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

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

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

Jason Takes a Cruise to Vancouver

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 17, 2013

Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is being released as part of Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection.

If Paramount had let writer/director Rob Hedden make the film it originally greenlit, Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan might not be the lowest grossing film to date in the franchise. Hedden was recruited for the series' eighth installment after his work on the Friday the 13th TV series known as Friday's Curse impressed executive producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., who offered Hedden the job. Hedden accepted on condition that he could take Jason Voorhees out of Crystal Lake, where he thought the storytelling possibilities were exhausted. According to Hedden, it was Mancuso who insisted on sending Jason to New York City. Hedden readily agreed and proceeded to dream up sequences for Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and other familiar New York landmarks.

But Paramount refused to budget for extensive location filming, forcing Hedden to rewrite the script so that most of the action occurs en route. The film doesn't reach New York until the last half hour (and that's being generous). Except for two days' location work in Times Square, all of the Manhattan scenes were filmed in generic Vancouver locations that ended up looking more like Tim Burton's Gotham City than the Big Apple. What was originally an intriguing idea became a massive bait-and-switch. Viewers felt cheated, and so did Hedden, judging by his frequently apologetic comments in the commentary and featurettes.

Kane Hodder, returning for his second outing as Jason, repeatedly tells the story of standing in Times Square in full makeup and mask and occasionally turning his head toward the throngs of onlookers cheering as he filmed his scenes. His account gives a sense of the electricity that Jason Takes Manhattan might have had, if only Paramount had been willing to back Hedden's original script. As the film's stands, one of Jason's best moments is his encounter with a gang of street punks whose boom box he kicks to pieces. When they pull weapons on him, he calmly turns toward them and (away from camera) lifts the hockey mask—and they go running for their lives. More such scenes could have rescued Jason Takes Manhattan. Instead, we spend far too much of the film in the confined environment of a cruise ship, which is hardly the liberation Hedden was seeking when he suggested leaving Crystal Lake.

Hedden opens the film with a montage of the limited selection of "New York" locations he'll eventually visit. I put "New York" in quotation marks, because, except for Times Square, it's obvious to anyone familiar with the city that the docks, alleys and coffee shop aren't the genuine article. This isn't necessarily fatal. Filmmakers can get away with a lot, as long as they deliver what they promise. John Carpenter cheerfully ignored geography and shot mostly in St. Louis when he made Escape from New York, but the film still works because it's all about an escape from Carpenter's version of New York. Hedden provides a glimpse of his version, then has to defer arriving there for more than an hour.

Hedden does make an effort to link to his predecessors. New York harbor dissolves into Crystal Lake, into which the telekinetic Tina Shepard and her late father plunged Jason (Hodder) at the conclusion of The New Blood . He is awakened by a jolt of electricity from a severed electrical cable. The culprit is an anchor dropped by Jim Miller and Suzie Donaldson (Todd Shaffer and Tiffany Paulsen), members of the graduating class of Lakeview High School, who have slipped onto Jim's family boat for an intimate celebration. Jim knows the legend of Jason Voorhees, but he doesn't expect to encounter him in the boat's stateroom while he's in bed with Suzie. Needless to say, neither of them will be reporting to college in the fall.

The next morning, the graduating class, minus two, gathers at the dock to board the SS Lazarus (yes, that's really the name of the ship) for the senior celebration trip to New York. The faculty chaperones are Charles McCulloch (Peter Mark Richman), an officious biology teacher, and Colleen Van Deusen (Barbara Bingham), a nurturing English teacher, who have an unspecified history together. Also joining them is Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett), an orphan, who is McCulloch's niece and Van Deusen's star pupil. McCulloch had forbidden Rennie to take the trip because of her morbid fear of water, and he's none too pleased to see her arrive with Van Deusen. (Gee, could there be backstory there?)

In a nod to the early films, a creepy deckhand (Alex Diakun) prophesies the doom of the ship, thereby giving McCulloch a convenient scapegoat when things start to go wrong. And wrong they go almost immediately, because Jason has drifted down the waterways in the Miller family boat and snuck aboard the Lazarus, where a fresh crop of hormonal teenagers await slaughter. There's a rock guitar kill, a death by mirror after a suggestive shower, a sauna murder and a disco strangulation that's a holdover from a scene Hedden originally designed for a glitzy NYC club. But all of it feels like the film is just marking time, which it is, because Jason still isn't taking Manhattan.

More backstory is spun over the ship's commander, Admiral Robertson (Warren Munson), and his son, Sean (Scott Reeves), who is a constant disappointment to his father. When Jason dispatches the Admiral and Chief Engineer (Fred Henderson), Sean has to step up and take command, and it doesn't help that McCulloch is bellowing in his ear at all times. Bellowing is McCulloch's approach to solving any problem, but it doesn't keep the ship afloat in a storm. Between Jason and the storm, Sean and Rennie end up in a life boat with McCulloch, Van Deusen, Rennie's dog and one additional surviving member of the ill-fated senior class, a boxing champion named Julius Gaw (V.C. Dupree). And they still haven't reached New York.

(Julius Gaw, it should be noted, is a holdover from Hedden's original script, in which he and Jason would have fought a boxing match at Madison Square Garden. Eventually, they do box on a Vancouver, er, Manhattan rooftop. It's one of the film's better sequences.)

When the small group of weary survivors finally sights the Statue of Liberty, the emotional tone is all wrong, because they're overjoyed at reaching land—and completely unconcerned about all the dead people they've left behind. Worse, because Hedden wasn't allowed to use the New York landscape to make the story interesting, he's been forced to rely too heavily for drama on ghostly emanations from Rennie's childhood water trauma. These involve the specter of the young Jason (played by Tim Mirkovich, son of the film's editor, Steve Mirkovich), who would have died decades before Rennie was born and, in this version, is no longer the deformed terror that leapt from Crystal Lake at the conclusion of Part 1 but A Real Boy. Hedden's ending, in which the young Jason plays a significant role, might not have come in for such intense criticism, if he hadn't already used the young Jason so extensively in early parts of the film.

When the long-delayed Manhattan scenes finally arrive, they're a letdown, because, except for Times Square, they're generic. Litter-strewn alleys all look the same, as do underground tunnels and cheap coffee shops (although this one looks more like a set than a coffee shop). That's why they could be built or found in Vancouver. The final eye roll is Jason's death, which Hedden arranges by toxic waste running through the sewers of Manhattan. That's what you do in a major city, right? Dump toxic waste through the sewer system risking millions of lives so that it can go . . . where exactly? Like the Paramount execs who OK'd the pitch without considering the cost, Hedden didn't think that one through.

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

Jason Takes Manhattan was shot by Bryan England, who worked on numerous low-budget horror films but is probably best known for shooting Pamela Anderson's TV series V.I.P. On his commentary track, Hedden praises the flexibility that England's lighting allowed him in circumstances where he often had to revise his shooting plans on the spot.

Warner/Paramount's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers perhaps the glossiest, most colorful of the Paramount entries in the series. If the studio wouldn't let writer/director Hedden place most of the movie in the Big Apple, they couldn't prevent him from importing its bright lights into the film's palette, which favors bright, saturated colors, often set against a solidly black background, provided either by the night or the darkness of the good ship Lazarus' interiors. Detail is plentiful, and the image is generally film-like, although there's an occasional hint of light grain reduction in large expanses of lighter areas, such as the daytime sky. (You really have to look for it, though.)

Jason Take Manhattan shares a BD-50 with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, and as noted in the review of that title, the combined running time and substantial extras have knocked down the average bitrate for both titles. As it happens, Jason Takes Manhattan clocks in at the same average as The New Blood of 18.45 Mbps. Compression artifacts were not observable, however, and I can only attribute this to the fine-grained quality of the image and an obviously careful job of compression.

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

Jason Takes Manhattan was released in Ultra Stereo but has been remixed for 5.1 and encoded on Blu-ray as lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1.The track announces its aggressive surround presence with a growl of "Jason!" that travels from left to right and echoes to the back, as the moody theme song "Darkest Side of the Night" kicks in and a brief opening narration by an anonymous radio DJ celebrates the adrenaline of New York City (and thereby prolongs the tease of the film's title and opening montage). Composer Fred Mollin, who had primarily arranged music cues composed by Harry Manfredini in The New Blood, scored this film on his own, which gives it a distinctive sound different it from all the others. (Mollin scored the TV show, which made him a natural fit, when Hedden was picked to write and direct the film.)

Whatever its drawbacks as a narrative device, a ship is always a good locale for sound design, and the SS Lazarus is full of creaks, groans, clanking metal and assorted sounds of machinery and water. The storm adds an entire new layer, and of course there are Jason's various kills, each with its own sonic peculiarities. The 5.1 remix moves much of the ambiance into the surrounds, and this approach continues in the abbreviated Manhattan sequences, with the sounds of seagulls at the landing site, subway noise during a brief ride underground and the elaborate finale in the tunnels. It's an effective mix with wide dynamic range, good bass extension and clear dialogue.

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

• Commentaries
• With Director Rob Hedden: Hedden is frank about the extensive compromises imposed by budget constraints, but he sounds pleased with what was accomplished within those limitations. The best parts of his commentary focus on technical and logistical issues. Hedden is less steady on thematic points as when, e.g., he claims that Jason Takes Manhattan added humor to the Friday the 13th series, as if none of the previous films had major comic elements.


• With Actors Scott Reeves, Jensen Daggett and Kane Hodder: The actors formerly known as Sean, Rennie and Jason rewatch the film and have such a good time reminiscing about their filming experiences that they keep making each other laugh. Hodder participates by telephone, and his recall for the detail of filming specific scenes is phenomenal.



• The Friday the 13th Chronicles, Part VIII (480i; 1.78:1; 14:32): Hedden and Hodder are the two interview subjects, with Hedden claiming most of the screen time. Much of what's here duplicates the commentary, but there are some tantalizing glimpses of storyboards for Hedden's original concepts for scenes in various parts of Manhattan.



• New York Has a New Problem: The Making of Friday the 13th, Part VIII—Jason Takes Manhattan (1080p; 1.78:1; 18:02): This retrospective documentary includes interviews with Hadden, actors Hodder, VC Dupree, Daggett, Reeves, Peter Mark Richman, Tim Mirkovich (with father Steve), Tiffany Paulsen, Sharlene Martin and composer Fred Mollin



• Slashed Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 12:56): Though mastered at 1080p, these scenes are from poor quality sources.
• Totally Free
• Jason Isn't Real
• Jim's Death
• Bad Book Ideas
• Helluva Thing to Say
• Exposition Ho!
• There She Blows!
• Darts Gone Awry
• Sauna Kill
• Rennie's Confession
• I Want Off This Ship
• Mr. Carlson's Death
• Radio Warnings
• Tamara's Death
• Get in the Damn Boat
• Little Jason Mouthwash



• Gag Reel (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:54). Some of these outtakes are referenced in the commentaries.



• Original Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:19).

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

After the self-inflicted box office disappointment of Jason Takes Manhattan, Paramount relinquished the franchise to New Line Cinema, which was already gearing up for the film that eventually became Freddy vs. Jason. New Line was later acquired, and subsequently merged into, Warner Bros., which, under its licensing deal with Paramount, is releasing the box set that assembles all twelve Friday the 13th films for the first time. It's no small irony that the headquarters of both film companies' corporate parents are located in New York City. In the end, Jason didn't take Manhattan; Manhattan took him. No recommendation, but purchasers of the box set will end up owning it anyway.