Is Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan’s (1989) Greatest Weakness Also its Secret Strength?

Happy Friday the 13th, reader! If you’re a fan of this calendar-bound horror franchise, you know that they’ve never shied away from false advertising.

Last October, I dug into the marketing cheat code that the producers used to keep their film—and, pretty soon, their whole franchise—somewhat topical at least once a year. (Can you believe it’s been 11 months since the calendar blessed us with a Friday the 13th?) The very first ad that Sean Cunningham ran, however, called Friday the 13th “the most terrifying film ever made,” which was decidedly a lie. Especially when you consider that they…hadn’t even made the film yet.

The sequels are full of untruths as well. Particularly in their title conventions. After the second and third films (which are called “Part 2” and “Part III,” a thing that I hate very much), we got Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, which wasn’t even close to the final chapter. The fifth film, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, was indeed a new beginning, but the entire film is a ruse.¹ And the seventh film, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, was indeed new blood, but its novel protagonist was never seen again.² To cap off this legacy of deception, the ninth film, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, contains not one but two fibs in its name: It was still not the final Friday, and Jason did not go to hell. (At least not until the very end, and even then, we don’t see anything hellish.)

And then there’s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which many of my fellow horror nerds are still salty about. I understand their complaint, though; I used to be on their side, and part of me still is, because the title stretches the truth a bit. But after a recent rewatch, I’ve had a personal breakthrough with this one.

The thing about Jason Takes Manhattan is that Jason doesn’t actually take Manhattan until the beginning of the third act. The film opens with an incredible montage of late-80s New York City that includes street punks, gang graffiti, steaming sewers, an alleyway robbery, a rat swimming in a barrel of sewage, heroin junkies shooting up, a brief voiceover monologue (presumably from a radio DJ or something?), and one hell of a rock ‘n roll ballad.³ But after that three-minute table-setter, the action shifts a state over to New Jersey and the film spends almost exactly an hour in, around, and on a boat.⁴

I used to dislike these first two acts of the film, but my revisit made me realize that I was being unfair. I’d been evaluating two thirds of Jason Takes Manhattan for what it isn’t rather than appreciating what it is. It’s a golden-age slasher flick on a boat! And a pretty fun one at that.

There are plenty of silly moments, of course—such as Jason murdering a heavy metal girl with her own guitar or Jason somehow climbing a ship’s mast at lightning speed to claim another victim—but shouldn’t that be what we want from the eighth installment of a franchise like this? Trying something more serious and affecting and novel would’ve probably backfired. (Just look at A New Beginning or The New Blood.)

Changing locations at the turn of the third act might seem like a bold structural choice, but writer/director Rob Hedden didn’t have much to lose with this property. And the result is a delightful one: We get two slasher flicks for the price of one.

With that in mind, I think that 33 minutes of Jason taking Manhattan might actually be the perfect amount of time. Not only does it effectively distill the genre formula into a lengthy short film—the five survivors from the boat carnage (and a dog!) run around New York City for half an hour trying to escape Jason with hardly any other plot interference—it leans into the campiness of the setting without overstaying its welcome. All of the essentials are here: Times Square, the subway, an all-night diner, the docks, the alleys, even the sewers. As much as I’d enjoy seeing Jason scale the Statue of Liberty or interrupt a Broadway show, a full movie’s worth of New York City could’ve been overkill for a slasher if it was mishandled.⁵

Maybe I’ve grown more forgiving of schlocky horror movies in my old(er) age. But maybe Jason Takes Manhattan is exactly what it needs to be: two of the better Friday the 13th sequels in one 100-minute package.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan was streaming on Max when I wrote this, but now it is not. It is, however, available to rent elsewhere.

1. For those who don’t mind having the fifth Friday the 13th film spoiled: The killer in this one isn’t actually Jason Voorhees, just some random minor character with a grudge. It pretty much sucks.

2. I skipped Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, but there are no lies detected in this installment’s title. Also, it’s pretty solid!

3. The song is “The Darkest Side of the Night” by Metropolis. According to Wikipedia, the director asked the band to write a song “reminiscent of Robert Plant.” And yes, it most definitely plays over both the opening and closing credits. (Some hero called the Springwood Slasher made a music video for the song featuring some of the best moments from the film.)

4. It’s worth noting that the boat is named Lazarus. I think that’s pretty good.

5. It’s important to keep in mind that these films were low-budget affairs. Jason Takes Manhattan was made for just over $5 million. Many of the New York scenes weren’t filmed in actual New York, and the Times Square footage they did capture probably wasn’t cheap.