Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y10jRZLzTAE

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

You ever hate it when a franchise is once beloved that you can't stand how bad it gets? That's how I felt with Friday the 13th the moment I saw Jason Takes Manhattan. 


PLOT


The 1989 film begins with the zombified Jason Voorhees get resurrected once again by electronic cables underwater. Once awaken, he targets the couple Jim & Suzi (Todd Caldecott & Tiffany Paulsen), killing them both with a speargun. By morning, he stows away onto the SS Lazarus that is set to sail to New York City with a graduating senior class from Lakeview High School. English teacher Colleen Van Deusen (Barbara Bingham) and biology teacher Charles McCulloch will be chaperoning, but the latter is adamant of his niece Rennie Wickham boarding since he knows her to be aquaphobic. Once everyone else is boarded, Jason continues his killing spree. He targets rockstar wannabe JJ Jarrett (Saffron Henderson) with her own guitar and later kills an unnamed boxing student with a sauna rock. When prom queen Tamara Mason (Sharlene Martin) and her bestie Eva Watanabe (Kelly Hu) get caught by Rennie doing drugs, they push her offboard and make it look like an accident. She then blackmails Charles to avoid consequences of her actions, but this doesn't go anywhere when Voorhees kills her too with a glass shard. The slasher then kills the chief engineer Jim Carlson (Fred Henderson) with a harpoon and Admiral Robertson (Warren Munson) by using his machete to slice his throat. The latter's son Sean and Rennie finds the bodies, summoning everyone else to meet at the bridge there's a killer on the loose. As fellow boxing student Julius arms up and establishes a search party to apprehend the threat, Jason already strangles Eva on the dancefloor. Charles assumes the deckhand (Alex Diakun) is responsible off of warning them Jason was after them, but he too is found dead with a fire-axe on his back. Voorhees would also throw another student named Miles Wolfe (Gordon Currie) into a radio transmitter tower that fries him and does the same to video student Wayne Webber (Martin Cummins) with an electrical box in between the other unnamed students. Apart from Charles & Colleen, the only ones that abandon ship are Rennie, Sean & Julius. Although the Lazarus sinks, Jason would follow them to New York and pursue them all despite saving Rennie from muggers. When everyone splits up, Voorhees would kill Julius by punching his head clean off. When everyone regroups, the slasher kills an officer. Rennie tries driving away but her visions of her past trauma of aqua-phobia distract her and cause her to crash, as Charles pushed her into a lake, triggering an explosion that kills Colleen. Voorhees then kills her uncle by drowning him in a toxic waste barrel. He chases Rennie & Sean throughout Times Square until reaching the subway where they toxic waste at him and let him be swept by a sewer flood. Jason would vomit water and be overpowered by the flood, reminded of what drowned him before. The film would then end with Sean & Rennie reuniting with the latter's dog Toby who she separated from during all the commotion.


THOUGHTS


Benefit of the doubt is my motto when I'm told how bad a movie can be and boy am I surprised how low of quality this one is. I assumed I saw this in my youth, but i was sure wrong otherwise I would remember it takes 64 minutes of a 90 minute runtime for the movie to live up to the name when in actuality, this should've been called "Jason is on a Boat". You would think creativity off the chain with writer/director Rob Hedden tasked to change the setting, but it doesn't really hit the landing completely despite having a drug free set. We know Jason is the star and Kane Hodder still embodies him with his physique in costume that makes the kills iconic, but the characters that fall victim are mostly one noted more than any other entry at this point. I can give credit that the makeup does give great credibility on all the kills because it's batshit crazy to see a head get punched off, but you do lose me on making it feel too cartoonish for Jason's exposure to toxic waste. Fred Mollin's music honestly doesn't feel exciting for me since the whole movie is not set in NY. I can say it keeps the ball rolling on how important it is to face your fears thanks to the believability of Jensen Daggett as a strong final girl out of Rennie, but knowing where you're going with her is another aspect of making it all bland and her tie-in with Jason by having visions of his young self was a bit too much. We don't really get to grasp on why she's into Sean no matter how rational Scott Reeves portrays him. It's even a rush to see the dynamic of Charles & Colleen, leaning into all the other students being one noted, but I did think it was badass for VC Dupree to make Julius a brave guy for actually going toe to toe with Jason himself, which not many characters have been able to pull off dead or alive. And again, this slasher flick is too self aware with what it is that makes a lot of confusing moments down the line. I already would make it clear that I wouldn't ever hire a whack-o deck hand just for everyone's discretion, but why the hell do Jim and Suzi take so long to move that it feels like they could've written obituaries in the amount of time they had. Them not bailing sooner is weirder than Jim having a hockey mask for no other reason apart from giving an excuse for Jason to get a new one. And was it really a good idea for the admiral to test Sean on the graduation? I know you want your son under the wing, but it just wasn't the right place. I also don't think it made sense for JJ to practice her music at the boiler room because that's just asking for someone like Jason to get the drop on you. Splitting up in the woods is already a bad idea, but it is downright the worst when in Times Square and you don't have money after getting mugged. Charles is dumber than a lot of people will admit because that was dumber than scaring Rennie at the lake with his intent to help her get over her fears. And this is the one where it feels like Jason teleporting throughout because I refuse to believe he is a fast walker or jogs quietly, whereas the 2009 reboot gives better clarification on how he catches up. Lastly, I still think it's dumb for cops to leave the doors unlocked for whatever reason because that too is like asking for a slasher to leave a head in the front seat before carjacking. To get this over with, Jason Takes Manhattan is up there with being the franchise's worst being sauceless in all the potential it had going for. Whatever kind of fan you are for slashers, skip this to avoid disappointment.