Before I delve into the epicness that is "Jason Takes Manhattan," a bit of rhapsodical waxing on just how we got to this point.The "Friday the 13th" phenomenon was, in my humble opinion, the single biggest news-worthy story in the history of the horror genre. It is the equivalent of the coming of Babe Ruth and his mammoth home run hitting seasons throughout the 1920s, and its effect on the sport of baseball. Until Cunningham's original movie came along, horror flicks with more risque content - particularly when it came to gore and nudity - were typically relegated to drive-in or rock-and-roll movie status. Read, not headliners. "Friday the 13th" changed all that, and not only were all of its sequels big-time events trotted out by Paramount studios on a yearly basis throughout the awesome '80s, but the countless like-minded slasher flicks hoping to cash in on its formula were, as well. While the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise would eventually top its box office clout, however, the F13 series was the ever-present albatross of '80s horror, and when I think of that most magical decade, I think of Prince, Madonna, Ron Reagan and Jason Freakin' Voorhees.
So now we're up to 1989. We started with the dawn of the decade, and now we've reached the end, and lo and behold Jason is still well-alive and kicking (actually, undead and kicking would be more accurate, but bear with me, here). While every film in the series had turned a profit from their miniscule budgets, the series had been going through a downward spiral of diminishing returns for quite some time. "Friday the 13th Part III" and "Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter" were hugely successful films, grossing more than $30 million from their production budgets of less than $5 million. Each successive film did less business, with "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood" raking in the lowest take out of any film in the series. It was also the last movie in the series (well, until the remake, anyway) to be done in the traditional F13 style - set in Crystal Lake, plenty of forest chases, and gore aplenty. Thus, the heads at Paramount were pretty open to listening to some suggestions about a fresh direction to take the series.
Enter Rob Hedden, a young, enthusiastic writer working on "Friday the 13th: The Series" (don't get excited - it had nothing to do with the movie series that you've read about for almost two months now). Paramount liked Hedden, liked his contributions to the series, and liked the possibilities of a Hedden-helmed F13 film. His idea, in turn, was to take the series out of Crystal Lake for the first time. And if you're thinking different, you might as well think big, as well - so why not New York City?
On paper, I still think this was a fantastic idea. In Hedden's original script, there were scenes set at the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden and Central Park, with two-thirds of the action taking place in Manhattan itself (the first third would take place on a cruise ship, with Captain Hockey Mask stowing away with a group of vacationing high schoolers bound for the Apple). And then the reality of the budget came crashing down on ol' Robby...
This is one of the most chastised entries in the entire series, and for good reason. For starters, it's barely "Jason Takes Manhattan." It's Jason Takes the Ship. The simple version of the story is this - despite this film being granted the highest budget in the entire series, it was still peanuts by the standards of studio execs who practically regurgitate money just because they can, and it simply wouldn't allow for much time - at all - to be spent in NYC. In the end, Hedden and crew only shot ONE SCENE in the city itself - the all-too-brief scenes in Times Square. The rest of the "city" scenes were shot in Vancouver, and the ominous cruise ship serves as our main site of chaos.
In addition, this movie feels absolutely raped by the MPAA. "Jason Takes Manhattan" is BY FAR the least visceral movie in the entire series. Today, this movie could have gotten a PG-13 rating with no problem, but things were a little more controlled back then. For this reason and the previous one, fans love to heap bile at this particular movie, but you know what? I actually like it.
So enough high-minded criticism - on to the fun that is "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan," in my mind the last TRUE F13 movie.
For starters, I love the opening scene, as young lovers Jim and Suzy travel down the river that apparently connects Crystal Lake to the great big ol' Ocean, and Jim pauses in their makeout session long enough to relate the tender, tragic legend of Jason to his hot little girlfriend. One can get the sense fairly early on that Paramount thought that this was indeed going to be the LAST friggin' Friday movie; it's a nice moment of nostalgia that reminds us of the cultural impact and meaning that F13 had throughout the '80s. Of course, one hokey resurrection scene later (and wait until you see this one - it's laugh-out-loud ludicrous and awesome at the same time) and Jason LIVES AGAIN! A few minutes later we've got our two first kills, and then Jason makes his way toward the AFOREMENTIONED ocean...
...Where the Crystal Lake seniors are about to embark on a class trip to New York City, and are taking the world's unluckiest luxury liner to said city. Our star character this time around is Rennie (Jensen Daggett), a girl with a fear of water like I fear grasshoppers (and I hate the little bastards), which affords us some fantastic character depth as Rennie learns to overcome her fears. OK, it's not that deep, but it did give us the standard-issue "demonize a couple characters so that we can root for Jason for a little while" scenes as a couple of the dislikable automatons on the screen push/prod our heroine into the water that she hates so much. Of course, Rennie is also the only virginal one, so she takes the honors this time around for being the honorary Jason slayer.
There's a couple other noteworthy characters - one is McCulloch, played by Peter Mark Richman. Richman is absolutely fantastic in the role, giving us an awesome sleazebag performance that might actually top Terry Kiser's role in the previous film. When Jason tips this guy upside down and holds him in a vat of acid, you will stand up and cheer. This guy is a scuzzball. He's also Rennie's legal guardian, and is one of the AFOREMENTIONED assholes responsible for Rennie's water phobia.
What else am I missing? Oh yeah - Rennie has a tragic past involving Jason that is every bit as confusing as Dana Kimmell's rape-ambiguous interlude with Jason in "Friday the 13th Part III," and there's all sorts of weird crap where Rennie sees hallucinations of Jason - in child form, no less - calling out for mommy before adult, undead zombie terminator Jason rounds the corner looking for her.
I know that a lot of what you read above makes this sound like a terrible movie, and you're right. By the standards of stuffy English majors, this is indeed quite the craptacular flick, but I can overlook those flaws. It definitely doesn't rank as the best of the series, but I believe that Rob Hedden accomplished what he wanted to with this film. It took the series out of Crystal Lake. It felt very FRESH compared to the previous "zombie Jason" films. And it also would have made a very nice capper for the series itself, as in the closing moments of this film Jason drowns once again. While Jason's actions in his death scene are the subject of much controversy and debate, I believe it to be quite the effective little moment. Jason is dead and gone. He can't ever come back. You're probably sick of me harping on it, but this was the end of the '80s (the decade this series had owned), the series was waning in popularity, and it appeared like a good time to END this godforsaken thing. I, for one, think this would have been the ideal.
Of course, this movie has one more thing going for it - Kane "The Machine" Hodder, who made history in this movie by being the first man to play Jason more than once. He would play the role twice more after this film, and for good reason - his mannerisms, walk, and actions during kill scenes are simply without equal. Hodder IS Jason. He understood the character, liked the character, and took what was an emotionless robot until his arrival and game him a personality. Sure, the Jason facial make-up in this movie may suck, but at least it's good to know that a man you admire is behind said sucky makeup, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment