Post by slayrrr666 on Dec 14, 2005 14:05:29 GMT -5
"Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan" is far from the useless entry that so many claim.
**SPOILERS**
A couple (Todd Shaffer) (Tiffany Paulson) from the senior class at Crystal Lake High School are murdered before a class trip to New York. The next day, the class sets sail. Little do they know that Jason has stowed aboard. On board, Rennie Williams, (Jensen Daggett) has conflicted opinions with her uncle, Charles McCulloch (Peter Richman) about her being on the trip. Jason starts to slaughter through all the other classmates on the ship in secret. As a storm catches up to the ship, everyone begins holding out for better weather. Rennie stumbles upon the dead bodies of the Captain (Warren Munson) and his second-in-command (Fred Henderson) and alarms the rest of the class. With the dead captain's son (Scott Reeves) on her side, Rennie learns the truth about Jason and their common experience. Forced to abandon ship, the remainder of the class escapes to shore, landing in New York. There, Jason chases them through the streets of New York until he is killed in the sewers below the city.
The Good News: This film is not nearly as terrible as everyone makes this one out to be. I really enjoyed the wide range of deaths in the film. One is smashed in the head with a guitar, another is shocked by the power unit, one is impaled with a steaming hot piece of rock, one is thrown onto a radar unit, and several others are stabbed with very sharp instruments. The best death, and another one of my favorites, is the decapitation. It is as close to a fist pumping scene as there possibly could be in this movie. At one point, you're laughing because it does parody a very famous boxing maneuver, and two you also feel a tad bit sad because the guy does die. A tad bit sad isn't exactly true, but yet you get what I mean. The goriest thing in the movie isn't actually a death, but Jason's face after being exposed to a certain chemical. That was a scary thing to see. The New York scenes, even though they do come at the end of the movie, are very exciting and are some of the most action-packed scenes in the entire series. It is simply non-stop excitement from the beginning all the way. It is a series of chases and close calls that was very well scripted and for once, seemed natural and completely believable. What was easily the highlight was the landing, where Jason looks up and sees himself on a billboard. I had been waited for so long for the series to make a hockey joke about Jason, and was so glad that it came in a film. It was even a pretty funny gag, and was a bit of humor that the film had. The funniest gag also occurred in the New York scenes. Jason is chasing the survivors down a street in Times Square and kicks over a boom box playing rap music. The gang listening to it pulls out knives and threaten Jason. He simply pulls up his mask, exposing his zombie face and sending them scrambling. That was absolutely hysterical and was the single best gag in the entire series. I really hate to admit this, but there were a few jumps in the film. On the boat, Jason traps one person in a bathroom. Locked inside, it becomes dead quiet. A while later, Jason punches through the door and grabs the person inside. Another good scene is in New York, where the two survivors are talking on a bench, sorting out the lies that have been told to each other. They kiss in close-up, and then they back off and Jason knocks over a trash can loudly, alerting them to his presence. What makes that a great jump is that it's a tender moment, and then a loud bang startles us. A classic jump.
The Bad News: You can tell the censors hammered this one, as the deaths aren't exactly as graphic as what they should be. All of the deaths were almost censored for TV already, with only a few of them being shown as is. That was what really ticked me off, watching perfectly gory murders, only to see them spoiled by the censorship board. It was also a shame that Jason hardly ever used his machete in the film. There was only one machete kill in the whole movie, which was only a throat slash, and a painfully obvious fake one at that.
The Final Verdict: For some odd reason, this wasn't the total disaster of a movie that the fans of the series think. I really liked it, and if it weren't for non-gory kills, this would be in my top five of the series. Be careful with this one, fans. Completest, take a look. Gorehounds, you will be slightly annoyed by the lack of gore in the kills.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a mild sex scene, mild drug use, and Adult Situations