The Tragedy of Jason Takes Manhattan

Tragedy? Absolutely.

Called for? You better believe it.

This film was a tragedy when it should’ve been a grand send off.

But instead we got the weakest chapter in a long standing franchise still stumbling to find its way.

Before delving into the movie and its slide into horrible horror. We should note the highlight the series built itself up to before this film. The Tommy Jarvis storyline. This was a real highlight. It gave further continuity to the series, and a returning character that could stand up to Jason. The character and his arch was loved enough the Friday the 13th game added a way to call him in as one of the very few people and only ways to actually stop Jason in the game.

The character went from a kid with PTSD after repeatedly hacking into Jason, to a troubled young adult sent to a halfway house still trying to cope with what happened, to being a driven man out to ensure the figure that’s haunted him his whole life was for good and all dead and laid to rest. To burn in hell as he deserves. Tommy Wrapped a chain around Jason, tied it to a rock and sent him to a watery grave.

After that, we had a telepath. Raise Jason from Crystal Lake and face off with him. Tina was an interesting character and a good match to go up against Jason. Especially after the Tommy Arch. I wouldn’t take talk about this movie without mentioning this film as well. Because it also ties into the ‘what could have been’ factor. Not many people showed this film the same love they did with the three Tommy Jarvis films. It’s not one of the stronger entries, true. But it did stay true to its roots. Even if those roots were edited down for violence. A sign of things to come.

Jason Takes Manhattan also marked the end of the continuity in the series. How so? Did Jason not come out of the lake where both Tommy sent him, and Tina returned him? Yes. But see the first 6 films in the series all had a ‘Previously on’ type continuity reel it played during the beginning of the film. Each Friday film did this. They’d highlight a few of the kills from the last film. Select pieces of story and dialog. Then fade in to the films start. Friday the 13th The New Blood began with its own story flashback regarding Tina. Setting up events for the films story. This does neither. It simply begins with a small yacht of sorts floating in the lake. Two kids having fun and sex, Jason is revived be electricity under water and sets out killing the two kids. Taking a new hockey mask(Since Tina split the original one he had in the last film) and Jason is off swimming…to a cruise ship that will sail these kids to New York City.

The first and middle half of the film take place on the cruise ship. Annoying kids do annoying things. We have the skanky ho, the smart I want to be desirable girl. The smart I have a troubled past girl, the jocks, a rocker girl and her video friend. A ship captains son who doesn’t want his dad’s life. We have characters on a boat. Jason makes his way through them, and eventually they end up, rowing a boat into New York. Jason walks through the city, the subway, and ends up in the sewers. Where he reinacts a scene from Robocop where we see him melt away. Because New York City sewers flood with toxic waste nightly.

The synopsis I have given you, is better than it deserves, and with a good deal of crap cut out, that only made the film worse. As well as destroyed the origins of Jason. For…some reason?

In the film. Jason had a mild deformity. He drowned in Crystal lake, and haunted the main character from this film as a child. Her father took her to the lake. Pushed her in the water to teach her to swim. Told her about the little Vorhees boy that drowned there and how if she didn’t learn to swim, he’d pull her under.

So through the movie she is visited by odd dream wipe scenes where a young boy is drowning and calling out her name. Her sanity is constantly drawn into question but goes nowhere. When Jason  meets his end, he melts away thanks to the toxic waste flowing through New York City sewers, he begins melting away into a little boy.

This is another oddity in the movie. In the original Friday the 13th. Pamela Vorhees talks about how her son drowned while the counselors were busy not paying attention. He was shown to be, as Tom Savini said. A mongoloid. Head and face deformed. This film toned it down dramatically. Their presentation of Jason as a child looks, well like a normal kid. In fact. In some of his scenes he’s just that. There is a nightmare version of young Jason, which has a small scar and misshapen eye. Then there’s the good young Jason, which looks perfectly normal. The director admitted adding this into the film was done to add a small touch of originality and some Nightmare on Elm Street moments. You can even go a bit further with some of the sets and lighting being a bit Creepshow reminiscent. But the choice with young Jason, Nightmare Jason, and toxic young Jason were sincerely weird. There was even a sequence at the end planned, though thankfully(and rightfully) it was cut out, you can still find bits and pieces of it online and on the blurays. But there was an odd ending shot where as Jason is melting away and we are waiting to see what will come of his rotting melting corpse. They’d filmed scenes with a young boy, inside an oversized version of jason’s melting head. They’d planned to have, well hold on. Let me find my rum for this.

They’d designed a giant sized head of Jason. For a kid to try and fight his way out of, while pleading and cheering on our antagonist for his soul to be set free. The leading actress and actor. While staring down at Jason. Would see a green screened transfer of this boy trying to squeeze out of Jasons slit throat, and mouth. Then we would have close up shots of the same. Eventually leading to Jason melting/taring apart and the boy being left behind. Thus ending the oddity of nightmare and good Jason being freed with the death of Jason. I can understand wanting to do something original, and different. But this is not David Lynch presents Friday the 13th. Though that would be something.

Little Jason has made a few appearances through the film series. Even made it into the big show down between Jason and Freddy. But this film is the first and only time we get to see this version of Jason. Watching the film several times. It still feels, not so much out of place. But never fully fleshed out. Perhaps if it had been? Maybe it would’ve made a little more sense and felt less disjointed.

But that’s the least of the films issues. Believe me

Another somewhat jarring change with this film. Is the editing. No not the downsizing and unironically the killing of the violence. But the editing decisions made by the director.

Mainly the choice to go into slow motion at the oddest times. Jerky camera shots. Most notably the car crash of our heroes into Jason. He transforms from Jason into nightmare young Jason. The car revs up and drives forward. Moments before it strikes. Things dramatically get slowed down. Blurred. Then shot in single frames. Almost like what watching an early DVD was like when it got scratched. The only thing that let you know this was the director having his moment, was the odd music cues that came with it.

But it doesn’t end there. Oh no sir. From there we go into a flaming puddle on the ground. Which the lead actress looks into and slowly the puddle begins to play a far off shot of a rowboat on a lake. Crystal Lake. We go into a flashback showing her being taught to swim, told about(As mentioned earlier) the drowning of young Jason, planting in her head the seed of an evil deformed kid who would drag her down if she didn’t swim back to the boat. Again, a bit of an odd choice, especially when you know you are making what was thought of at the time as THEE final Friday film. By that I mean it’s not so much changing lore, it’s adding to it. She was brought to Crystal Lake, told about the drowning of Jason. So it makes sense that, in her mind. This is how Jason looks. But that’s something left up to YOU the viewer to determine and read into. The film just didn’t really present it as such. The director himself doesn’t even state it as such. To him ‘This is jason’. That’s it. So why introduce these in the last film? Why not keep it simple?

Because this is Jason Takes Manhattan. It has to be big. Bold. New. So go out with, a really odd backstory and change. I guess?

But again with the editing. The film just sort of picks odd moments to do the slow down, or single frame shot scenes. But not so much in the sense of a director introducing it earlier on, then using it sparingly. No. Instead it happens once they arrive in New York. It also plays into part of the actress when she’s drugged and creating a sort of(again) dream scape look to things. It’s just a choice that can seem a bit jarring at times and take you out of the film.

Imagine if you were told there’s a new Twin Peaks movie out. It just came out, no trailers, no hype. Nothing. Just released. So you go there expecting to see some Lynch weirdness and something hopefully not Fire Walk With Me. You know what Lynch does, and likes in his films. The movie starts. It’s not by Lynch but someone else. The movie has things Lynch wasn’t particularly known for. Side by side shots, coherent flashbacks. Peter Jackson style dramatic slow motion extreme closeup, and pull back shots. But during dramatic moments.  It’s not so much you weren’t here to see it, or didn’t expect it. It’s just weird.

I don’t really want to say it’s not what you were expecting, because well that’s the point of films is to try surprising you and giving/showing you something you wouldn’t or weren’t expecting.

Take the beginning credits of the movie for instance. Some people take issue with it, some believe it shows the missing budget of the film. This comes about because the opening shots they show you of New York, are all introducing you to characters we will see later, and will die. Locations Jason will pop up at and vanish. Or destroy. So yeah it does feel a bit like an after thought, maybe something filmed and unused. It’s hard to say. But it is kind of a funny choice. Which I believe plays into what I think is the bigger issue of this movie that was meant to be a proper and huge send off for Jason. So let’s give it a fun title for its own section, shall we?

A Tale of Two Jasons.

That sounds nice, yeah. So tale of two Jasons? This was the big one for me, and it sometimes is the curse of other films sadly. Imagine when you thought about making your own film. You had this grand idea. Location, story. A handful of characters. Going to University and thinking some of those places you walk by would play prominently in the film. Already planning big scenes for them. So you decide lets make it happen! But you have to team up with someone for it. With teamwork comes compromise. They have a vision as well.

There’s involves different ideas for the story. Using their own locations and prepicked out spots with great payoffs. A few lines that absolutely HAVE to be there. But you don’t know about the phrase sacrifice and compromise. So you want to shoot the story you came up with. But work their own story into yours. So you both can have your vision represented and make it work for you in the end. The result is two films joined obviously into one.

This is for me, what ruined Jason Takes Manhattan.

Before they reached the idea of Jason going to the big apple. The idea proposed was, to bring back Tina from the The New Blood. She would be released from a mental hospital and facing off against Jason once more. This idea was passed along to the actress. She was on board but had her own take on the story. She offered an alternative. This time instead of being released from a mental hospital. She would be a psychiatrist, working with troubled teens(or women I recall). The idea then would be Jason running amok in the asylum.

At another point in this exchange they had thought, why not go a little different. Take Jason out of Camp Crystal Lake, and put him on a cruise ship. That’s an adventure all its own! As it turns out. The studio wasn’t liking most of this. They were for the idea of taking Jason out of Crystal lake, but not so much the return of Tina. They wanted a new story. So what they got. Was a director wanting to take Jason to Manhattan.

But they liked the idea of a cruise ship massacre. So they decided to combine the two elements together. Here begins the problem with the film, and loop holes of plenty.

The idea of Jason on a cruise ship? Yeah I’d be down for that. Plenty of things you can do there, and definitely a good number of good locations you could use. Which the movie did use a few of. The same goes for Manhattan.

In fact, the directors original vision was to make a tourist video of New York. The plan was to take the boxing match in the movie, and present it at Madison Square Garden. They also planned on the duo running through department stores, a few cameos thrown in for good measure, and a grand GRAND finale of Jason climbing the Statue of Liberty and then lunging from it. Believe there was even a chase planned across the bridge too. All of these would have been pretty damn incredible to be honest. However the studio said no, because. Well New York is expensive to shoot around, and New Yorkers are not the most cheerful people to film with.

More importantly. When a majority of your already planned out shots and scenes all take place on a cruise ship. But you need to get too New York, and horror films don’t get 3 hour run times. You have to sacrifice. For a film titled Jason Takes Manhattan. It doesn’t spend a lot of time actually there. It spends more time at sea, a portion of time in Canada because. Canada is our cheap New York, and then some actual New York.

Like planning a romantic Ireland vacation, and having to rush on the cheapest tour you can to see some of the sights and use a telephoto lens for the spots you wanted to see but couldn’t afford.

Knowing the film had two different ideas for what it wanted to be, and ultimately became. It begins to make sense why it splits off later in the film. I won’t say the stuff on the cruise ship was horrible or unneeded. It was genuinely fun. The rocker death by guitar in the ships engine room. The dance floor body slam. Shower death. Even the creepy deckhand. These were well worth it and classic Jason. Even if heavily edited down. Damn even the sauna kill. Had the movie stayed on the boat. Would’ve been great. Had the film quickly brought us to New York and found fun ways and locations to off our party members? Even better. But they didn’t. Instead when we get to New York. We have a robbery and attempted rape, a chase through a subway, a fist fight on a building top. A quick walk through Time Square. Eventually finding ourselves in the sewers. Could it have been intentional? They were told they couldn’t film 60% of what they wanted in New York, so you have to pad out the movie. Well we got the boat so why not film more there? That would make sense. Yeah. But as Captain Kirk said when put on Trial…but that’s not the way it happened.

The director has said, as have other crew members. They had used more than the one boat for the cruise ship. Those are not cheap. Filming on the water is very hard. Spielberg learned this the hard way. As did these people. There were some scenes later, mainly the arrival to New York you can tell they shot it on a sound stage. There was at one time some fun deleted stuff where you could hear the echo in the actors voices while they’re on the stage too. Going back to the opening credits of the film, Everyone as I said we are introduced to there, we are shown being killed or visited by Jason. The two men who rob a man, later on end up kidnapping, drugging, and nearly raping our lead actress. A drum of viscus fluid that gets a wallet tossed into it and a rat hanging out is used later for the death trap of a character. The diner we’re shown also gets its door bashed down by Jason, and its lead cook(Who was also a Jason Stunt double AND played Jason in the Freddy VS Jason film) gets thrown through a glass mirror. Even the hoodlums hanging out at Time Square later get their boombox destroyed by Jason. Which again gives fodder for those believing those shots were unused setups filmed when doing the New York scenes. Which I mean. Yeah likely. I guess it’s also worth noting a lot of the stuff filmed first were their New York and Canada shots.

The film ultimately was ill received by fans. People, myself included at the time. Felt ripped off. We were promised Jason wreaking havoc on New York. There was so much promotional material setting this up. Posters that later were removed which had Jason taring through the I heart New York posters. Trailers for the film showing Jason standing IN New York.

So going into a theater, settling in with your popcorn. Then watching Jason takes a cruise then doggy paddles to New York for a few minutes. Well it’s not ideally what you came for. But it’s the film you got. Which again, if it had picked a better spot to stick with instead? Definitely would’ve made for a solid bookend to the end of a series desperately needing it.

Honestly why they didn’t stick with the Tommy Jarvis ending? Who knows. Well WE know. Money. There was still milk in that cows teats!

But seriously. It was a nice ending to the series. Even The New Blood, thought tamer in many respects. Still proved a good ending. This was just an attempt at one last adventure.

Is it the worst? Absolutely not. That still remains with Jason X

I’m not even joking. Imagine being given the reigns to Friday the 13th. Your told it’s going to be amazing. It’s been ages since a good Friday, and Kane Hodder was going to be giving us another performance. Now imagine that movie, all your hopes and dreams. Handed off. To people who had never in their life seen a Friday the 13th movie.

That’s what you got people. All they knew was. Hockey mask. Kills. Tits. The movie was a joke. A horrible joke.

This one however, was just a travesty, and missed opportunity.

The least of my worries and concerns, what I didn’t care to really dig into. The plot holes. They honestly were the worst reasons to hate the movie, compared to legitimate reasons the film just did badly, and was overall. Just bad. But yes I know there are people who whined about ‘How in the hell does Crystal Lake connect to the ocean? How did you get a yatch into the lake? How close were they to New York for the boat to have made that quick a trip? How did they use the subway to get to Time Square when there isn’t one? There are, a few of these.

But again, not legitimate cause to hate the movie. But do I hate the movie? Not especially no. I just wish it held up to what it promised, and should have become. Was more meant to become. Really.

Does it stand on its own in the series?

Is it enjoyable? Or do you pass it?

It is enjoyable to an extent. It’s not something you’ll fall in love with. It isn’t the best or strongest of the series. The music doesn’t really hold up to past soundtracks. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack while writing this. I own all of them up to this one actually. The deaths are fun. Well all of them but two. Two of them were just meh. I will let you decide which those two were. It’s worth a watch. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth a watch. Otherwise I still hold firmly that you can begin this franchise with the first, and end on the 7th. If you want my viewing order? Start with Part 2 and end on Part 6.

In all reality. Concerning this film? It did the best it could. If we lived in a perfect world? This film would’ve been two films on their own. Why not make it a two parter? Make the first part about the cruise. Keep all the characters. Contain it on the ship. Ending with the young lovers and the dog making it off the ship after it explodes. They row to New York, or hell even drift there on wreckage. Then you can end it with the scene of Jason standing at a pier, or like we saw on the trailer. Him facing a Billboard. Spinning around. Roll credits. End it on a cliffhanger promising us that the NEXT movie, is going to take place RIGHT in the heart of New York. Then BAM, sequel. Jason Takes Manhattan. Film it in Canadaland, Get your key New York shots and put it together. There you go.

That could be a hell of a better ending to the series. If you don’t feel it ended with a bang. Don’t give it a groan. Go out with a nuclear blast. I’ve said it before and will continue to say it. Don’t play it safe. Never play it save in a sequel. Let alone the end of a series. Drop your balls on the table and make a show of it.

Otherwise we’re all just farts in the wind.

One final note. I gotta get this out. Especially if I’ve talked this long about that damn movie. The melting. Now. Jason through the years. Has been attacked. Hurt even. But he never makes a sound. He might grunt. Sure. But very rarely. He’s had a machete slapped through the side of his head. Hand split by a knife, Chopped, slashed, stabbed, impaled, hung. Skull cracked, eye stabbed. But never melted. So why not? Sure cool. But when they melted him. The makeup. Jesus Wept.

You can achieve. At home. The same effect of Jasons mutated melting face. Picking up a $10 mask, pouring green dish soap over it, putting three layers of gloves on and whimpering, crying. You will have successfully recreated it. When the melting man in Robocop looks more convincing, and well done. Holy hell. I might just try to find the image of his face melting just to put up and use for this article. It stays with you. It could even be a standard for filmmaking. If you make a movie. And your effects come up. If they look worse than that melted face? You know you need to do some more work.

I am not trying to be harsh. I’m just being sincere. It looks horrid. Even Hodder had to say the mask looked like a Jack O’Lantern. On a pole with strings. I mean holy hell. I watched the movie again in preparation for this article and even then I just. I cringed knowing it was coming. When I watch Exorcist the Directors Cut? I cringe a little knowing the spiderwalk down the stairs scene is coming. It freaks me out. Same with Exorcist 3. I know when the lady in white comes out the hallway suddenly and it still gets me.

But cringing knowing the worst mask ever is coming up. You know you’ve created something special. The director admits you can only see it for so long on screen. Even the time they chose to show it, was too much. Having Kane Hodder actually throw up water? Very cool. But not so cool behind a really crappy mask.

So yeah. See the movie if you haven’t seen it, if you need to see this mask. If your running a marathon. But otherwise. Eh. Really though you won’t miss much. You can toss out and burn Jason X. This one I just. Make up your own mind.