{"id":14442,"date":"2021-07-21T17:38:30","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T21:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=14442"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:32:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:32:24","slug":"friday-the-13th-part-viii-jason-takes-manhattan-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=14442","title":{"rendered":"Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan-1989"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan-1989<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Rob Hedden<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #1,163<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed July 21, 2021<\/p>\n

Grade: D+<\/strong><\/p>\n

After eight installments in only nine years of the iconic horror Friday the 13th series, fans by this time know what they are in store for.<\/p>\n

The title of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), and its accompanying cover art, offer a glimmer of originality and intrigue.<\/p>\n

If this were 1989, I would be excited about the prospects of what this film could deliver.<\/p>\n

Hell, the city of New York was dour and dirty in the late 1980s, filled with grit, grime, and seediness. What a perfect setup for our crazed killer, Jason, to mix and mingle with the dregs of society.<\/p>\n

I conjured up images of Jason chasing frightened teenagers through graffiti-laced subways and X-rated peep show theaters in the Times Square district.<\/p>\n

We get a few location shots of Times Square, but not much more.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for fans, only the final thirty minutes or so of the film are set in the Big Apple, and for eagle-eyed viewers, even less is filmed there.<\/p>\n

Years later, director Rob Hedden would blame Paramount Studios for severely limiting the budget allowed for on-location filming.<\/p>\n

The result is that Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan feels like a sham.<\/p>\n

Okay, the film is a terrible, cheesy, poorly acted, jaggedly paced film, but on a late Saturday night, it provides some fun and comfort, along with the right mood and spirits.<\/p>\n

A few years following the events of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), multiple mass murderer Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is resurrected from the bottom of Crystal Lake after an underwater electrical fire.<\/p>\n

After he kills a passing boat’s occupants, he stows away on a cruise ship filled with a high-school graduating class excitedly bound for New York City.<\/p>\n

Strict Biology teacher Charles McCulloch (Peter Mark Richman) is on board with his niece, Rennie (Jensen Daggett), who has visions of Jason drowning as a child.<\/p>\n

They temporarily escape his bloody rampage, but when Rennie and Charles reach Manhattan, Jason is hot in pursuit.<\/p>\n

The ten million other Manhattanites are uninteresting, and Jason must kill Rennie and his cohorts.<\/p>\n

There is an unnecessary side story about Uncle Charles pushing Rennie into Camp Crystal Lake in a sink-or-swim moment, when she first saw glimpses of Jason.<\/p>\n

This has nothing to do with the main story, nor is it needed.<\/p>\n

The rest of the film is exactly as one might suspect, with very few surprises. The character development, limited in slasher films like this, is extremely pitiful and uneven.<\/p>\n

One female character is a rocker chick who clutches her electric guitar and plays it nonstop, practically during her death scene.<\/p>\n

Other unintentionally laughable characters include a young black man who is an aspiring boxer and attempts to spar with Jason on a building’s rooftop. This proves to be a big mistake when Jason takes one punch at him and decapitates him.<\/p>\n

The popular blonde prom queen\/mean girl, Tamara (Sharlene Martin), decides to throw Rennie overboard after she catches Tamara doing drugs.<\/p>\n

Murdering a fellow student is a better option than being caught.<\/p>\n

Finally, the deckhand played by Alex Diakund is a carbon copy of the Crazy Ralph character from Friday the 13th (1980) and Friday the 13th: Part II (1981), even uttering the famous “You’re all doomed” line.<\/p>\n

The stereotypes are rampant.<\/p>\n

However, unusual for the slasher genre in 1989, diversity is evident, with African-American, Hispanic, and Asian characters. While all are supporting characters and know their purpose is to be bludgeoned, the inclusiveness is at least a slight win.<\/p>\n

Other positives are the familiar Camp Crystal Lake setting not being completely scrapped, as the title might indicate. There is something nice and familiar with Jason: a lake, darkness, and murder.<\/p>\n

Rob Hedden’s idea to take much of the action to an unfamiliar setting, like a metropolis, is a good one; a city is the opposite of a lake, but the studio screwed the director over royally with its limitations.<\/p>\n

Still, a wonderful shot of Times Square can easily transport a viewer watching the film in the present back to 1989 and, if only for a minute, let them experience what life was like.<\/p>\n

That’s worth a small something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan-1989 Director Rob Hedden Starring Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves Scott’s Review #1,163 Reviewed July 21, 2021 Grade: D+ After eight installments in only nine years of the iconic horror Friday the 13th series, fans by this time know what they are in store for. The title of Friday … Continue reading Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan-1989<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,11342,11344,13,1556,11338,11340,368,11343,11341,11337,11339,310],"tags":[150,11350,11352,248,1557,11346,11348,369,11351,11349,11345,11347,311],"class_list":["post-14442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1989-films","category-barbara-bingham","category-gordon-currie","category-horror-films","category-jason-voorhees","category-jensen-daggett","category-kane-hodder","category-worst-rated-films","category-martin-cummins","category-peter-mark-richman","category-rob-hedden","category-scott-reeves","category-slasher-films","tag-1989-movie-reviews","tag-barbara-bingham","tag-gordon-currie","tag-horror-films","tag-jason-voorhees","tag-jensen-daggett","tag-kane-hodder","tag-worst-rated-films","tag-martin-cummins","tag-peter-mark-richman","tag-rob-hedden","tag-scott-reeves","tag-slasher-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14442"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23230,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14442\/revisions\/23230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}