YMMV / Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Why did Julius let Jason take a shot at him? Was he Too Dumb to Live by trying to make it like a fair boxing match? Or did he realize that, after his punches had no effect on Jason, he wasn't going to get out of his situation alive and just wanted Jason to end it quickly? Considering Julius didn’t even flinch when Jason grabbed him most likely it is the latter.
  • Was Jason genuinely getting beaten up by Julius in Manhattan, or was he toying with him by deliberately letting Julius tire himself out before he went in for the kill? There are some who even interpret Jason's body language during and after the beatdown as an acknowledgement of respect towards Julius' bravery and effort.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Open barrels of toxic waste in alley ways were actually pretty common in cities like New York City, San Francisco and Vancouver back in the 1980s, the latter ironically being where the movie was shot.
• Ass Pull:
  • Jason manages to sail his way to the Lazarus in one of his victims' pleasure boats despite the fact that, you know, lakes don’t connect to the ocean that way. Especially this lake which has been shown to be as isolated from the ocean as much as possible. It’s never even explained, both In-Universe or out as to how this is possible.
  • Jason also has the ability to teleport now...which he’s never been seen doing before and is never explained how or why he does it.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • While not completely superfluous to the plot, Rennie's Attempted Rape scene seems very out of place in the franchise. It also leads to the only act of Villainous Rescue Jason performs in the entire franchise (albeit unintentionally).
  • At the end Jason gets dissolved by toxic waste in the sewer. After the waste recedes, his corpse has somehow changed back into his little boy body. While it's clearly meant to be a Tear Jerker, it comes across as more baffling than sad.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Not only does Jason somehow manage to punch Julius' head right off, but it falls off the building, rolls down a roof and lands nicely and neatly in a dumpster whose lid shuts right after.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Julius, partially for being an amusing badass who fights back against Jason and partially for his awesome death.
  • Eva is pretty popular too, especially for being played by Kelly Hu.
  • Tamara has quite a following too. Primarily for her hilariously over the top schemes, including trying to murder the Final Girl because she saw Tamara doing drugs. Being Ms. Fanservice also helps as well.
• Fan Nickname: The fact that so little of this movie is actually set and shot in Manhattan has led to wags calling it nicknames like "Jason Takes a Cruise", "Jason Takes Vancouver", and even "Jason Takes a Cruise to Vancouver".
• Franchise Original Sin: Jason (and by some extension Pamela and Roy) have been shown to pop up at the most convenient of times in the past, prompting many jokes that Jason can teleport. Though in the past films it was justifiable, as some of the locations like Camp Crystal Lake, Packanack, Higgin's Haven, The Jarvis residence, and Pinehurst were fairly large sized, so it was easier for both the teens to get lost and for Jason to catch his victims easily (especially in areas he had lived for his whole life and thus would know better than his intended victims). In this film, however, because most of the killing takes place on a cruise ship or in alleyways, there are moments in which Jason straight up teleports to wherever his victims are, as he’s never shown climbing a ladder to grab Miles, nor is he shown to enter the building he throws McColloch out of. It almost makes one wonder if the filmmakers were trying to make him like Freddy in this film.
• Love to Hate: Tamara and Charles are the movie's Hate Sinks, but for some reason are also Ensemble Darkhorses (see above in the aforementioned bullet).
• Memetic Mutation: Jason's breezily trashing a boombox in his path belonging to some thugs once he actually hits Manhattan is one of the film's signature moments, and the subject of many a gif.
• Narm Charm: Jason patiently taking a barrage of punches from Julius, then just calmly swatting Julius' head clean off his shoulders.
• Poor Man's Substitute: The deckhand is more or less Crazy Ralph at sea.
• Presumed Flop: This was the Franchise Killer for the original film series before it was relaunched by New Line Cinema, so you would expect it to have been a flop. It actually turned a profit on its (admittedly very small) budget. This wasn't enough to satisfy the studio, and they sold off the franchise shortly afterwards since it was clear it wasn't making as much money as it used to.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Rennie's Attempted Rape at the hands of some gangsters once the group gets to New York is far more disturbing than anything Jason does. Indeed, his appearance almost seems like a relief, as he does an unintentional Villainous Rescue (he kills the rapists and Rennie runs away while he's pre-occupied.)
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Rocker girl J.J. is played by voice actress Saffron Henderson.
  • One of the two thugs that takes Rennie hostage is played by Michael Benyaer, best known as the voice of Bob in Reboot.
• The Scrappy: Sean gets hit with this status rather hard, usually unfavorably compared to Rick and Will as the worst male lead in the series. He’s generally disliked for his lack of empathy for those he’s lost to Jason’s wrath, including his own father and doesn’t make an attempt to step up and take charge when things get bad.
• Sequelitis: This film tends to be the one most often pointed to as the worst film of the series. Whereas the other unpopular entries in the series tend to be disliked for one particular reason — A New Beginning for having Roy as the killer instead of Jason, Jason Goes to Hell for screwing around with the series' continuity, and Jason X for its absurd "Jason in space" premise — this one tends to be considered much more of an all-around failure, in addition to missing the potential of its premise.
• Signature Scene:
  • Julius bare-knuckle boxing against Jason is undoubtedly the film's most iconic scene and is generally considered to be well directed compared to the rest of the film's mediocrity.
  • The boombox destruction and subsequent confrontation in Times Square.
• So Bad, It's Good: Jason Takes Manhattan is a cheesy late eighties sequel, featuring Jason coming back with rather convoluted means, its nonsensical premise, which also has him being some sort of teleporter who can appear before his victims after they have outrun him.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The unmasked Jason's head just looks like a lump of clay, which is all the more disappointing considering how well he was realized in the previous film. He is also very clearly an animatronic puppet instead of Hodder.
  • When Jason boards the boat in the opening, you can see Hodder's pinkie finger poking through the costume. Actually, you can spot a lot of holes in the Jason costume thanks to Hodder's skin.
  • When everyone is getting off the Lazarus and Jason is shown looking down at the rest, there's a painfully obvious sprinkler visible at the top left of the screen.
  • The lightning strikes that hit the boat just before it sinks, and then the Statue of Liberty in the film's climax, appear to have been crudely drawn onto the film with a ballpoint pen.
  • When Jason stabs the one gang member attempting to rape Rennie, it’s painfully obvious that the heroine needle he’s using is held there by a piece of metal as it pushes up against the shirt. To add insult to injury, it doesn’t look like anybody is even wearing the shirt in that shot.
• Squick: The scene in which Jason vomits is not a special effect. Kane Hodder can vomit on command, and he prepared for this scene by drinking a gallon of water and regurgitating what was left during filming.
• Strawman Has a Point: It's clear the audience isn't supposed to root for McCulloch given his pompous attitude and mistreatment of Sean (constantly mocking him for not living up to his father's image) and Rennie (constantly tries to tell her what to do and for being the one who created Rennie's fear the water as a child). That said, he isn't necessarily wrong when he claims the deckhand is trying to scare them with the fire alarm, as said deckhand has been acting creepy towards them since the voyage started. Plus after discovering the dead body of the captain, the deckhand claims it’s Jason Voorhees in front of a group of scared teens and adults. Even though we know it's Jason, McCulloch had every right to believe it was the deckhand.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This movie has a literal boatload of teenagers. The opportunities of how Jason picks off each teen one by one are endless, yet out of the over 100 teens onboard the Lazarus, only about a quarter percent, maybe even less, are killed onscreen. The rest of the teens were killed by the boat flooding off-screen.
• Too Cool to Live: Julius and JJ.
• The Woobie: Rennie. Like her or not, it's hard not to feel bad, do to her fear of drowning, which the Alpha Bitch uses to get back at her for no reason, and The Reveal that McCulloch is indirectly responsible for her phobia, do to almost drowning her in an attempt to teach her how to swim. Later, she is drugged by two local thugs in Manhattan, who would have raped and presumably killed her if not for Jason showing up unexpectedly.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Principal McCulloch. The audience is supposed to hate him for his Jerkass behavior and causing Rennie's fear of drowning by throwing her into water, in an attempt to teach her how to swim as a child. Yet to many people, his past actions seems to be an act of Tough Love gone wrong at worst, and certainly does not warrant Rennie and Sean leaving him behind to die at the hands of a pursuing Jason. And it doesn't help that McCulloch's jerkass points actually make sense, pointing out the uselessness of anchoring in the middle of a storm, and that they should seek police help when Rennie got kidnapped by the thugs instead of going in blind, or that he conducts himself to the responsibilities and standards of his job, such as when he swiftly and rightly pushes off Tamara when she's attempting to seduce and blackmail him.

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