Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989) *
The tragically titled Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan just might be the first movie that I ever considered a bust, a disappointment, and a great big ripoff.

I remember looking forward to Jason Takes Manhattan because I had already seen Part III and Jason Lives on video and liked them a good deal and, let’s face it, I got all hyped up on promotional material that included the trailer and TV spots, the poster and print ads, and Jason Voorhees himself making a guest appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show on Friday, July 28, 1989, the date of the film’s release.

At that very point in time, I thought Jason Takes Manhattan would be the greatest thing ever in the whole wide world.

Boy, would I ever be wrong on that one!

Let’s see here, where to start, other than none of the human characters are exactly likable in the slightest degree, just like most of the later Friday the 13th sequels starting with A New Blood and running through both New Line Cinema films and the 2009 remake.

Uncle Charles, played by veteran character actor Peter Mark Richman (1927-2021), just might possibly be the most reprehensible character in the Friday series. Other worthy contenders right off the old head are Axel from The Final Chapter and Roy Burns from A New Beginning, but there’s so many loathsome characters in the later Friday films.

Jason Takes Manhattan almost feels like an episode of The Love Boat … seriously, the movie spends far more time on a boat than it does Manhattan. It’s unfortunate that Jason Takes Manhattan came out 30 years before Lonely Island’s I’m on a Boat.

Takes Manhattan? Seriously, are you kidding? More like Barely Walks Through Manhattan! It takes more than an hour of the longest entry in the Friday series to even get to Manhattan, and it’s disappointing even after we get there.

Director and screenwriter Rob Hedden possessed a vision to incorporate landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Madison Square Garden, naturally, but parent studio Paramount decided to be the Grinch and slash the budget for what turned out to be the final Paramount entry after a series of declining returns starting with A New Beginning and continuing through Jason Lives, A New Blood, and finally Jason Takes Manhattan.

They spent very little time in the actual Manhattan, and of course Vancouver stands in for the Big Apple most of the time.

Guess you could say Jason Takes Manhattan paved the way for Rumble in the Bronx, which makes up for featuring even less of the Bronx than Manhattan’s featured in Jason Takes Manhattan by having some absolutely fantastic Jackie Chan action scenes.

The kill scenes in Jason Takes Manhattan are disappointing, just like about every other single thing during the 100-minute motion picture.

In the film’s most famous scene, Lakeview High School boxing champion Julius Gaw engages our anti-hero Jason Voorhees in a boxing match and punches Jason many, many, many times before Jason knocks Julius’ block off with just a single punch.

I’ve always been underwhelmed by that scene, and I far prefer a similar scene the year before in Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

I don’t even want to think about another one of those patented beyond weird Friday endings that leave viewers dumbfounded and stupefied.

Here instead is a transcript of the Arsenio interview.

A: How are you?

That’s good.

You know what I’ve noticed. I see all your movies, man, and you know what I’ve really noticed. You’re angry.

I don’t mean to laugh. Excuse me, it’s just the way I am, but you’re you’re you’re angry.

What happened, man, where did it all begin?

[Long pause]

You know what I mean? Was it a woman? Did you get cut from the hockey team in high school?

What happened? What’s up?

Let me ask you this.

I saw the new movie, Jason Takes Manhattan.

You killed 16 people … I don’t know why I’m laughing.

You killed 16 people and you were responsible for the death of eight others. Total, that’s less than what you usually kill in a movie.

Are you getting soft? Are you losing a step?

You’re trembling, man.

Oh, you brought a clip.

Would you set it up for us?

Set up the clip, like tell them you know how this fits into the movie and what they’re about to see and all that kind of stuff.

Jason Takes Manhattan, here’s his clip.

[Times Square clip plays.]

Working on the streets of New York, did you get a lot of people come up to you to ask for your autograph and stuff like that?

Ever think about doing a musical?

[Another pause.]

I’m running out of questions, man.

Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you.

You didn’t kill anybody with that big knife you used to kill people with, did you change because you were afraid of being typecast as just being a big knife killer?

So what’s next, man?

Some more of Jason Part Nine, I got some great titles I put together.

Jason and the Three Babies. What do you think of that?

Jason’s Big Top would be funny.

Oh … Jason Rabbit.

That would be great.

Oh … When Jason Met Sally … would that be funny?

You don’t do many comedies, do you?

Um … I’d like to thank you for coming by. It’s a pleasure.

(Jason shakes Arsenio’s hand very, very, very strongly.)

Jason, ladies and gentlemen.

Definitely another case where the promotion is a whole lot better than the picture.

Leprechaun (1993)

LEPRECHAUN (1993) One star
“Just turn off your brain and enjoy the movie.”

Sure everyone’s heard that argument before in their lives when you have the sheer audacity not to enjoy a movie that somebody else holds dear. You think it’s dumb, stupid, idiotic, a waste of precious time, et cetera, and you think, hey, wait, how can you possibly enjoy anything by turning off your brain. I found this priceless bit of information on the Internets, “You may have heard that the brain has a pleasure center that lets us know when something is enjoyable and reinforces the desire for us to perform the same pleasurable action again. This is also called the reward circuit, which includes all kinds of pleasure, from sex to laughter to certain types of drug use.”

This train of thought occurred during LEPRECHAUN, a “brainless” film that left my reward circuit rather unrewarded and so my brain traveled elsewhere. I wanted to enjoy the movie, but it was a 92-minute slog that indulged thoughts like, for example, why did I not just watch the far superior KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE again or, after seeing Mark Holton in the role of Ozzie in LEPRECHAUN, maybe I should have looked up TEEN WOLF instead, films that reward my reward circuit because they’re not dumb, stupid, idiotic, wastes of precious time. (Are you glad that you bought that LEPRECHAUN box set for cheap at Walmart in Grove, Oklahoma, boy genius? How are you going to get through that series, especially since you rarely drink anymore?)

“Leprechaun brainless” entered into Google returned 22,700 results and you guessed it, “Just turn off your brain and enjoy the movie” receives airing in the defense of director Mark Jones’ magnum opus. In fact, the first search result calls LEPRECHAUN “a hilariously bad horror movie” and features the line “It ain’t the greatest, but it’s good for brainless entertainment.”

The Cheat Sheet calls LEPRECHAUN the sixth funniest B-movie of all time — TROLL 2 and TOXIC AVENGER top the list and other gems in the top 25 include No. 8 KILLER KLOWNS, No. 9 PIRANHA, and No. 22 PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The Cheat Sheet illustrates the case for LEPRECHAUN with a still from LEPRECHAUN 3 captioned as being from the first LEPRECHAUN.

The only laughs that LEPRECHAUN generated from me are what one might call bad laughs.

What’s a bad laugh?

It’s the experience of the following dialogue exchange, for example, from the Luciano Pavarotti bad laugh masterpiece, YES, GIORGIO (1982).

Giorgio Fini: Pamela, you are a thirsty plant. Fini can water you.

Pamela: I don’t want to be watered on by Fini.

Or the disclaimer at the end of Irvin Allen’s THE SWARM: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hardworking American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.”

Or finding both the killer doll in CHILD’S PLAY and the killer leprechaun in LEPRECHAUN laughable in a bad way.

Did I mention that LEPRECHAUN runs 92 minutes?

Why, oh dear Lord why.

It runs those 92 minutes at a snail’s pace. No, make that at the pace of a three-toed sloth, a mammal that averages a distance of only 0.15 miles per hour.

LEPRECHAUN feels like it moves 15 minutes per hour, so we’ve just seen GONE WITH THE WIND rather than LEPRECHAUN. Ha!

For example, there’s a sequence where the leprechaun kills a police officer that makes five minutes feel like forever.

And that just about describes LEPRECHAUN.

Barring her uncredited role as “Dancer in McDonald’s” in another epic cinematic train wreck known as MAC AND ME (1988), Tory Reding was Jennifer Aniston’s first feature film role. You might have missed her as Ferris Bueller’s sister in 13 episodes of “Ferris Bueller” (TV).

Apparently, Aniston, who’s been in her fair share of bad movies outside her 1999 duo of OFFICE SPACE and THE IRON GIANT (voice work), feels more than a wee bit embarrassed by LEPRECHAUN. I can totally sympathize with her.

LEPRECHAUN is neither good enough nor bad enough to be any good.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

KILLER KLOWNS

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988) Three-and-a-half stars
Sociologists would undoubtedly have a field day unpacking why KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE retains cult classic status.

We can start at the first two words in the title and focus upon our seemingly eternal fascination with both killers and clowns.

Then, our nostalgia for 1980s kitsch.

I don’t know, that’s not why I dig KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, because, to begin with, I don’t quite have the same obsession with killers and clowns that most Americans have or I don’t suffer from “coulrophobia,” the irrational fear of clowns.

I know several people who seriously consider 1980s mass entertainments THE GOONIES, DIRTY DANCING, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, THE BREAKFAST CLUB, et cetera, not only their favorite movies, but they’ll go on record and proclaim their favorite “the greatest movie ever made.” Talk about a conversational cul-de-sac, it’s happened so many darn times over the years especially during college. I lost track of how many times I stood there in stone face silence (like Buster Keaton) while my brain pondered exactly how many films these other people have seen and why they’re stuck in 1987, for crying out loud.

I did not see KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE until many years later, though I always remembered that glorious title before I put the down payment on the DVD.

I love KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE because it’s a demented cartoon (the best kind of cartoon) that has ingeniousness to spare: “The Big Top” for the Killer Klowns’ spaceship; popcorn ray-guns; cotton candy cocoons that produce a dread end for dead humans; an invisible Clown car; shadow puppetry; killer pies; and the 18-foot tall Killer Klown leader known as “Jojo the Klownzilla,” a man-in-a-suit Godzilla parody or tribute.

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE will remind some viewers of Steve McQueen’s debut motion picture, THE BLOB (1958).

You know, kids on lovers’ lane see what could be Halley’s Comet … no, hey, wait, that’s what a crusty old farmer named Gene Green (Royal Dano) mistakes “The Big Top” for when he sees the same unidentified flying object streaking across the sky in the opening sequence and boy, oh boy, that’s a dread mistake for Mean Gene and his poor, poor loyal dog Pooh Bear when they go investigate. Ol’ Man Green speaks a few great lines before his inevitable exit, “What in tarnation is going on?”

Straight out of THE BLOB, teenage sweethearts Mike Tobacco (Grant Cramer) and Debbie Stone (Suzanne Snyder) also investigate further and they go to the local authorities with their findings, centered on “The Big Top” and its inner workings. Our two local authorities, of course, are hesitant to believe these wacko teenagers and their whacked out stories of popcorn-shooting guns and cotton candy cocoons.

Damn kids and their elaborate pranks.

We do have a more sympathetic police officer in Dave Hansen (John Allen Nelson) and I seem to remember every other more sympathetic police officer travels by the name “Dave.” You just know you can have total faith in a guy named Dave.

Yes, at least one more sympathetic police officer did have that first name, “Lt. Dave” in THE BLOB, who patiently listened to and believed the cockamamie stories of Steve (McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut).

Just like THE BLOB, we have one policeman more sympathetic to the kiddos in KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE and then we have Curtis Mooney, who seems like a relative of Dean Vernon Wormer from NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE.

Of course, there’s a brilliant reason for that, both characters are played by the same actor.

The late John Vernon (1932-2005) has a fabulous start to his IMDb biography: “John Vernon was a prolific stage-trained Canadian character player who made a career out of convincingly playing crafty villains, morally-bankrupt officials and heartless authority figures in American films and television since the 1960s.”

He’s great in KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, picking up right where he left off in ANIMAL HOUSE.

Maybe Wormer relocated to Crescent Cove and changed his name to Curtis Mooney.

Cramer plays a protagonist named “Mike Tobacco” and it took me a little bit to remember a character from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY named “Mike Teavee.” Are they distant relatives? While the TV obsessive Mike Teavee brought his obsession to another level in both the book and the 1971 film adaptation, we never see Mike Tobacco smoke tobacco in KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, although we can be sure that Curtis Mooney believes that Mr. Tobacco’s smoking something stronger than tobacco when he descends upon the police station with that “killer clowns from outer space” story.

The Chiodo Bros. — Stephen, Charles, and Edward — are the auteurs behind KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, siblings who specialize in clay models, creatures, stop motion, and animatronics. Their credits, in addition to the main film under discussion, include puppets and effects work for CRITTERS, ERNEST SCARED STUPID, and TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, as well as the Large Marge claymation scene from PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE.

They deserve a spot alongside such icons as Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen.

On a certain level, KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE deals in a nostalgia for animation, horror, and science fiction entertainments of the past.

The IMDb lists numerous references, but the most important ones seem to be GODZILLA, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, FORBIDDEN PLANET, PHANTASM, and ALIEN, as well as THE BLOB, of course, all of which seasoned viewers will be able to notice.

The film’s tagline captures the spirit of the enterprise: “In space, no one can eat ice cream.”