Review: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Lying dead at the bottom of Camp Crystal Lake, Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is revived by electricity and sets about stalking and killing those aboard a yacht hosting a high school graduation. Scott Reeves and Jensen Daggett are our leads, the former plays the son of the ship’s captain, whilst Peter Mark Richman plays Daggett’s over-protective biology teacher uncle.

One of the low points in an already dreadful series, this 1989 film from writer-director Rob Hedden (mostly a TV director- and especially- writer) should’ve been called “Jason Takes Manhattan…after dicking around on a boat for 70 minutes or so”. I guess that’s not quite as catchy, though. At any rate, the film is even more stupid than usual, and even the best members of the cast – soap actor Scott Reeves and veteran villain Peter Mark Richman – have been more effective on television than they are here. Richman plays an old prick decently enough, if a bit stiff. Lead actress Jensen Daggett is especially poor and completely deprived of screen presence or charisma. Whenever I think of the worst film in this series, this is the one that comes to mind, mostly because it features the most idiotic death scene of all-time: A wannabe boxer getting decapitated with one clean punch by Jason – but to be honest, the first two films might overall be worse, I haven’t seen them in decades. This one’s terrible, though.

We begin with a pretty dreadful opener with mostly off-screen violence, signifying that the series has well and truly become a pussy. Seriously, violence is all this franchise even has, why cop out on that? What’s left? Not a damn thing. Just look at the idiotic Lita Ford-wannabe guitarist, beaten with her own axe…but pretty much off-screen, because Mr. Director thinks violence is icky. Similarly, a hot rock to the chest death would’ve been awesome if the camera didn’t focus almost entirely on Jason’s face. I did kinda like those early shots of Manhattan junkies though, that’s pretty dark stuff. More of that would’ve been nice. One character’s electrocution comes a bit closer to what one expects from these sorts of films. It’s not explicit, but it’s certainly a bit nasty. I was less enthused with Alex Diakun as the requisite ‘Crazy Ralph’ guy, here a deck hand who cries ‘This voyage is dooooomed!’. Kelly Hu is a semi-recognisable name here, but in her supporting role she makes about as much impression as the Fred Mollin music score: Not much. Her final scene is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen from a horror movie character, which takes a lot of doing. And yet, even that’s not as dumb as the decapitation scene. Speaking of dumb, why are white supremacist punks in 1988 listening to hippity-hop music?

Toothless, tedious, and terrible. This franchise is pretty dreadful and single-minded to begin with, but with a director who doesn’t seem overly interested in violent deaths, the film has even less to offer than usual. A complete waste of time, even the Jason makeup is lamer than usual.

Rating: D-