Starring: Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Kane Hodder, Peter Mark Richman, Martin Cummins.
Director: Rob Hedden.
Hooo boy. This is hilarious. Right from the word "Go" we have a very ridiculous charicature of New York City, complete with alley way muggings, miserable shock jocks droning about the rush of danger, "metal" teens, dingy subways and toxic waste. Also rats. Now I may not have spent a lot of time in New York, but I've visited a couple times and it didn't look much like that. But, anyway, Jason comes back and kills a couple of people on a boat.
Somehow a ferry ride from Crystal Lake leads to Manhattan. Okay. I mean, I guess we need to buy an undead serial killer, we can buy the boat headed to Manhattan. The ferry is also apparently Captained by a naval commander or something. Oh, and the ship is called Lazarus. Wow. Okay.
These kids are VERY 1989. Tacky vests, baggy beige pants, big hair. But the main character is currently under the guardianship of Uncle Dickhead, who is also apparently the uber-straight-laced Principle or whatever. She might be afraid of water? Yes. Hydrophobia. She might also be psychic. Not cool psychic like Tina but...having visions kind of psychic. The mostly useless kind. Toby the dog wants nothing to do with it.
The most interesting kid gets killed first. J.J. is a rocker chick and would have made for a much more interesting lead than Sarah Plain and Tall over here with her Mom Jeans and tacky blouses. J.J. goes down to the engines to rock out of her guitar and Jason smashes it over her head and she's done for. I will say that the movie doesn't mess around with silly things like exposition: Jason's back and starts doing his murder thing immediately.
The mean girl and her not-so-mean sidekick watch Julius, the star athlete, smack a guy around during a friendly sparring, get hot and bothered, and decide to do some coke. As you do. Principal Suck informs her that she better have her Biology project or she won't get to go to New York...so how did she get on the graduation trip if she has yet to make the graduation requirements? Jason Takes Manhattan? More like Jason Needs To Take Writing Lessons.
Mean girl's "biology" project is actually pretty clever, up until the blackmail attempt: she draws organs all over her body in the correct places...I actually think that would be a pretty clever actual bio project. I'm not sure why she bothered, though: I mean, that much effort she might as well have just done the project. It's practically learning, for shit's sake. And not sleeping with the nerdy kid is kinda shitty, mean girl. You dragged him into your highly illegal blackmail scheme, it seems like throwing him a bone seems like the least you could do...or pay him. Or give him cocaine. It doesn't really matter much(not that it ever did, in fact it's kind of all wasted motions and making a half-assed attempt to develop characters you don't need to) since she's literally killed in the next scene. After all of that effort, she's just taken out.
Does the Captain's death really require slow motion?
When Julius informs Professor Assface that "School's. Out." I couldn't help but add "FOR. SUMMER! DOOODOOODOOO. SCHOOL'S. OUT. FOR. EVER!" Seriously. Try not to add that if anyone says "school's out." It's impossible.
Out of the "gimmick" installments of this franchise, Part 8 really is the least interesting. That isn't to say there isn't some hilarity to be had: Jason does somehow climb a massive ladder in seconds to throw a kid off. So there's that. And Professor Dickhead is one of the most grating and genuinely unlikable characters in the entire franchise-the smartest thing this film does is keep him around a good long while, too-and there is the unintentionally hilarious deformed jason-as-a-child ghost. They don't even use the same one every time. Each time we see him, there's a different one. It's hilarious.
I really didn't need Julius to start singing parts of "New York, New York" when they see the city. Really didn't. But, at least we're here and we can get the climax out of the way and...oh, shit, three minutes in New York and they get mugged...and the muggers KIDNAP RENNIE AND INJECT HER WITH HEROINE. Because sex with her will be better if she's stoned...? One of the muggers fires bullets into Jason, becomes confused when they don't seem to hurt him...and so he steps closer. Apparently he misunderstood the entire purpose of a gun.
I do enjoy the Julius/Jason boxing fight. I mean, it's stupid: Julius is a star athlete and boxing prodigy, yet he keeps throwing punches at a mask. It's kind of a cool use of "rope-a-dope" though: Jason just lets him tire himself out before casually punching the guys head off. It's a dumb scene, but I always have a soft spot for regular joes fighting unstoppable opponents with nothing but their own guts.
Because we needed a flash black, the filmmakers decided to toss us the backstory of why Rennie is hydrophobic. Spoiler: it was Uncle Asshole's fault. Rennie finally remembers when Uncle Creepy tossed her into the lake-the key to remembering was apparently the heroine she's having no issue coming down from-gets mad and storms off. Jason then kills The Jackass Educator with, I shit you not, barrels of toxic waste that are just laying around the streets of Manhattan.
The "street gang"that decide to fight Jason when he kicks their boombox...well, they don't look particularly menacing. They look like they're six years old. I feel like I could take them and I'm not Jason.
Yes, at midnight, the sewers of New York flood with Toxic Waste. And the sewers tunnels are massive hallways. Did nobody working on this film ever, y'know, even READ about New York City? Jason screams in pain when hit by toxic waste...I'd scream, too, if I had that terrible make-up on my face, too. Yikes.
I feel like there's a real disconnect on the ending of this film by the fans. The toxic waste does not "mutate Jason into a child" or whatever the hell people keep saying. Rennie SEES him as the child he once was, just as she has all movie with her psychic stuff, once he's put down. Or maybe he was mutated. It'd make more sense if he wasn't, but...with this movie, I'd say any idiocy is possible.
Final Thoughts: Toxic Waste and Heroine-sharing Muggers. Only in the idiotic fever dream of a writer's version of New York! At least the Dog survived, with his spiffy little bandana intact. The gimmick of Jason-on-a-boat/Jason-in-the-city are well intentioned enough, even if they aren't super interesting or well handled but...it's a thing, and at least they tried to do something to keep the franchise afloat.
Final Rating: Two stars, I guess? It's hard to rate Friday The 13th films since they just completely defy any sort of logical analysis.
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