Independent Films, Film Profiles

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is a slasher film released on July 28, 1989. It is the eighth film in the Friday the 13th film series and the last film in the series to have been distributed by Paramount. The film's tagline is, "New York has a new problem. " It took in just $14.3 million at the domestic box office, making it the second-to-lowest grossing film in the series.After a boat's anchor hits an underwater power line, the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees is resurrected. He immediately finds the boat's occupants, a high school couple, having sex. Obtaining a hockey mask from the boat (which the boy had previously used to scare his girlfriend), he kills the boyfriend with the barrel of a harpoon gun. His girlfriend attempts to hide in a storage hatch, but Jason easily discovers her and jams the harpoon into her chest.The next morning, the SS Lazarus, containing the senior class of Lakeview High, is bound for New York City for the school's graduation. The trip is chaperoned by Colleen Van Deusen and Charles McCulloch, who's also brought along his niece, Rennie Wickham. Before the ship sets sail, Jason grabs a hold of the ship's anchor and climbs aboard. As the night continues on, Rennie keeps having visions of Jason as a child when he drowned. Jason then starts murdering the people on board, starting with a wannabe rock star named J.J., whom he kills by axing her with an electric guitar. He then ambushes a young boxer in a sauna and hits him with a sauna rock. J.J.'s friend, Tamara, goes to take a shower when Jason shatters the bathroom mirror and impales her with the broken shards.Jason then kills the two captains of the Lazarus, leaving the two chaperons, Rennie, and the remaining students to try and track down and kill Jason. They fail, after Jason strangles one of the female students on a dance floor, then throws one boy over the captain's quarters and onto the deck post. However, Wayne's death, involving being thrown into a control panel, causes a fire, burning the fuel tanks, and blowing a hole in the ship's hull. Because of this, Charles, Rennie, Colleen, two other students named Sean and Julius, and Rennie's dog, Toby, abandon the ship in a row boat.As the group continues to row to safety, they finally arrive in New York City. Jason has followed them there, however, and kills two gang bangers, a cop, a bouncer at a bar, Julius, Charles, and Colleen (killed accidentally when immolated in an exploding car), leaving Sean and Rennie running for their lives. Rennie has a flashback to an event from her early childhood where she was learning how to swim in Crystal Lake and was almost killed by a young drowned Jason, looking as he did in the original Friday the 13th.After a chase that spans from the subway system to Times Square, Rennie and Sean first run into a diner, followed by the sewers of Manhattan, where Jason follows and kills a sanitation worker. Before he can finish off the last two survivors, Jason meets his demise as the sewers are washed out with toxic waste, melting away his flesh. All that is left is a young boy lying at the bottom of the sewer, as Rennie and Sean reunite with their dog on the streets above.