Forget Crystal Lake, Jason’s coming to New York! Yes were now at the 8th installment of the series and to be honest, the film is easily one of the weakest films in the series (the worst is yet to come).
Jason has once again been brought back to life and is ready to terrorize a new set of characters. The storyline is awful but for pure entertainment you can’t fault it.
By now you should get the jest of these films. Jason is an unstoppable force, but now hes gone from a few Crystal Lake teenagers to Millions of New Yorkers, as he walks the streets he is confronted by gangs and druggies, Do you see them getting away with hassling him? HELL NO!
To be fair it’s great to see Jason out of his comfort zone and being in one of the most populated cities in the world. But it does ruin the whole Crystal Lake Murderer legend. It’s like taking Michael Myers out of Haddonfield, something’s just shouldn’t be done.
Once again the kills are brutal as ever and Kane Hodder’s Jason is greatly entertaining to watch. You just can’t help but feel they could’ve made this better and try and be a bit more creative.
The studios had given up on the scares by now but the franchise still was a cash cow so as studios do they’ll milk the cow dry and that’s what you feel with this film. But bravo for trying something outside of the box for once.
Even though the title and poster set this film in New York it’s surprising how little time is actually spent in the city, apparently that was due to budget issues. You do feel a bit short changed but by now there isn’t much to expect from this franchise.
Like I said earlier, Bravo to the studio for thinking outside of the box and for taking a risk, something which is very rare, especially today.
It is pure entertainment gold and even though it is a weak Horror film it isn’t that bad a film really, as-long as you don’t have high expectations.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
The original posters for the film featured Jason ripping through an “I Love NY” poster. In the first poster, Jason is holding a bloody knife which was cleaned in a second poster for fear that the blood was too graphic. However, both posters were dropped following a complaint from the New York Tourism Committee.
In the scene where Jason reaches through the porthole and grabs Rennie, Jensen Daggett was reportedly really terrified. Her face was just inches from a large and very sharp piece of glass that had become stuck in the window frame, and the actor who played Jason was (unknowingly) pulling her towards it.
In the diner, the man Jason throws into the mirror is Ken Kirzinger, who would go on to play Jason in Freddy VS Jason.
The deckhand who’s warning everybody that they’re “doomed” is based on Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th part I and II
Writer/Director Rob Hedden originally wrote more of the movie to be set in New York. He had written scenes at Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State Building. But Paramount told him that budget would not allow him to spend that much time in New York, so he was forced to rewrite the film and spend more time on the cruise ship. Hedden says he agrees with fans who complain that not enough time is spent in New York, given the title Jason Takes Manhattan.
Vincent Craig Dupree actually cut his hand in the phone booth when Jason shatters the glass around him.
In the scene in the subway when Jason is chasing Rennie and Sean, Sean pulls the emergency brake to knock Jason back. On the poster to right of Sean, sprawled in graffiti are the words Jason Lives
On the DVD audio commentary the director said that the original version was over two hours long and he cut the following scenes for time *Several scenes with Miles, who is shown to have been an Olympic diver *A scene at the beginning where Sean hears that Rennie will not be on board and is disappointed *Several additional scenes with Tamara and Eva were cut *Before Rennie gets pushed into the water there was a longer conversation between her and Colleen *A scene of Eva meeting with the group on the bridge and then leaving to find Tamara *A shot of Rennie touching Jason after he is electrocuted on the railroad tracks
In the original script, when Jason makes it to the dock, a dog starts barking at him and he kicked it. Kane Hodder, who was playing Jason, felt that kicking the dog was going too far and so the scene was dropped.
Kane Hodder says that one of the most fun parts of his tenure as Jason was the scenes in Times Square. He says that spectators were lined up and down the block watching the filming, and he didn’t want to take off the mask to destroy their illusion of Jason. He said that every once in awhile, he’d turn his head and look at them, and watch them all go crazy.
In one shot, the subway bears graffiti reading “Quayton lives”. Quayton was part of the name of a high school band that director Rob Hedden was in.
According to an interview in Fangoria Magazine (August 1989), Kane Hodder vomited on cue in the final scene after drinking several pitchers of water. This was not a special effect.
Elizabeth Berkley and Deedee Pfeiffer auditioned for the role of Rennie
This is the feature film debut of Kelly Hu, who plays Eve.
Despite the nature of the film and adverse filming conditions, Kane Hodder provided several moments of levity which were appreciated by the cast. Following several death scenes, for example, once director Rob Hedden called “cut,” Hodder would do a brief disco dance in full makeup, making the cast laugh.
Forget Crystal Lake, Jason’s coming to New York! Yes were now at the 8th installment of the series and to be honest, the film is easily one of the weakest films in the series (the worst is yet to come).
By now you should get the jest of these films. Jason is an unstoppable force, but now hes gone from a few Crystal Lake teenagers to Millions of New Yorkers, as he walks the streets he is confronted by gangs and druggies, Do you see them getting away with hassling him? HELL NO!
Once again the kills are brutal as ever and Kane Hodder’s Jason is greatly entertaining to watch. You just can’t help but feel they could’ve made this better and try and be a bit more creative.
Even though the title and poster set this film in New York it’s surprising how little time is actually spent in the city, apparently that was due to budget issues. You do feel a bit short changed but by now there isn’t much to expect from this franchise.
It is pure entertainment gold and even though it is a weak Horror film it isn’t that bad a film really, as-long as you don’t have high expectations.