenagers getting into trouble, doing drugs, and having their ways with each other. It's like Jason's best dream, I'd imagine. THAT was an idea that gave Jason an entire buffet of death for the movie, and that was the one upside of Hedden's writing for the movie. While the movie, pretty much overall was a bust, and more of a comedy than it was a horror movie, they managed to come up with a great concept, and an excellent idea to introduce Jason to an entire buffet of victims. It wasn't executed or written awesomely, but the idea was there, and I definitely give them some credit for coming up with a couple of new ideas, and attempting to add a little freshness to the series.

The movie starts out with a couple, Jim Miller (Played by Todd Shaffer of "Nobody's Perfect") and his girlfriend, Suzi Donaldson (Played by Tiffany Paulsen of "'Til There Was You") who are spending a night on Jim's boat together. We find out that they are both seniors from a local highschool, and that they are finally entering the world together. The two mess around with each other, and then begin to make love. However, Jim has to go out, and throw the anchor overboard so that they don't float into anything. He throws it overboard, and heads back to what he was doing with Suzi. We see the anchor in the lake at the bottom as it hits an underwater powercable, and causes a spark that leads up to a set of chains that, of course, are the things weighing Jason Voorhees (Played by Kane Hodder of "Alligator II: The Mutation") down at the bottom of the lake. As Jim tells Suzi of the story of Jason Voorhees, Jason is brought back to life by the jolt of electricity. Jim goes off to do something, and comes back, wearing a hockey mask, and holding a trick knife, which he pretends to stab Suzi with, and scare her to death. They finally head back to their love making, but as they start, we see Jason Voorhees enter the boat, and walk up to them. Suzi is seen about ready to scream, and Jim finally notices what's wrong, when he flips over and sees that Jason is standing in the boat and pointing his own harpoon gun at him. Jason misses however, and Suzi makes a break for it. Jason takes the gun, without the harpoon, and stabs it into Jim's stomach. He then tracks down Suzi who is hiding in a storage compartment, and kills her, too. We then cut to a scene with a girl, Rennie Wickham (Played by Jensen Daggett of "Major Leagues: Back to the Minors") and her teacher, Miss Colleen Van Deusen (Played by Barbara Bingham of "Death Mask") who are discussing things with each other. We find out that Miss Van Deusen has motherly feelings towards Rennie, and that she sees Rennie as her greatest student. She gives Rennie a present, which turns out to be a pen that was once used by Stephen King. Rennie thanks her, and they make their way to the cruise ship that is going to be taking them to Manhattan, New York for the Senior Class Graduates Trip. As they're walking up, a man walks up to Miss Van Deusen and accosts her for being late to a trip that was her idea in the first place. This man is Mr. Charles McCulloch (Played by Peter Mark Richman of "The Crimebusters"), who is the principle of the school. He then sees Rennie and asks what she was doing there. Rennie said that she changed her mind and wanted to come. Here we find out that Rennie is Mr. McCulloch's niece, and that he is her guardian, since her parents died in a car crash. We cut to a scene in the control room for the ship. We see the captain, Adm.Robertson (Played by Warren Munson of "Big Trouble") who is getting things ready with Chief Engineer Jim Carlson (Played by Fred Henderson of "Shoot to Kill") when his son, Sean Robertson (Played by Scott Reeves of "Waitin' to Live") and his friend Miles Wolfe (Played by Gordon Currie of "Cousins"). Sean asks what his Dad wanted, and the Admiral tells him that he gets the honors of taking the ship out of sea because it's his graduating class. You can tell right away that Sean isn't really that ship oriented, as his father wants him to be, and he tries, but does something wrong, and when his father is very unhappy with the mess up, and expresses it, Sean storms out. We then see Rennie, who heads onto the ship, with her dog Toby, and runs into her boyfriend, Sean and he gives her a necklace with the Statue of Liberty on it, and tells her that they're going to climb the statue together. Rennie says that she would love that. Mr. McCulloch walks up and takes Rennie away, as we see, he is VERY overprotective, and he is talking with Rennie about why she is there because of her fear of water, and that Miss Van Deusen had no idea about it. She tells him that it was her choice to come here, and that Miss Van Deusen didn't force her, too. She heads off, and as Mr. McCulloch is leaving he runs into a creepy deck hand (Played by Alex Diakun of "High Stakes"). We then see a boy named Wayne Webber (Played by Martin C*mmins of "Liberty Stands Still") who is shooting a music video of sorts with his best friend, J.J. Jarrett (Played by Saffron Henderson of "The Fly II") who is a big time Rock 'N' Roll girl, who received a new guitar from her parents as a graduation gift. She tells Wayne that there's a power room on the ship, that would make for a great video because of the echoing effect that the room had. However, Wayne says that he's going to help Tamara with something. J.J. tells him that he should get over Tamara because she'll just hurt him. He goes anyway, and she heads off to play in the power room, anyway. However, in the power room, she runs into our old buddy Jason Voorhees, who bashes her head in with her new guitar. We see the creepy deck hand who hears J.J.'s screams through the tube on deck. We then cut to a scene where two guys are fighting. One of them, Julius Gaw (Played by V.C. Dupree of "American Drive-In"), is the object of two other girl's lust. These girls are Tamara Mason (Played by Sharlene Martin of "Possession") and Eva Wantanabe (Played by Kelly Hu of "The Doors"). The two talk with each other about how much they love Julius. Tamara says they've got lots of fun to have, and holds up a case that was around her neck. We see them walk off, and go to Rennie, as she is in her cabin. She has a hallucination of a young boy drowning, who is obviously Jason Voorhees as a child, though we don't know the meaning of this. Suddenly, Toby, her dog, whines, and runs off, and she chases him. We see Tamara and Eva in a storage room, as Tamara takes out some cocaine, and lines it up on a mirrir, and offers a hit to Eva, who says she'd rather not. Tamara bullies her into it, though, as Rennie runs into them. She asks if they'd seen her dog, and they reply no, and offer her a hit. She declines and runs off. Tamara says that she'd better not narck on her. As they clean up, Mr. McCulloch walks in. He asks if they're doing drugs, and they insist they aren't. Mr. McCulloch tells Tamara that he'll be at her cabin in fifteen minutes and that she'd best have her Biology done, or she wouldn't be seeing ANY sights. Tamara thinks that Rennie had narcked on her, and so when she finds her, she "accidentally" knocks her into the sea. Sean jumps in and gets her as Miss McCulloch throughs a life preserver over. They save her, though she very nearly drowns. When Mr. McCulloch finds out, he blames Miss Van Deusen and Sean for it, even though they saved her. Mr. McCulloch goes to Tamara's cabin, where she tries to have sex with him to get the grade. We find out that she was working with Wayne, as Mr. McCulloch pushes her off and threatens her. Wayne had caught it on tape, so now Tamara could blackmail him. He storms out and threatens both of them. Wayne tries to ask her out, since he's had a crush on her for as long as he can remember. She rejects him and he leaves. She takes a shower, and Jason shows up, killing her. Now Jason stalks the boat, and begins killing off people, like Eva, and the Admiral and his assistant, Jim Carlson. Rennie decides that she wants to leave the boat after her near drowning, and so Sean takes her to his father who can turn it around, and that's where they find his dead body. They then find Jim's body as well. Sean calls attention to everyone, and has them come to the bridge. They all come and find the bodies, and are aghast. Mr. McCulloch storms in and sees everything. He is shocked by the body, and tells Sean that he is very sorry. The creepy deck hand storms in, and tells them that Jason Voorhees is behind it all. Mr. McCulloch shouts that that is nonsense and that Jason is back. He tells them about all the warnings the deckhand has been spouting off, and points the blame at him. The deck hand runs off, and the kids form a mob, against Mr. McCulloch's wishes, to find him and kill him, with Julius in the lead. However, Jason gets to all of them, and starts a fire. They all are forced to abandon ship. The only survivors are Rennie, her dog Toby, Sean, Mr. McCulloch, Miss Van Deusen, and Julius. They are in a life boat now, though, and they are forced to row until they find land. They find Manhattan, and as they search for help, Rennie is taken by some gangbangers, and they run off with her. Now they split up to search for help to get Rennie, but what they don't know is that Jason Voorhees has followed them all from the ship, and is now stalking the streets of Manhattan. They're up against an evil that none of them really understands. An evil that doesn't seem to be able to die, and whose thirst for blood is seemingly unquenchable. The acting in this movie is borderline terrible, though Kane Hodder's performance as Jason Voorhees is once again awesome, as he really brings to life Jason's hockey mask. The actors and actresses barely get their roles through, and sort of get down the right feelings, emotions, worries, and other such characteristics that they're supposed to have, though not enough to really get you to feel sorry for them. You're supposed to feel so bad for Rennie, but you don't exactly know why, save for her overprotective guardian, and some fear of the water. Jensen Daggett's acting is just bad, and she barely manages to make it possible to feel sorry for her, though it's not a lot of feeling. They definitely could have done a better job with the casting of this movie.

All in all, this was an extremely funny "Friday the 13th" movie, though you're supposed to take it seriously. If you're a fan of the past "Friday the 13th" movies, then you might want to see this, just see what a Jason Voorhees comedy is like. The Directing of this movie is not so wonderful. He manages to get in some interesting angles, as well as some interesting filters, but other than the few he gives us, the rest is nothing new, and really bad in some parts. DEFINITELY a partially good job with the Directing of this movie. The Writing of this movie is not done very well at all, and turns what was supposed to be a horror movie into a comedy movie. Their concept is nice, but it needed a LOT more work than what they gave it. DEFINITELY a pretty bad job on the Writing of this movie. The Visuals of this movie have definitely taken a definite step down in quality. They've lost the eeriness that comes with seeing Jason Voorhees coming after his victims, though it still manages to give you that feeling of apprehension, but just barely. His new mask looks strange on him, but it's just because it's brand new. The blood and kills they managed to do very well and very creatively, however, so that's a DEFINITE plus. DEFINITELY a pretty good job on the Visuals for this movie. The Storyline of this movie is alright. It's a great idea, and I really like the way the line up a buffet of kids for Jason Voorhees to chop to bits, but it needed a lot more work and time than what was obviously given to it. DEFINITELY a partially good job on the Visuals of this movie. The Acting ties everything together for this movie. The Actors and Actresses deliver performances as characters that are NOT Convincing, NOT Believable, and NOT Realistic, and they also deliver performances as characters that you can BARELY feel for, though I'm not sure how well you could relate to them, on BARELY ANY different levels. DEFINITELY could have done a MUCH better job on the Casting of this movie. So if you're looking for a good laugh, and enjoyed the last six "Friday the 13th" movies: the original "Friday the 13th," "Friday the 13th Part 2," "Friday the 13th Part III," "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter," "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning," "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives," and "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," then you might like this movie. When I saw it, I expected bad, and that's what I got, with a lot of funny sh*t in it. You should expect bad and funny, as well. If you do, and give it a try, then I am ALMOST POSITIVE that you will NOT get disappointed with it. I know I didn't!!!!!

THIS CONCLUDES PART 8 IN MY REVIEW SERIES FOR THE "FRIDAY THE 13TH" SERIES!!!!! STAY TUNED FOR PART 9, "JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY!!!!!"