The on-screen body
count is 19 and Jason Voorhees, reprised by Kane Hodder, doesn’t even get to
New York until the last 20 minutes of “Friday the 13th Part VIII:
Jason Takes Manhattan,” released in 1989.
Richard Harrington
stated in his review, “For bettors, then, these are the key numbers:
19-20-13-8. Also zero, which is the amount of inspiration and achievement in
this continuing saga of the little boy who drowned in Crystal Lake 30 years,
seven films and approximately 286 teenagers ago (30-7-286). As to why the saga
continues, think of this kind of gross: $200 million (and realize that lottery
tickets and numbers games are just the homeboy version of Hollywood).”
The most amazing pride
of “Jason Takes Manhattan” is that Crystal Lake High School even has a
graduating class to have a senior trip to New York. For some reason (probably
the script that it was needed) they don’t fly, or take the train or bus. They
take a rundown boat with cruise ship goals. It’s called Lazarus, which is right
since Jason has been resurrected once more from the bottom of the lake
(probably around the same time the script was found in a trash can). “This
voyage is doomed,” says Fred Henderson, playing Jim Carlson, and just then,
Jason’s doing his part of population control in murderous ways that will be
known to anyone who saw the previous movies. Harrington noted, “He's still a
tricky devil, moving into the frame just as a victim slips out the other side,
looming from all directions and generally saving the scriptwriters from being
concerned with anything approaching logic.”
Harrington continued, “Most
of the film takes place on the Lazarus, possibly the only ship more dangerous
than the Exxon Valdez.” Even the radio dies by the time Jason gets on the ship.
Among the passengers is bright Rennie (Jensen Daggett) who’s having visions of
a drowning boy (Timothy Burr Mirkovich), her sycophantic guardian Colleen Van
Deusen (Barbara Bingham), her concerned biology teacher Charles McCulloch
(Peter Mark Richman), a boyfriend Sean Robertson (Scott Reeves) whose
soon-to-be-dead father is the ship’s captain (Warren Munson), and different
high school stereotypes (Saffron Henderson, David Jacox, Sharlene Martin, the
hot Kelly Hu, Gordon Currie, Martin Cummins, V.C. Dupree and Ace the dog). Not
everyone makes it to Manhattan, as you might have guessed. Harrington said, “The
survivors abandon ship and row the rest of the way to New York, emerging from a
raging storm and a raging Jason as drip-and-blow-dry as the day they left their
dressing rooms.”
Harrington continues, “Jason,
of course, has been moldering in his watery grave, but when he shows up on a
crowded subway train for the finale he doesn't make much of an impression on
his fellow passengers, typically blase New Yorkers who seem thankful he's not a
panhandler (lucky for him, Bernhard Goetz isn't around).” Rennie and Sean are
saved by a timely river of toxic acid – no, not the Hudson – but everyone knows
Jason Voorhees isn’t completely dead.
As I had stated
yesterday, this is easily one of the worst installments in the franchise. There
are terrible characters and weak kills. When Jason finally gets to Manhattan,
it gets good for a little bit and there are brief highlights, but the one hour
and four minutes spent on the boat really kills the movie, similarly to Peter
Jackson’s mistake in the 2005 “King Kong” remake. The beginning with Todd Shaffer and Tiffany
Paulsen was ridiculous and didn’t serve a purpose at all.
Well, we finally got
that out of the way. Stay tuned tomorrow where I look at an installment that I like
but everyone else hates in my “Friday the 13th-a-thon” in this year’s
“Halloween Month.”
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