Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie Review

Scream Factory via Shout! Factory has released the 1989 Horror franchise film 'Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan' to Blu-ray with a high quality 1080p transfer and a pair of lossless soundtrack options. Several supplements are included as well, carrying over the extras from Warner Brothers' disc found in the 2013 collection and adding a few new ones. It's a quality Blu-ray. It is currently only available in the exciting, and limited, Friday the 13th Collection which includes all 12 films featuring killer Jason Voorhees as well as two bonus discs.

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jason Takes Manhattan sails onto Blu-ray with a well-rounded 1080p transfer. The opening title sequence is relatively clean but the odd speckle does sneak in. The picture cleans up nicely thereafter. Grain is fine with little variance in low light, details are terrific, sharpness is natural to the source, and clarity is excellent. The picture thrives in every location. Even in poor light details are strong, such as the scene where the "Rocker" girl gets murdered by her own guitar. Even in the low light ship's bowels, the support structure, her hair and clothes, and other necessary details, including Jason's worn mask and tattered garments, are well defined. Bright, sunlit outdoors and well lit scenes on the ship's deck or in various cabins also reveal sharp clothes, intimate faces, and excellent support elements around the boat. Colors satisfy with plenty of punch to red blood, pleasing hues on clothes, and strong lighting effects around New York in the final act, particularly in the Times Square area where the bright lights clash nicely with the solidly deep and inky blacks. Flesh tones appear accurate as well. The encode gives no trouble and like the other films in the series the image plays with a very healthy mid-30s bitrate.

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jason Takes Manhattan features the usual pair of Friday the 13th audio tracks, here 2.0 lossless stereo and 5.1 lossless multichannel, both in the DTS-HD Master Audio configuration. As with the other 2.0 stereo releases in the series, it's charged and loud and makes for a very viable alternative to the 5.1 track. It's nicely balanced with all elements well prioritized, mostly considering music and rain and thunder. It is a little harsher than the 5.1 track, which offers more finesse to the power elements. The 5.1 listen also gives a fuller stage engagement, allowing music to spread, sound effects to more naturally immerse the listener, and the most intense sounds to play with better balance and stage fill, such as blaring alarms and flooding waters at the 58-minute mark, a rousing subway car and the interior rattle late in the film, and the wave of toxic waste at film's finale. Dialogue images well to the center in 2.0 but it's firmer, and cleaner, in 5.1.

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan includes a blend of new and returning supplements. New content is marked as such. Please click here for coverage of the carryover content. Note that The Friday the 13th Chronicles was included on the Warner Brothers disc but appears on the bonus discs for the collection, not on this film's disc.

• 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
• NEW! TV Spots (1080i upscaled, 3:09 total runtime).
• NEW! Posters and Lobby Cards Gallery (1080i, 2:47): Images and ads from around the world.
• NEW! Still Gallery (1080i, 6:11): The images advance automatically. There is no musical accompaniment.

Friday the 13th: Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jason doesn't really take Manhattan in Jason Takes Manhattan. He visits it at the end but spends most of the movie waterlogged, whether on a boat or down in a sewer in the final act. The film offers the usual assortment of grisly kills and empty characters, the latter more so here. It's arguably the weakest film of the Paramount eight but still a fairly entertaining watch (for this reviewer's money Manhattan does have the coolest poster art with The Final Chapter right there with it). But it's a decent enough Slasher, just one that doesn't live up to the central concept's massive potential. Shout!'s Blu-ray is excellent, though, delivering high yield 1080p video, a fun 5.1 lossless soundtrack, and a nice selection of bonuses. Recommended.