What the HELL happened to Friday the 13th Part 8 Jason Takes Manhattan!!!

Part 8 Jason Takes Manhattan

Oh the future. It was so bright. After the hellscape that was The New Blood, we had hope. Jason was coming out of the campground and to the biggest of cities. Some would even say a large vegetable of a city. Or fruit. Surely this would be better, yes?

After the failure that was The New Blood, you could only go up from there. Way up, to the statue of Liberty, even the Empire State Building. Which was in the script for this follow up. Studio executives were loving this pitch. Jason headed to the biggest of apples. So many landmarks, tons of casualties. Jason making his way through them all and returning to the glory he was stripped of in the last film.

We have a concept pitch, now we need a story. So Jason boards a cruise ship headed for New York, he begins killing people and the ship sinks. Forcing survivors to abandon ship and swim to New York. Where Jason stalks them, killing random people. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge tossing people from it, hacking and slashing with his machete. Climbing the Statue of Liberty and impaling bodies on lady Liberties torch. Killing people on Broadway and chasing the survivors through Madison Square Garden, leading to a final confrontation in the style of King Kong, at the tippity top of the Empire State building, where Jason would plunge to his doom!

That was the idea, at least.

The director of this one was ready to shoot it all too. Only, he was the one looking to make a Friday the 13th film full of blood, tits, and drugs.

The studio. Was not.

So we ask again, why make this if the last film was so bad? And why make this if you are just going to make it as badly? Neutering the kills(again) removing the nudity(again) killing the goddamn music(again)

Money. Simple as that.

Though The New Blood was an absolute failure and fans hated it with a passion. The film still made Paramount money. If memory serves The New Blood cost just under 3 million dollars. But made the studio 18 million. So when Rob Hedden was given the job of directing this after he pitched the idea of Jason coming to New York, he had visions of the ultimate slasher. While the studio saw dollar signs based solely on the marketing of the film. Nothing sells better than New York. Slap a hockey mask on the Big Apple and boom, start printing money. The studio didn’t forget the war on violence. No one stood up against the empirical might of the MPAA, and the religious groups didn’t just walk away from the corpse of Part 7. They were emboldened by the power they syphoned from the mighty Hollywood corpse. This was around 1989 and these assholes were in full power. It literally would read like an opening scroll for a Star Wars. They had far reaching might and a cleaver they used to cut across all horror. Not figuratively, but literally. ALL. HORROR. No one was safe. Like I said this was an absolute nightmare of a time to be a fan of the genre. People who talk about what great things we got from the 80’s in slasher films and horror? It was before 1986. Anything after that, was thrown on the alter of sacrifice.

So what happened with the film? The studio knew it would be destroyed by the MPAA. So to try and up the chance for more money, they decided the film should be less a horror film, and shot more as an action horror film. Quick kills, single blow deaths and quick pacing, action. Faster more intense! Faster more intense!

Quick deaths meant no lingering gore, barely any blood. No time for nudity and sex. Here’s 5 million dollars go make us money!

Turning the movie into an action horror is, a choice. It can be done, sure. But at the time it would be, an oddity for sure. But we still had the premise to look forward too. Jason Takes Manhattan. Ain’t nobody gonna be safe!

Except that cost money. A lot. Of money. Any time you want to shoot a film in iconic places. New York, Los Angeles. It cost money, a lot of money. And New York being the sprawling urban jungle that it is, filming means shutting down life for a lot of people. So filming at iconic well known spots? Shutting those down from tourist and locals. Yeah, that’d balloon the cost. So the director was told no New York. You can have some establishing shots but. No New York.

Which in Hollywood means you better get your ass to the other New York. Canada baby! Yes. Aside from establishing shots, Jason took Canada. So our premise is severely cut down, there will be no gore, no tits, and no rock music. We can’t film at any of the places we planned and Canada has nothing that would fit these planned set pieces. So what do we do with a film where Jason stalks the streets of the big city?

We stretch out the cruise ship sequence!

Originally. As I shared. Jason would just jump onto a random cruise ship, start killing. Ship sinks, hello New York. The cruise ship would count for at most 10-15 minutes. The whole point is get-to-New-York!

So what was going to be a short opening, much like what we ultimately got as the films opener with the large boat somehow on the small pond..lake from The New Blood. Now had been extended to well over an hour. The vast majority of the film they released took place on the boat. Jason spends very little real time in New York. You can kind of see the red flags popping up and waving yeah? It gets better. Somehow, it gets better.  These two films, part 7 and 8 share in common two things, and the same fate. Both were finished shooting at a roughly 2 hour running time, and. This is the weird on. Even knowing they will be severely neutered of all blood and death. Both films had a near legendary amount of gore filmed. Cut out, and lost for all time. No kidding. This film did all this. The original cut of the film was over 2 hours long which would have resolved, at least in theory, a good deal of the sub plots this film setup. Characters would have fleshed out deaths, gory ones at that too, and more time in the land of ice and snow Canada. Possibly. But no. Movie too long, cut it down. Again as well, mass amounts of gore cut out and lost. Tossed away. Some deaths were even changed entirely, because the original deaths were deemed just. I can’t even say too gory. Because the MPAA hated horror to such a degree of loathing that the idea of horror was enough to cause them to write you off and your film. Again that is no joke, it is the truth. For instance, our future filmmaker Wayne the brain and his rocker friend J.J., in the film J.J. is rocking out her flying V in the belly of the ship, having the time of her life. Jason finds her, files a noise complaint. She sacrifices her guitar trying to hit him, but he grabs it lifts it and we get a first person view of Jason smashing the camera(us), cut away she’s dead. Wayne the blood drain is running away from sir Jason of house Voorhees, accidentally kills a crew member, feels bad about it and Jason offers some grief counseling by throwing him into a control panel, which takes out the ships power. Originally though, J.J. gets her fucking head caved in and we see it. They made practical effects for this. A caved in skull, blood and brain splattered. So of course that was removed and made more child friends and less offensive. But the big change was given to the main vein Wayne. This poor bastard originally runs from Jason only for the hockey man to pull some darts off a nearby board and throw them straight through his eyes. This doesn’t kill Wayne. Oh no. Oh hell no. Instead Wayne stumbles around blindly, screaming until he stumbles down a flight of metal stairs, falling face first and getting the darts jammed through his head. I’m giving emphasis to Wayne, not because his character was misused or he deserved better. But because he died several times in this and each time got changed. Even when they switched his death to the electrocution. They STILL tried to make it gory. They filmed his body melting, fire. Burning flesh!

Again! These people KNEW they would be scrutinized. Edited, and castrated. But they still did it. They really tried for some fucking reason. For some. Fucking. Reason. Someone out there cared about what they were trying to do. Only to have it edited down again.

The only kill in this movie that is given props for his brutality(it wasn’t) the only gore(it wasn’t) is the death of our future boxing champion who gets his head knocked off. That is the only death that is allowed to be a Jason like murder. Meanwhile every other death is just oddly shot, executed and completely  out of character.

Which means we have to talk briefly about the story, the plot for what it is.

Seeing as the cruise ship was going to now be more prominently used in the film, that means we have to pad out what wasn’t meant to be. Which means we need additional scenes to stretch this film out. So we achieve this by showing how Jason comes back, and gets aboard the ship. By adding nonsense that makes this even more questionable! We open on Crystal Lake pond from part 7. Where somehow a big boat, a spoiled rich kids family yacht is anchored. Said anchor drags along the floor of the lake , hooking the cabin power line and electrocuting life into zombie Jason, who quickly kills two spoiled kids, including one who conveniently had a yellowed goalie mask for Jason to take and wear on his trip to New York. Jason swims across Crystal lake, or zombie walks on the floor until he finds a portal to the ocean where there is a big industrial boat converted into a cruise ship bringing a bunch of fresh graduates to New York city as part of their senior trip. Which is the first what the fuck of the movie. Usually, as one who occasionally made appearances in High School. Senior trips were things the graduating class would sign up for, pooling money together for a big trip somewhere local and still cheap. Unless you were wealthy. Like these fucks. But I stress, these were for graduating seniors. It matters. Because one of the sub plots in this story is the idea that there is a biology teacher on this ship, who is still doing final exams deciding on who will and wont be graduating. Don’t worry this goes nowhere. So the kids are on the ship, being dumb kids. Flirting, jocks being jocks, girls snorting cocaine. Everyone living their best life. Our main final girl is a writer, with a troubled past. Who is made the center of the world by her odd uncle the biology teacher, and her not the mama English teacher. I say not the mama because Dinosaurs was a good show growing up. But also because the maternal care and attention this teacher shows to the girl is fucking bizarre. I fought with my English teacher. Mostly because they didn’t like that I turned in novels when we were meant to write 5 page short stories. And because I had as she told me a natural writing talent, and chose to waste it on silly stories. Her assistant encouraged me a lot in my writing and to keep writing. But she never once tried to become a second mother to me like this woman’s teacher did. Apparently, the filmmakers felt we needed to revisit the parent dynamic again that didn’t work and was equally as awkward in the previous movie with the mother and doctor. Only now we get a controlling abusive Uncle teacher and English teacher as her parents. Don’t worry, this goes nowhere.

The kids start dying, Jason is jasoning, and eventually the kids figure destroying the boat destroys Jason so their life raft is safe in New York. Only it’s not. Jason follows. Leading to his fist fighting a boxer who thought punching a zombie in a hard fiberglass face mask, bare handed. Only to get his head knocked off. We have a near rape in an alley with two junkies, which gives us an out of character Jason moment where he saves Rennie (yes that’s her name) and kills the junkies allowing her to escape. Only to then show up and kill the teachers. Everyone is dead but Rennie and her potential friend whom is a boy. Leading to the official worst ending in the franchise. When I said how things could get worse, surely things could only get better after the last one. This film decided to outdo itself by giving us the most what in the fuck was that ending. If anyone tells you there are alligators in the sewers of New York? They’re full of shit. If someone tells you the sewers in New York are large labyrinth archways that flood with toxic waste at night? They are telling you the truth. Because that’s what happens. The sewers of New York. Every evening. Flood with toxic waste. Which is the last worthwhile change from the script worth mentioning. Because surely. This ending we got was a bad choice changed from the original which was better somehow right?

Wrong.

So, so wrong.

What happens in the movie as released. The kids run into the sewers, Rennie tosses toxic waste in Jasons face(rude) and Jason beguns reenacting the scene in Robocop with the melting man. He’s in pain. The zombie is crying in pain and lumbering after them. Face melting. He corners them on a ladder, a huge wave of toxic waste is on its way over, and Jason is drowned in toxic waste. Screaming out as it strikes him. The remains of his mask float away, and when the toxic waste flushes out, we are left with not a melting rotted zombie. But Jason as a child. Perfectly undamaged. Because that’s what you fucking get.

The original intended ending? The toxic wave would vaporize Jason. No skeleton, no melting man. He just turns to fumes, his soul is dissolved, he is no more. Roll credits. Well, the studio panicked because that would mean if this thing somehow made money, which it was meant too because New York. Then they wouldn’t have a sequel! No Jason, no sequel! Can’t have that. So it was scraped, How is this worse? Because that was the concept. They decided then to do the child Jason ending. But the one they first filmed, should have told them not to do this. They filmed an ending where after the toxic waste flood rolls away, we would see a large zombie skeleton of Jason. Followed by young Jason breaking free of the corpse. His goodness has been saved. The franchise could continue with baby Jason having been shown. Huzzah!

This ending wasn’t used because. Believe it or not. The look of this child breaking out of Jason was, comical. Who would’ve thought.

That is the, if you choose to call it that, story. Of the film. It’s a confusing mess much like the last film. In the previous film we had Temu Carrie White kill her dad on accident with her powers, try to resurrect him and instead bring back Jason. Plagued with visions of Jason and his weapons taunting her. Most of which ended up being her doctor doing. In this film Jason is tied to Rennie and her trauma, thanks to her Uncle. She has PTSD and a fear of water. Because her uncle the biology teacher was a believer in tough love. If you have a child who is afraid of water and can’t swim. The best thing according to her uncle you can do, is take them on a boat ride to the middle of the ocean. Talk to them about ‘little Jason’ who drowned at the bottom of that lake, and who grabs on too little kids who can’t swim and drowns them. You tell them this, in the middle of the lake. Before pushing them out of the boat and forcing them to get busy swimming or get busy drowning. Sure why not. That part? Makes sense. Someone famously dies there and goes on killing sprees, sure make an urban legend of their original death and use it as a means of tormenting other kids. Not so much adults torturing kids. The confusing part of this comes in her visions. On this trip she begins having actual visions of baby Jason. The director had said he wanted to use the visions of Jason as an escalation of her growing mental state and panic. Jason would go from being a young well-to-do boy with parted hair, to being deformed by having drowned in the water. The more people die around her, the more her visions of him would change. Each vision of young Jason he is pleading with her to not let him drown, to save him. Does this play into the movies final act? No. They drown Jason. It’s meant to mirror her own fear of drowning. The problem is this isn’t really clearly stated in the film. He just appears at random then vanishes. Seeming to have messages for her then vanishing. But each time, he never once looks like he did originally. Jason was a deformed child, as Tom Savini dubbed, a mongoloid. He was shown to be this in the first film and in flash backs through the series. The director didn’t give a fuck. He wanted a metaphor for her trauma and that’s what we got. Because this series stopped caring about continuity in the last film.

So what went wrong? Same as before. You had the MPAA and their bible waiving guardians established and in power, striking down with furious anger and pure certainty anything horror related. Meanwhile you had the studio kowtowing before them to ensure the most screens showing the movie. But we also had help here in the films failure. This was supposed to be a money maker. They went all out on this films marketing compared to the others. I still remember today, when they had on Regis and Kathy lee, Jason. They brought out Kane Hodder in full slimey zombie Jason attire, to do a funny interview where they asked questions, and Jason sat, breathing, giving menacing stares. Posters were everywhere for this thing and you saw a shit ton of ads with Jason, the city skyline, him and the iconic big apple. They spent a LOT on this. Which was the problem. Apparently no one thought to check about copyright and certain images, things that people had claimed ownership of and the film used without a second thought. It was kind of funny to think about but here we are. The sold the film off the concept. They took the famous I Heart New York image and had Jason popping out with his knife. Iconic, fun. Be there!

Only one small issue. The MPAA did not like the image of a knife wielding madman in New York. Because that was not only a stereotype, but violent, you can’t use that in public. Then came the lawsuits. That image so well known and beloved by locals(supposedly) was copyrighted and the studio was given a New York sized lawsuit.

But this didn’t stop Paramount. They new this would be a hit. How could it not? Jason. New York. They made it an event. Press kits, special art and ads were pumped out. Again, my old man memory remembers the teaser that was shown everywhere for the longest time. You had a wide shot of New Yorks skyline, a pleasant voice, all adding up to the back of Jason, turning around to the camera in his mask, and Jason Takes Manhattan on screen.

This is were the failure became complete. You see. In this instance though they played a role in the films failure with sever cutting and blue balling. It was not the MPAA that killed Jason. Twas the marketing.

A $5 million dollar budget. Over 6 million spent in advertising. On top of thousands of ads lost from the lawsuit, new ads printed. And worst of all. YES IT GETS WORSE. See if you can imagine this. When you force down on the public weeks upon weeks of advertising for a Friday the 13th film. No. Event! You pull out all the stops and make this the end all be all film of the franchise. You WILL see Jason in New York! Then the film comes out, and Jason spends 80% of the movie on a fucking boat. People got upset. Imagine that. They were promised Jason attacking New York, only to not get that, and they were mad. Go figure.

How confident are you that you throw more than the budget of the film into marketing the goddamn thing, knowing you won’t even deliver on the fucking premise!

Its maniacal, maddening and pure stupidity to think this was not only an idea. But one they BELIEVED was a good idea! Ignore reviews and how they effect audience attendance. Ignore word of mouth. Surely people will blindly throw money into a franchise that flopped badly its last outing and we’ll make so much on opening weekend we can pump out two more of these fuckers!

Whoops. Nope. Didn’t happen.

This film earned the lowest of all the Friday films and its not difficult to understand and see why. There’s a sad, almost stark contrast between these type of studio films given theatrical release, and those released on home video. Under normal film circumstances, and in the 80’s. A Freddy or Jason film, again believe it or not. Was held on par as releasing a new Arnold or Stallone film. These films were a big deal. People loved them. Imagine the popularity of the Scream franchise and its reboot. The fanbase behind that? Now multiply it by thousands. These movies were big deals, which is funny to think of now given it’s Horror. But its high grossing horror. Meanwhile you also had films like Phantasm, HOUSE. These weren’t little movies by any means. But they weren’t given the same wide release and attention by any stretch that Jason and Freddy were. Those films too got severely struck down and killed by the MPAA. The fault and failure of horror like this was that big studios didn’t put much thought into how badly. Severely over reach by the MPAA and Christian groups could effect their money makers. Sure it makes sense if its just straight to video released films. Those make a minor profit but they won’t be doing any box office breaking. But when you start killing and pulling back what made these films what they are. Well. They learned horror hounds were not simple minded people who would swallow any slop without question. More so they learned when horror characters become icons. Become pop culture figures that appear in music videos, appear on MTV and daytime shows. These films were growing past a certain group of people loving the genre. Everyone was into them and when the MPAA was allowed unlimited power. Conservatives won, and the masses paid for liking a thing.

The funniest part of this, and why it was specifically the holy war against horror that killed a lot of these films? Was the hypocrisy of the MPAA. Allow me to tickle your funny bone, and not the one your thinking.

Two films, very big films came out around the same time as these two films. Two films that were hyper bloody and violent in fact. Any guesses? Robocop and Predator.

Robocop was made hyperviolent by design from the director. Predator was also filled with violent action and gore. We had fully skinned hanging bodies, a spinal cord and skull ripped out of a body, chest exploding. Robocop has a famous and edited but still famous scene of the ED-209 malfunctioning and absolutely turning a man into a mist of blood and ground meat. We had a horrific melting toxic waste man that looked 100% worse than melted zombie Jason. Who was exploded over the hood of a car. Even more so, and I must stress this because it’s one of my favorite scenes in Robocop. We have the obliteration of officer Murphy at the hands of a gang with shotguns. Blowing off his hand, arm leg, half his head.

So how in the name of Tinker bells stinker bell did this get released as is, but Jason, Freddy, other horror icons get their balls cut off and bibles thrown at them?

The double standard of the MPAA and the pure unadulterated hate toward Horror itself. Look no further than the MPAA’s description of violence for proof.

We’ll use Robocop and Jason Takes Manhattan as our two examples. Both were filmed violent with bloody deaths and gore. One was allowed excessive violence while the other was aloud none. The reason being is that films like Robocop were classified as “mythic” violence, which means, you and I can’t go out and buy a .50 cal high powered super weapon, carry it around and blow cars and potentially people away. That type of violence? In Sci-fi is scene as impossible, as imagined and comic book like. So Robocop blowing people away and people seeing his body obliterated is fine. Because it couldn’t be done realistically.

But Friday the 13th however, is Personal, exploitative violence. Meaning that it is grounded in reality. Jason is a slasher. He uses real items to kill people, which means you or I can, like Jason pick up someone in a sleeping bag, slam them repeatedly into a tree and kill them. So this makes the violence personal and real. Which we cannot have. Jeff Goldlum can spit acid and dissolve a mans foot and eat it, turn a baboon inside out, because its purely unreal and comic like.

That is the logic. Because anyone can impale a 170lb body on a wall, cut them in half with a machete, fold a body in half, crush their skull in our bare hands. Use a belt and a tree to split someones skull. Punch a fist through their fucking chest. Because any of us can do this. It isn’t allowed on screen. But shooting someone with over a thousand rounds of ammunition is comical so we’re good on that.

It makes no sense, but this was the standard and it was accepted. Like I said with Hellraiser, two thrust during sex is perverse but acceptable. Anything over that is pornographic. You can show the dildo and use it, just don’t give the head a brim. It’s insanity but it ruled with an iron fist without dispute.

So Jason was brought back to us, only to be dragged through toxic waste and killed, by money hungry producers, ill thought advertising, and a film concept stripped from the film before it was even filmed. Topped off by our friends at the MPAA. These things killed Jason for good. After this film failed Paramount did the unthinkable. They sold Jason, their golden boy and at one time bread winner, to New Line Cinema.

Leading to the next and newest Jason. It did not go well.  This brings us to the curious case of fuck everything lets have fun while butt fucking a franchise we paid for, in a little ditty they called…