Friday the 13th part VIII:Jason Takes Manhattan
1989
Rob Hedden
The S.S. Lazurus (get it?) is picking up
some graduating seniors at Crystal Lake, when it accidentally drags a
power line over the corpse of Jason. For the second time electricity
resurrects Jason, and he hides on the ship. Thankfully, someone has a
spare hockey mask on board which he avails himself of after killing
them. He hides on board and begins surreptitiously killing people
off, at least until his discovery ends up sinking the ship. The
survivors take a lifeboat to Manhattan, with Jason in hot (well, hot
for Jason anyway) pursuit.
Jason Takes Manhattan is the
bottom of the barrel for the series, it's dull, uninspired looking,
and virtually bloodless. Worst of all it wastes a fun premise by
spending the majority of the film on a boat. There is a noticeable
upswing in the movie's energy once it bothers to get ashore in
New York, but the idea of Jason interacting with various elements of
the city are barely capitalized on at all. The final chase through
the sewers hinges on the idea that New York floods its sewers with
toxic waste, and there has been much made of out the nonsensical
ending where Jason is turned back into a child. I really didn't find
it that much more ridiculous than Jason or his mother popping out
Crystal Lake.
Jason Takes Manhattan is a failure on nearly every
level, its one saving grace is having the
single best trailer out of the
entire series.
It also has Jason killing with a pink flying V guitar, which is strangely awesome in it's horrifying lameness.
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