In keeping with an old ritual, on Friday the 13th it’ time to crank on another instalment of one of the most successful horror franchises ever, this time it’s Friday the 13th part 8 – Jason Takes Manhattan. Before we get into the movie itself the situation we’d all been left in by the time this movie came around was one of relative boredom. The movies themselves after the 4th one were just a sugar hit. They had some great killings, but really it was more of the same from each instalment. Not that it mattered, because they all did well on ticket sales and subsequent rentals. I really think it was time to do something new, and obviously so did the producers.
THE PLOT
It kind of feels weird giving a run down of the plot. If you’ve watched this far into the series, you know the plot already. Jason comes back, starts killing teenagers again, blah, blah, blah. No point going into it any deeper than that. To be fair the plot doesn’t go that much deeper either. The movie opens up with a young couple on a boat outside Manhattan, spending some time alone on a boat. They of course get taken out by a newly resurrected Jason who emerges from the depth of the harbour to once again start his trail of havoc and murder. The scene then switches to a school excursion on a cruise around Manhattan where Jason pops up from the Harbour to stowe aboard. Predictably it’s not long before the killings start up again.
Taking place on a boat has some great advantages as gives Jason a large number of teenagers in close proximity to each other with nowhere to run. It also makes for an awesome body count. The kills in this film I have to say are rather run of the mill though. Cool enough, but we’ve all seen them a million times before in this franchise alone. If you haven’t seen the previous films this one is still easy to follow. It’s a simple “leave your brains at the door” type film where you can just sit back and enjoy the killings.
As the extended title (Friday the 13th – part 8 Jason takes Manhattan) suggests, Jason eventually takes down the boat and makes it onto dry land in the great city of Manhattan to start another violent rampage. The movie switching to the city makes for an interesting change of visuals and sets the scene for some unfortunate variations in future instalments by not limiting Jason to the confines of Camp Crystal lake.
THE VERDICT
In many ways, Friday the 13th part 8 is still more of the same. It’s just on a boat, and then in the city. The movie itself is quite well made. Very watchable in that stock standard slasher type of way. Just don’t go into it expecting anything overly original. Overall I enjoyed this movie. It was a great way to end off the original run of films. It was also a testament to the films fans that a franchise can run so long and successfully without any real new ideas.
For more great horror movie reviews, keep checking back on Gorenography.com on a regular basis”!