Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan  (1989)

   
Written & Directed by: Rob Hedden

Starring:

Jensen Daggett ... Rennie Wickham
Scott Reeves ... Sean Robertson
Peter Mark Richman ... Charles McCulloch
Barbara Bingham ... Miss Colleen Van Deusen
Vincent Craig Dupree ... Julius Gaw
Sharlene Martin ... Tamara Mason
Gordon Currie ... Miles Wolfe
Martin Cummins ... Wayne
Kelly Hu ... Eva Wanatabe
Alex Diakun ... Deckhand
Kane Hodder ... Jason Voorhees


Release Date:
Quick Theatrical: July 28, 1989

*Images courtesy at: www.outnow.ch

     

  

Rating:

     

 

Jason (Kane Hodder) is awakened from under the lake when a grad student and his girlfriend anchors his boat at the Camp Crystal Lake and touches a thick electricity wire which shocks Jason back to life. He kills the two couple in the boat and then the boat starts going into a river with Jason in it.
The boat leads to an ocean where a ship is heading to the big apple with a bunch of students and the others wonder what happened to the other two students. Jason hitches a ride on the ship and massacres a bunch of people on it. One of them by the name of Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett) is seeing images of Jason Voorhees as when he was a corpse as a child in the lake. He ends up tormenting her and doesn't know why.
Her, and her uncle Charles (Peter Mark Richman) who is the head teacher of his students and a few of the other survivors escape from the ship during a thunder storm in an emergency row-boat going to the big apple.
But what they didn't realise is that Jason's on their tail. Eventually Rennie remembers her childhood experience at Crystal Lake when her uncle Charles were in a row boat in the lake.
He forced his niece to learn how to swim as Jason's corpse pulled her down deeper into the water but he saved her in time from drowning. This drives her to put a final stop to Jason once and for all..

 

This one is totally different than the rest with the opening credits showing the areas of New York and the crimes as well as the rough areas of the city along with showing the title just as it is making the opening seem like a bigger mainstream type of a film. Then later it shows the ocean of NY and sinking down. Then it rises up to Camp Crystal Lake (Which looks like a cheaply done campsite and you can tell it was a set) and a boat anchoring with two teenagers named Jim and Suzie about to graduate but are having fun as everything here looked nice and still as well as peaceful almost not having anything breaking this moment at all. Then a nicely effective moment on Jim in deep thought and Suzie insisting on knowing what's on his mind with him telling her about Jason and how it all started with his Mother originally killing the camp counsellors. He also explains his drowning saying almost 30 years ago and in the sequels even if the movie series usually were released yearly, sometimes the stories took place years later as this becomes very confusing. Plus there's a brand new filmed flashback sequence with Jason as a child drowning as the setting here looked more dark and gloomy. What's even more confusing to me and to the fans it that he has hair and looks normal in which he never had this look at all having some sort of an illness. Yes this is based after part 7 in which that one followed the rest of the sequels but barely a sequel since the whole environment of the story so far is totally different. It does show where Jason last left off at the bottom of the lake with a piece of the pier crashed on him since the writers at least had to put that in which that was the only moment they paid attention to happening close to the end on the previous sequel. It does look a bit cheesily written in with the anchor touching an electrical cable at the bottom of the lake awakening Jason but that would be the only reason as to how to awaken him again. Plus you can tell the underwater was shot in some studio to look like a lake. Then Jim pulls a prank on Suzie wearing a hockey mask and stabbing her with a fake knife as this almost teases you thinking that this could be Jason since he is rising up from the lake towards the boat while he does this. Nicely done so far. Then they make out and of course Jason enters inside the boat taking the mask to put it on so the writers paid attention to part 7 when his mask broke off quarter way through the film which is a good thing. Then we all know what will happen.
Then it's the next morning as a bunch of students are boarding a ship to go to the Big Apple. It is overcast and a bit foggy. We also spot the boat Jason hitched on leading towards the ship which made me think to myself as to how it got to the ocean since it was at a lake in the first place. On the ship there's a crazy middle aged man working on the deck hand of the hip who believes in the Jason legend which is another good pointer on the writers paying attention to the previous films. He explains a boat flowing from the lake to a river and I was thinking RIIIIGHT. This seemed a little corny that something like this would happen but is the only way to explaining on how Jason would come aboard onto the ship in the first place.
Some nice funky moments with a rocker chick named J.J. pretending to play the guitar on the boat while a nerdy guy Wayne is filming with a tape playing as this looked fun to watch along with good liners towards one another in which he discusses having the hots for a bitch on their cruise named Tamara and J.J. telling him about her being a user in which the lines seemed to work well within all of this since there is always the rotten one of the crowd.
It was sad to see J.J. getting killed off while going down near a unit of the ship and having Jason taking her guitar and whacking her in the head with it which seemed like a good unique killing.
There's even a moment with someone lying in a sauna with a towel over his head and Jason takes one of the heating rocks and plunges it on his chest which is a total painful way of dying and almost a slow way too. This moment was well put in.
What's very different in this one than in the other films is that there's alot of haunting moments involving the lead character Rennie Wickham like in her room of the boat cruise she spots a reflection on Jason as a child calling to her or grabbing her plus the water in her sink turns to blood. Nicely put in here even if Jason isn't supposed to look like what was described as a child before drowning in the previous sequels.
Something that looked really phony was when the bitch Tamara intenitonally bumps Rennie off the deck into the water as there's no railings exposed since this is a must for any ship whenever someone is on deck as well as the water looking very still as if this vehicle wasn't moving at all. Obviously we all know that this is a stuido built to look like a cruise ship. Also this would be more deadly if it really happened in which we all know the ship's propellors would suck someone overboard in and been chopped to death. What was cool with this scene though is Jason's ghost child is grabbing her underneath the water.
There's even a set up with Tamara manipulating Wayne to videotape her while she wears a bikini to seem like she's about to seduce the headmaster Charles McCulloch as this was a real brainteaser in which he seems like that he is giving in to her lustful desires.
While the ship still cruises we spot a strike of lightning as it seems a thunderstorm always follows Jason wherever he goes in any movie that we've seen him in.
There's also a moment when Jason tears Tamara's robe off and she is naked when he is about to kill her and there was enough time for her to get away but she is just there in a corner freaking out which seems to be very common for an F13th sequel ever since part 2. I was happy to see this bitch get what was coming to her.
I enjoyed some liners with the crazed deck hand telling Charles and some of the others that Jason has boarded the ship after they spot the main captain of the ship dead and Charles getting arrogant bluntly saying that Jason's been dead for years as well as Julius getting in his face along with telling him that school is out. This added alot of class to the film.
The movie psychs you out a bit when one of the students runs away from Jason and is in a dance hall with lights flashing and Jason appearing in many spots before you know it. He can't run ever since he's been resurrected from the dead in part 6 so this doesn't make sense. But yet most of these demneted killers in slasher films know how to play tricks on their victims. Or there's someone climbing up a ladder on top of the ship and Jason is on the ground watching him but he seems to catch right up to him and throws him down. He's definetely a mysterious killer on knowing how to do stuff fast.
There's even mist floating around on the surviviors escaping in the mist of the ocean in a stowaway rowboat as it seems like it's daytime and it takes them all day trying to get to NY since it's night already when they spot the statue of liberty. Man that would be really straining and peer torture as well as being hungry too.
Some nice dark moments with Jason rising from the ocean to NY as there's a good humoress moment showing a sign on a hockey game with a goalie mask and him looking at it. Nicely put in.
There's a real intense moment with two street gangbangers kidnapping Rennie inducing a needle into her which is scary enough to watch but yet is more painful when Jason stabs this bastard through the chest with the needle. I guess he taught him a lesson on doing drugs.
A nice adventureous moment is when Julius tries to survive by boxing against Jason constantly hitting him in the hockey mask with him backing up. You have a bad feeling by watching this that he will strike back and it won't be nice. Julius of course makes a stupid choice after he is worn out after boxing him teeling him to hit him with his best shot.
A nice flashback moment with Rennie as a child in a rowboat with Charles at Crystal lake in which the picture looked nicely shot making it obvious that it's a flashback scene with echoey speaking between the two of them as well as him being forceful trying to get her to swim and then spotting the Jason child grabbing at her in the water which looked suspenseful to watch all of this.
A great humoress moment is when Jason tries to chase after the survivors Rennie and Sean Robertson all over the NY streets and subway systems and a moment Jason knocks over a ghetto blaster where some gangsters are hanging out and threatens him. Then Jason lifts his mask to show what he looks like and they back off running away. This was sweeet!!!!
The suspense packs up when Rennie and Sean trying to escape from a sewage system from Jason as toxic waste is about to clean out the system. But what is really cool is when Jason spots the toxic flowing in and a child's voice calls out which is of course a memory of Jason's telling his Mommy not to let him drown. This was cheesy but in nice taste and necessary.
Bottom line is that only a few minutes of Camp Crystal Lake was shown and the rest on a cruise ship and a small part of NY which upset many fans but I found this film nicely done for what it was and the biggest budget to any of the F13th flicks. it seems to be a movie that stands on it's own and taken in a totally different direction. Most of this was filmed in my hometown of Vancouver, B.C., Canada including the first bit of Camp Crystal Lake and made on a bit of a bigger budget but all you Jason fans may be a little upset of this one as it only shows Jason at Crystal Lake in the very beginning and most of it is on the cruise ship. Still it's well done. And the scenewhere it shows the subway in NY was really filmed in Vancouver and it's a skytrain that's in a tunnel. One of the people that I worked with at my manufacturing job did some of the costume's for the film and apparently claimed that Kane Hodder (Jason) liked her. This was filmed in 3-D during it's theatrical release. The film is very adventurous.
This was truly the last of the series even if Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was out 4 years later but yet that didn't follow any of the other sequels along with some others made after that one. Just an excuse to make more really.

The acting is quite good. Lots of the stars in this were from Vancouver so it gave them a chance to show their stuff.
Jensen Daggett (Rennie Wickham) does well as the lead character in the film knowing how to pull her weight with it and showing tough energy too while trying to escape from Jason. She also does well acting soft spoken and having a wholesome type of behavior to her role in which she drew this in perfectly too as an innocent type. She comes across well portraying someone who is probably one of the survivors in the film and making this come across clearly in her performance.When a child ghoulish Jason attacks her from a mirror reflection she does well acting intense and struggling away which looked highly energised.
Does well by acting intoxicated and warning the others that Jason is in NY with them after she was intoxicated by a couple of NY junkies. Was terrifixc in her performance by showing a great intense anger driving at full speed in a car about to run over the ghoulish Jason  standing there in the road.
Scott Reeves (Sean Robertson) had the nice clean cut well groomed looks as a kid next door and seems to do not too badly in his performance either bringing on a nice charming type of attitude. He was probably my favourite character in the film and came across perfectly onto the camera.
Peter Mark Richman (Charles McCullouch) played a perfect dickhead principal. He's often played these types of roles in other shows too but is a worthy versatile actor. He shows good energy with acting loud and obnoxious whenever he loses his temper or having a good wicked firm voice too. Just seems like one of those types that you'd love to hate along with knowing how to act dominant too. A good suspecting reaction on him in a scene when he approaches later on asking a couple of onscreen students if they're doing drugs speaking in a good coldly voice.
In a scene when an onscreen student makes out that she is lusting for him he does well choking out his words and stuttering which seemed natural and at the same time a bit humoress too. Shows off a good mild wicked and teasing attitude during a flashback sequence =on him in a rowboat in Crystal Lake as he did well focusing on doing this. Well done for this fellow without a doubt.
Barbara Bingham (Miss Colleen Van Deusen) definetely got into her role big time showing a great warmness to what she did in her character as someone who is very motherly and down to earth. She also had the nice type of looks for this part and seemed to fit the suit to what her role was all about. She makes you feel safe to be around with all that she did in the film.
Vincent Craig Dupree
(Julius Gaw) is believeably tough and outgoing as a student boxer in the film and seems to pack quite a bunch with his role. He's also terrific with his slick speaking along with having a good strong willed behavior and having a no nonsense not taking any crap personality. He made his part believeably likeable too. He's probably my favourite actor in this film drawing a ton of energy into what he did and knowing how to act beliebeably tough but charming too. A perfect reaction on him by telling someone off about the dead bodies are for real when he says there's no such thing as walking corpses and to get away before they're next as this looked very strong and to the point. A nice performance by him  constantly punching the Jason character in his hockey mask on top of a buidling as he reacts well to being tired and breathes out his words later to tell him to hit him with his best shot in which he looked believeably exhausted.
Sharlene Martin (Tamara Mason) played nicely as a bitch in the film reminding you of one of those popular pretty girls in school that likes to use others cause she can. She has a good slick attitude into her speaking along with her wicked moves.
There's a good performance with her  trying to come on to an onscreen teacher as if you'd wonder that he'd give in to her lustful deeds. She has the beautiful looks too which really suits on who she was supposed to portray. Showed alot of good fast action into what she did. Yet near the end of her performance was phony with her reactions when the Jason character attacks her in the bathroom.
Martin Cummins (Wayne) certainly had the nerdy looks in his role and does well with how he talks acting out as someone who seems the least bit cool and easy to manipulate. He shows alot of characteristics into what he did in his role. He had the right drive as someone who acts geeky making the wrong choices.
Gordon Currie (Miles Wolfe) seemed to do well as a preppie type of student filmmaker as he had the right looks for it.
Alex Diakun (Deckhand) seemed to do okay as a crazy middle aged man believing in Jason's legend as he seemed to come across well as someone who was very mysterious and looking good for a suspect with his personality but yet some of his stuff seemed a little too acted out such as telling someone they're doomed if he boards the ship as he almost seemed to come off as Crazy Ralph like but misses by a longshot.
Saffron Henderson (J.J.) didn't have a big role as most of the other actors mentioned and was in it for about 4 minutes but she stood out terrifically as a rocker in the film. Does well at faking her guitar playing for a camcorder shooting.
She knew on how to have a coolness to what she did in it and can see her getting bigger gigs.
We have a Vancouver supporting actress during the beginning of this film named Tiffany Paulsen (Suzi Donaldson) who was hopeless in her role as a student celebrating her grad year in a boat at Crystal Lake. There is a good angered reaction on her after her onscreen boyfriend scares her with a hockey mask. But when she screams when she is caught and about to be killed looked extremely phony and even more amateurish.A total BOMB
in her performance.

A person is burned to death by a hot rock in a sauna
A guy is stabbed hanging on an equipment of the ship
A guys head is punched off.

This time the music was composed by Fred Mollin and not Harry Manfredini who helped Harry in the previous sequel with the music and sound effects. He does just a good job in this one as he makes the music sound very different. There's good hissing sounds used throughout the quiet moments in the film when Jason is stalking someone. Also nice low keyboard music as well as some bell sounds. What's really nice is hearing a high pitched synthesizer playing when Jason attacks.

There are also great rockin & stompin songtracks by various artists like "The Darkest Side of the Night" by Metropolis, "Say This to Me" by Neo a4, "Broken Dream" byTerry Crawford, "Stalker's Rocker" by Steve Linn & Tim Yalda and "Strike" by The Koo.

[first lines]
DJ: [narration] It's like this... We live in claustrophobia, the land of steel & concrete. Trapped by dark waters. There is no escape. Nor do we want it. We've come to thrive on it and each other. You can't get the adrenaline pumpin' without the terror, good people... I love this town.

Tamara Mason: Julius is the only senior I would even consider doing it with.

[just before he gets a sauna rock in his chest]
Other Boxer: Nice fight, Julius. Guess I gotta work on my left-right-left combo.

McCulloch: Senior predictions started five minutes ago and Rennie isn't there.
Wayne: Maybe some of us don't want our futures predicted.
McCulloch: In your case I'm sure that's true.

McCulloch: Walking corpses are not real.

[after finding the dead bodies of some of the crew]
Julius: I say we regroup, and find this motherfucker before he finds us. Now who's with me?
McCulloch: Watch your mouth, young man! And you'll do no such thing. I'M in charge here!
Julius: School... IS OUT, McCulloch! Okay?

Julius: I was able to find some shit from the halls and game room. Go ahead, take what you want.
[Everyone takes something but Julius]
Wayne: Well what are you gonna take, Julius?
Julius: Nothing.
[Everyone glares]
Julius: ...But this gun.

Gangbanger #2: [to Jason, after watching his friend die whilst attempting to rape Rennie] Who the fuck are you?
[Jason just stands there]
Gangbanger #2: You're dead, fuckhead.
[pulls out gun, shoots Jason six times]
Gangbanger #2: [as gun clicks empty, his face is slammed on a steam pipe and burned]

[boxing Jason]
Julius: Go ahead... take your best shot, motherfucker!

[before finding the dead Julius]
McCulloch: The first order of business is to find Julius.
Irish cop: Oh I'm sure he'll just pop up somewhere.

Rennie: You don't understand, there is a maniac trying to kill us!
New York waitress: Welcome to New York.

Street urchin: [Jason kicks a gang's boom-box out of his way] You're dead meat, slimeball!
[Jason turns to the gang and lifts his mask]
Street urchin: Hey, it's cool, man! It's cool!
[the gang runs off]