Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Summary

I will be reviewing films from the Friday the 13th Collection: Deluxe Edition box set released by Shout! Factory until the entire box set has been covered. Stay tuned!

“Go ahead…take your best shot…”

Paramount seemingly realized that their psychic power related entry in the series from John Carl Buechler was a step in the wrong direction. For the next installment in the series they decided to reverse course and basically pretend that Part VII never happened. They had a great central premise: send Jason Voorhees to New York City. They enlisted Rob Hedden to write and direct the film and bring his vision to life. Paramount then cut his budget until the film was forced to largely take place on a very small cruise(?) ship. In fact, only about fifteen minutes of the film takes place in Manhattan, and only one sequence of the film takes place in a locale that is recognizably fined in New York. The rest of the film was shot in Vancouver. The last film under control of Paramount in the Friday the 13th series had great potential but was derailed by the studio’s unwillingness to fund the ideas of the screenwriter/director. The resulting film is one of the weakest in the series, but it is still slightly better than The New Blood and in my opinion it is also better than both of the New Line Cinema entries that followed it.

As the film begins, a teenage couple on a small boat are passing by Camp Crystal Lake. They have a brief discussion of Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) and the male teenager throws an anchor overboard so that they can have sex. Unfortunately, the anchor rubs up against Jason Voorhees’s submerged body and Jason comes back to life. Climbing onboard, Jason quickly dispatches the teen couple. The boat carrying Jason slowly arrives at a port where another ship is docked. That ship is about to be full of teenagers celebrating their high school graduation under the watchful eye of the stern Charles McCullough (Peter Mark Richman.) The ship’s destination is New York City. Teacher Colleen Van Deusen arrives at the dock with star pupil Rennie (Jensen Daggett.) Charles is her uncle that has raised her from birth. He did not want Rennie to come on the trip. This all stems from a frightening incident she had experienced as a child that is revealed later in the film. Rennie disobeys Charles and comes onboard to be with the rest of her class. A boy that she likes named Jim (Todd Caldecott) is onboard and dealing with his own issues: Jim’s father is the captain of the ship and somewhat overbearing. As the ship takes off for New York, a naysaying old man warns the children and adults of their impending doom. Jason Voorhees has stowed away on the ship and soon begins murdering as many of the students and crew on the ship as possible.

Director Rob Hedden definitely wanted his entry to be one of the best in the series, and there are some moments where his desires are realized. With the aid of cinematographer Bryan England, the director brought a distinct visual style that uses a variety of colorful lighting techniques. I like the way the film looks. The cast of the film is capable enough in their roles, playing their parts just as well as they were written. The great Kane Hodder returns as Jason and he looks fantastic in the role.

The problems with the film come down to a few issues. The first and foremost issue is that the film, despite its title, takes place for almost the entire running time on a ship. Maybe if the movie had been called “Jason Takes a Senior Cruise” it would have made audiences not only happy but legitimately surprised by the New York City sequences. That would have been a nice payoff at that point, but the title is so misleading that it is almost comedic. In his defense, Rob Hedden had plans to have the film primarily take place in New York, but the executives at Paramount slashed the budget time and again until the resulting film was made. Secondarily, out of all of the Friday the 13th films – including the New Line Cinema films – this film has the worst ending imaginable. I thought that The New Blood’s completely ridiculous and overblown wife-beater resurrection ending was bad, but I underestimated the ability of people to find a worse idea. I won’t spoil it for you, but it boggles the mind how bad the ending is. Fans of the series will also note that there is less nudity and graphic violent content in this film than in any of the prior films aside from maybe Jason Lives, which makes the film feel somewhat tamer than the earlier films.

Overall – this is just slightly better than The New Blood, but is still not nearly as good as some of the earlier entries. The film performed the worst at the box office of any of the Friday films and signaled the end of the Paramount era for the series. The next entry would be a much more bizarre film in the canon, Jason Goes to Hell.

Video

Shout! Factory presents Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan in their Deluxe Box Set with a good looking transfer utilizing an MPEG-4 AVC codec in the film’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The transfer is not quite as well done as the 4K scans of the earlier films in the series, and is maybe a small step down from the transfer of Jason Lives, but it still looks pretty damn good. The film is visually a step above A New Beginning. Fans of the picture will be happy to see that the print is in pretty good shape and the grain structure looks good and filmic. I can’t imagine any fans of the film being disappointed with how the film looks here.

Audio

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan features a DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track alongside a DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo track that is new to this release. I watched the film utilizing the surround track. Like The New Blood, this film does not feature any new compositions by Harry Manfredini. Composer Fred Mollin once again does a good job of paying homage to Manfredini while putting his own flair on the music for the film. The dialogue is clear and I have no real complaints with the track’s quality overall. 

Supplements:

(These are just the supplements included on the disc for the eighth film. This does not include the supplements on the bonus discs.)

• Audio Commentary: Director Rob Heden.
• Audio Commentary: Actors Scott Reeves, Jensen Daggett and Kane Hodder
• New York Has a New Problem: The Making of Friday the 13th Part VIII – Jason Takes Manhattan
• Slashed Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV Spots 
• Posters and Lobby Cards Gallery
• Still Gallery

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 3.5/5

Overall – 4/5

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is a cut above The New Blood, although the film is certainly tamer than the prior entry in the series. The reason why I rank Manhattan slightly higher than The New Blood is that the film has a unique visual style that works and does not have any plot aspects revolving around telekinesis. The film does have its downside which keeps it from reaching the heights of some of the earlier films. The most obvious issues are the film’s lack of scenes in Manhattan for its majority, and the absolutely terrible finale of the film. The finale honestly makes very little sense and should have been scrapped. At the end of the day, this movie still has moments of greatness that cause me to not totally disregard it (most notably a scene involving a boxer and a dumpster.) The Shout! Factory Blu-ray has solid technical specs and a good array of supplements. With this film, Paramount ended the original era of the Friday the 13th films.