348: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Show Opener

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun It's a special forces Jason dude

Greetings & Salutations

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season greetings and salutations and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Stay calm, grab the life preserver. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

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Totally killer, pun intended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies for the perspective we gain from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and this week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Watch your mouth, young man.

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The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

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It can be smooth, it can be rough, it's your choice.

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And the paranormal paramour, Binx.

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Maybe some of us don't want our features

Movie Introduction

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predicted.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

This week we're following tradition and commemorating the spooky holiday by checking out its iconic franchise. When last we visited this franchise, a hockey masked killer was sent to a watery grave by a teenager wielding telekinesis. Unsurprisingly, this week's film shows he's back at it again. Because one year later, Jason Voorhees is accidentally awakened from his watery grave and finds himself stalking a ship full of graduating high school students on their way to New York City. The film grossed only $14.3 million at the box office on a $5 million budget, making it the lowest grossing film in the series at that time. And it was this poor performance that led to Paramount selling the franchise rights to New Line Cinema. This week, we're talking about Friday the 13th, part 8, Jason Takes

Spoiler-free Discussion

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Manhattan. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

I thought I had, and then I realized nope, part seven was the furthest I'd made it, and I've seen clips from this movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Oh man, I have such a distinct memory of this film. More of when I watched this film for the first time than what the film actually was like, but I remember specifically going to Blockbuster with my dad many, many years ago and looking for a movie to watch that night. And I was probably, I don't know, I was probably like 10 or 11 or something like that. And this was one that I had never seen before, so we snagged it.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, I have definitely never seen this one before, but I have seen the still of Jason in Times Square for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I've seen this movie so many times. And Mac, you mentioned that you've seen clips of the movie. I think we've all seen clips of the movie. In fact, when last I watched this movie, it was in Scream Six when this film cameoed in that movie. Great time all around. But I am curious, Mac, once you realize that you hadn't seen it, what were you expecting?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

I was expecting a lot of cheesiness because when Jason became truly supernatural, things just continued to get cheesier and campier. So I wasn't sure if it was going to be comedic style camp or just really just a lot of cheese.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

That's fair. Teens, sex, murder, camp. Is there anything else that you would expect from a Friday the 13th film?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Definitely not, since I have only really liked two of the films so far in this entire franchise. I expected really cheesy, I expected terrible acting, silly kills, impossibilities for sure, and I think I got that most definitely.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I really one day want to roll back the tapes and just have you go through every single one.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I watched a lot of them to prepare for the ones that we did most recently, and I regret that.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Alright, well, that is a definitive and strong thing to feel. But I'll tell you this, I felt a lot of shit during this movie. I really want to just take a moment to thank Nathan, who watched this movie with me last night. Because the premise here is really something. I watched this with him, and I've seen this movie what feels like countless times. And you know what he did? He pointed out in true Nathan fashion, and Nathan is our hackerslash historian, by the way, in such such an obvious detail that I never cared to even once consider in my suspension of disbelief. How are these fuckers taking a boat ride from an enclosed lake to New York City?

SPEAKER_05 4:14

Dude, that's what I'm saying. How the fuck do you get from Crystal Lake to the Atlantic fucking ocean?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

The crazy boat guy says he he went up the river.

SPEAKER_05 4:24

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

What river from the lake? What?

SPEAKER_05 4:28

I need to see a geographical map that maps out Crystal Lake to the Atlantic Ocean that a fucking boat is getting through.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

It's giving Pocahontas just around the riverbend for Jason Voorhees.

SPEAKER_05 4:38

Oh my gosh. But that's what this movie is. It just feels absolutely ridiculous from start to finish. The plot feels ridiculous. The logic in this film, it's ridiculous. There is none. Despite the many flaws in this movie, I do still feel, you know, some of that Friday the 13th charm. It's like it's there somewhere behind all the bullshit. But overall, the greatest feeling here is just ridiculousness.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

I would agree. That's a great summary of almost every single moment, every single kill, all of the effects. It all just feels completely ridiculous. That magic war off, I think, probably in the previous film for me, it just starts to get a little long in the tooth when we have to find new inventive ways of bringing him back from the dead so that he can kill some other people. There's just something here that feels a little bit overdone.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Look, I mentioned that my expectations were definitely met. And the biggest example of that was in the middle of the opening credits, the song cuts and starts from the beginning again, which is evidence that the editors don't even give a damn. And if you want to know what I'm talking about specifically, just wait until it's an announced that Kane Hodder is Jason. You'll know the moment. I felt like this was just like all the other films that precede it, just the same old camp absurdity that I didn't really find very fun. And the biggest feeling I got was that I was tricked because this felt like a crossover between Ghost Ship and Friday the 13th. This film should have been called Friday the 13th, Jason Takes a Ferry.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, it could have been. Jason takes a boat ride towards Manhattan, gets off somewhere in the subway, maybe. You know, Binks, you mentioned the song break, and holy shit, I never noticed that. Again, these small things that are like, who the fuck am I watching this a million times? But let me tell you what I was caught up on. The opening credits of this movie capture the exact energy behind my reasoning of never wanting to fucking visit New York. And I get it, but not all of this movie was filmed in New York. Very little of this film was filmed in New York, even less than you might think at first glance. But the opening credits, it it shows all this gritty, dingy energy, like rats are drowning in steel bins of pollution and garbage. I can fucking smell this movie. And this is what's in my mind anytime someone talks about New York City. I just want you to know. That was my overwhelming feeling. But a couple other things that surprise me. One, I don't remember the opening monologue in this movie. It's like a radio DJ having some kind of voiceover. I completely fucking forgot that. I realized that you're in for a good time, not a long time, or really even a cohesive time with this movie. So I have very selective memory, but obviously the biggest disappointment I'm sure we all have for a movie that's called Jason Takes Manhattan, there's not nearly enough Manhattan in this one. Muppets Take Manhattan was a better representation of Manhattan being taken.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

Not the Muppets.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Quiet Place Day One, better representation of Manhattan being taken.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

It's true. I mean, I think a lot of people have said that they are disappointed or didn't like that the movie doesn't really take place in New York long enough for the movie to be called Jason Takes Manhattan. Truthfully, I also did remember being disappointed by that as well. However, I was a little bit surprised after not seeing this movie for so many years that it takes place in New York for like 30 minutes, which is way longer than I remember it taking place in New York. So I will give it that, but goddamn, the most surprising thing in this movie for me is really just how they bring this guy back to life. It's just fucking amazing. I'm not going to tell you how they do it now because you got to wait for the spoiler zone to fucking talk about that shit, but they truly find the most absurd ways to bring this guy back from the dead, especially in these later installments.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

For me, the biggest surprise, aside from what you guys shared, was going back to like the entire production team. It's so evident that they really give zero fucks in this film. The sound design is just getting worse and worse as the franchise goes on. And aren't we supposed to be getting more money or at least have more access to technology? I'm so concerned by the way that these films are created because it's like less and less care, just throwing things on the wall and seeing what sticks every time, to the point where it's getting to costume design, production design, set design, everything. Just no one cares at all.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Wow. I really want you to watch Crystal Lake Memories documentary exploring the entire franchise of Friday the 13th.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

It's good.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Quote me if I'm wrong. I think it's about six hours long.

SPEAKER_05 9:24

Yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I was actually watching it today. Well, I say watching. I was listening to it while I was fucking around prepping my notes and also playing a little Baldur's Gate 3 and a little headache earlier. But I let that shit play on for hours until we got to Jason Takes Manhattan, and I had to tune in a little bit. Honestly, though, it is a really great documentary. Some people did care.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

Give it a whirl, Binks.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Julius in this movie, super cared. Bless his heart.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

It didn't seem like it was carefree to me. It seemed like there were some intentional choices that were just in the wrong direction. For instance, uh, you know, in New York City that seems more post-apocalyptic than it does accurate to the time in which we are. It was interesting. The the choices they made here for things like Gore were a little disappointing for me. The kills were very underwhelming here. We didn't see a lot going on. We saw a couple kills. The rest of it was all like hinted to, and we can definitely get into that more later. So I'll mention a pleasant surprise, and that is Charles is played by Mark Richman. And I'm looking at his face, thinking the entire time, I know this dude. Where do I know him from? I'm sure he's been in older movies or shows that I've seen, and I realize it's from Star Trek The Next Generation. That's how I know him. He played in an episode called the Neutral Zone, and basically he's a dude from the past that got cryogenically frozen, so he could, you know, have his whatever issues cured and then move on. And he's so focused on business, and he's got like lawyers to call, and he's basically the same kind of guy, but in a gentler universe with aliens in it. Is it's so weird because I'm like, oh man, his like personality is kind of the same where he's so business focused and so focused on his own shit. Maybe it is the same guy. Maybe there's a crossover here.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Not you being pleasantly surprised by the literal worst fucking character in the whole movie.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

That's true, but I knew that guy's face. You know, I just I knew that I knew it.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah, I wish I didn't know it. His face was one of the scariest things about this movie.

SPEAKER_05 11:15

Well, that says something because I don't think anyone is gonna get frightened by watching this film. There's like a couple jump scares here and there. There's also some fake jump scares or misleading moments sprinkled in there as well, but overall, I can't see this one really scaring anyone.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

This is grab some pizza and a beer and have a couple laughs with your friends. That's honestly what this movie is. Even by Friday the 13th standards, this is tame. This is mild at best. This is salsa that you think is supposed to be mild, but it's actually sweet. No heat whatsoever.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Oh no. This is pineapple mango salsa, which is actually very good. No, it's not good enough to be that.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Yeah, without the jalapeno or something, so it's just sweet. You're just eating chopped up fucking pineapple.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, no, thanks.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

You're eating a smoothie, effectively. I don't know why we needed Jason to become Arthur Curry. We didn't need a water-focused Friday the 13th. There's always a water focus, but we don't need to be sailing on the water. There's so many other films that make water travel look scary, like White Squall, one of my favorites. I had to watch that movie 50,000 times as a teenager for whatever reason in high school. And eventually I realized I actually liked the film. But that film makes being on water scarier than having Jason on your ship.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

I don't have much more to add because I couldn't agree more. It's definitely more of a laughing stock than an actual fright. But I also feel like it's obviously not original either. I think I've said this in the past where if anything, the originality points I'm going to give to the audacity that they have to continue this franchise and continue to invent something. But if I really had to say something else, I guess it's the pursuit of healing Jason's inner child is constant. It's never ending. And there's only so many failures of that that I can personally take. But go off, I guess. Just continue to give us the same thing, just put him putting him in a new location.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

You know what? I love how aligned we are because the healing of the inner child is the through line for this entire franchise. Got so many notes on it for later. It's honestly suspiciously restorative. This movie does have some some audacity though. Listen, it's copy paste what you would expect for Friday the 13th, but it does so in a new setting, semi kind of for some moments. But then it also manages to dial itself back. So listen, you go into Friday the 13th, you're not expecting original. You're expecting more of the same. So I think this movie delivers what it promises, except for the main promise of being Manhattan. Sorry, miss me with all that.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Yeah, you know, I think if you're going to an ice cream shop, you expect new flavors of ice cream, but you don't expect them to start carrying hamburgers necessarily. And I think that's a good expectation here. You're gonna get more Jason kills. Unfortunately, that we didn't get a lot of violence with those kills or really much any, you know, of stuff on screen. But I think it is, like you said, just more of the same. This time they added Sherbert, you know, we had uh peanut butter last time.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

Yeah, you know, I think the only original aspect of this film is literally them trying to place Jason in a new setting for the first time, because this is really, if we think about it, the first time that we get to see Jason venture away at all from the camp type setting for the most part, right? I mean, we see him in different areas, and maybe it's not all like legitimately at Camp Crystal Lake, but it's always in some kind of remote, woodsy fucking type place, right? And this is the first time that we get to see him take a little bit of a longer trip.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

It's actually a brilliant idea if you think about it, though. I mean, if you had said Freddie Krueger's moving to Atlanta, that would have been really interesting. Maybe would have tuned into that. But they that does get some credit. We're eight movies in now, and he's moving cities. That's a big deal. You know, it's a really big deal. Because Camp Crystal Lake is iconic, but you can't just do it for 12 movies, or can you? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Something that I do wish was a bigger deal was the ending. I wish they had taken it more seriously because holy shit, by the time we get to the point where an ending needs to happen, we still got 45 minutes left of the movie, first off. Second, when we get into the ending of this movie, dang, it is just absolutely absurd. Now, again, not to take away from Sean and his ability to find things charming, and looking at you, Hellhouse L C3, there is a level of charm to the ending of this movie with how fucking over the top and goofy and fucking wild it is. There absolutely is.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

That's what I'm saying. But holy shit. Uh the charm is there somewhere. That's what I said earlier. Look, it's there. I don't think that the ending of this movie is great by any means, but I do think that this movie was at least able to give us somewhat of a definitive ending to what many fans believe to be the end of the real Friday the 13th franchise before Paramount sold the franchise to Newline Cinema, and then we just go fucking bonkers from there.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Pretty sure we went with bonkers way before that. Just saying.

SPEAKER_05 16:23

Oh man, it gets more bonkers, trust me.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

That's true. But I do love me some newline, especially in the 90s. I think that was some of the best content out there on VHS. Just saying.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Dude, you ain't seen nothing yet.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Can't wait. Oh, I've seen clips. I've seen clips of the future of Jason. So I think the ending might be one of the strongest parts of the film here and one of the most ridiculous. We mentioned that everything in this movie is ridiculous. And there's several moments here that are like Hobbit films, you know, where it's like, oh, is this the end? Okay, no, no, not the end. Okay, we're gonna keep going. Okay, is this the end? No, we still have another 15 minutes. Great. Okay, what are we gonna do next here? But parts of it were just really entertaining. Some of the choices they made for some of the fake outs were really good, I think. Mind the gap. But no, I think, you know, the ending is strong. It's not that it's a good ending necessarily. It's just that compared to the rest of the movie, it's got some strength to it.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Y'all are so kind. And good for Friday the 13th, part eight. Good for them to have such kindness on this podcast towards them. And then there's me, I suppose, but that's fine. I will say, actually, I'm gonna try to be c kind now. I was a little too harsh on the production team. I'm gonna give a little bit of some kindness to those in the practical effects and makeup department because this ending they carried on their back. That's that was all them. That was quite honestly the only reason that I didn't probably turn off the TV. I was thinking of Lover's Lane and how I watched that movie in 2x speed, and I thought to myself, maybe this is the moment where I do that because of those constant fake outs. And it got to the point where I was like, that's right. I guess the movie is called Jason Takes Manhattan, because I was so convinced that they gaslit me into thinking that this was another film that by the time that we get to the ending, I was like, oh, there was something going on here the whole time. So we can call it charm, we can call it gaslighting. I'm not sure yet which one it is, but it was an ending, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_05 18:25

Not the gaslighting.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

She really said this is emotional manipulation and robbery. Well, I think it's clear where we all stand, but I can't wait to see what these ratings have in

The Gore Score

SPEAKER_01 18:35

store for us before we actually score this film. Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_05 18:39

Well, you know, Mac, you hint at it, you hinted at it earlier. The film does this cutaway kill scene bullshit a lot of the time, probably due to budget, I'm not sure, but these films have always been semi, you know, low budget, semi-high revenue films for Paramount where they can just cash in and not really spend a lot of money or thought, even sometimes, some would say, right? But we do get to see some little snippets of cool stuff in this movie. Some of the gore doesn't look too good, some of the blood looks like Kool-Aid more than it looks like blood, but that's besides the point. But after that, if we were to get those moments fully on and let the visuals linger a little bit longer, that that might have been something. Could have given this movie maybe a higher gore score, I'm not sure. But because we didn't really get all of those full-on kill shots and we really didn't get the full frontal visuals that we want to see, and the really good gore and practical effects that we really wanted to see. This one is getting a medium low gore

The Animal Report

SPEAKER_05 19:40

score.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

And what about the animal report? So I will be giving this film its flowers for the animal report because Jason did not harm a single animal, so we are safe.

SPEAKER_05 19:48

Thank God they didn't kick that dog like they were going to.

Scoring

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Well, let's go ahead and get into our readings then. Friday the 13th, part eight. Jason takes Manhattan from 1989. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_00 20:00

I'll go first because I think we can obviously tell where this is going for me. I said before that I should stop watching the franchise while they had me with a slash with part six, and that statement still runs true. Yes, these films are intended to be on the lighthearted side and not taken seriously, but even on that front, I didn't find any bit of this really entertaining. For that, I'll turn to Nightmare on Elm Street franchise for sure. Not only was the title of the film incredibly misleading and damn near impossible, but it just wasn't an ounce worth of my time. So sorry, Jason, you're still a giant hack.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

Here's the thing with most of the Friday the 13th films: you're never really going in expecting to get a super deep, super serious horror film. I I think fans like this franchise because the formula of sex, violence, and overall campiness is almost like comfort food in a way. And as flawed as this movie is, as absurd as this plot is, as ridiculous as it may be to keep finding ways to bring Jason back to life might be, it's still mildly entertaining to watch. And that's what this franchise does extremely well. I don't think Paramount really cared to put too much thought into these movies, but they made them easy money. So they ended up putting one out every year almost in the 80s, right? It was just back to back to back. And I think this movie actually marks the end of an era for these 80s slashers where Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare in Elm Street were releasing movies in the same year every year. So that's to me an end of an era. It's tough though, because by any given definition, you have grounds to hack this movie. But I think that there is a certain charm to this film and the films that preceded it, and it will always have a guaranteed spot in my big four, franchise wise. If you don't know what my big four is, this is my big four of slashers, much like the big four. In Thrash Metal. You know, you have Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, and I have Halloween, Nightmare in Elm Street, Friday the 13th. And it's kind of a toss-up between Chucky and Hellraiser for the fourth spot there. That being said, just to get back on track with everything, do I think this movie is great? No. Do I think that this is the best film in the franchise? Not by a long shot. But I do find something mildly entertaining about this film, and there is a certain appeal to it. This kind of like, I know what to expect out of this feeling. And so I think that this movie has every right to be a hack, but it is somehow deserving of a slash because I still find myself having a good time watching this movie and so many others in this franchise. So just like this movie hangs on a fine thread of any logic, this movie is just a barely hanging on by that thread slash for me.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Goodness, there's some stuff that you went over. You know, people go to McDonald's, even when they're visiting a new city where they could get new local food because they know what to expect. They want those chicken nuggets that taste like the chicken nuggets they have at home. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like you said, that could be comforting for them. That's definitely what you're getting here. This is more chicken nuggets. But you don't go after this movie when you're looking for, you know, duck. If you want duck confit, go get some duck confit. This is not that. These are McDonald's chicken nuggets. It's 2 a.m. Nothing else is open. And you just you want to buy 20 of them. All right. That's what's going on here. Well now I think where this film falls short is in its delivery of that. There's some moments here that really could have been fleshed out more. There's some other moments we just didn't need. There's some characters that are rightfully annoying and get what's coming, and there's some other characters who didn't deserve it. But that's, I think, what you always expect going into a slasher movie. The characters are weak, they're two-dimensional, there's really no depth to anyone. We barely care about people. I spent most of the movie going, is this main character related to other main characters that we've seen? Oh, I guess not. I think I missed something here. But that's okay. You know, again, expectations should be low. It is absolutely ridiculous. And I think where we got let down is mostly in Jason, in a way, because Jason can do better. Jason can have more interesting work than what we got here. So it's on the line. This is one of those where you have to use the context when grading it, but at the same time, it's kind of crap. It's a crappy film. While it is a total joke, it's not a waste of time. So I'm gonna give it a 51% slash.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Binx is so sad and so disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Oh, I'm not sad or disappointed. I'm shocked and appalled, and I think that somehow you guys have been bribed.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Not at all. I think this relates to just like the whole binge watch effect, where if you've seen so many, and especially in a row, you start to lump them all together and considering the good of the franchise over any failures of one particular film.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

That's not fair because we're reviewing this one, not the whole franchise.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yeah, but it's fun. Oh Jesus, keep going.

SPEAKER_05 25:00

Horror movies are like the one genre where you can be bad and still be semi-good. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah. You can be bad, but there's an art to being bad. And that's where I think the Friday the 13th franchise has really carved out its own niche. It really had to solidify and grab a hold of that. Because let's take Halloween. Halloween was a very serious first film. You get other movies in that franchise, while I may love them unconditionally, they're not objectively good and they lose their identity. Friday the 13th is painfully consistent in how fucking terrible some of this shit is. It's pretty great. And it's honestly something to be admired. This movie though, Sean, you already said it. This movie is not great. There is a lot in here to hack. In fact, I think Mac, you even said it's a 51% slash. You know, when I was going through my notes and I was really sitting with my feelings on this movie, I thought, shit, am I gonna just have to slash it so I can go through this long list of worst parts in the movie, or do I hack it to give it a few specific compliments? And really what I had to consider was how much fun this movie is in the experience with other people. And that is something that I think is a testament to the Friday the 13th franchise. There's a level of whimsy and fun that brings it back around, away from hack territory, and that's a really special place to be. This movie does not take itself seriously. Kane Hodder himself says Jason should not be played for laughs, but I'd also argue that's where he's at his best. And there are moments where I'm laughing at it, but there are also plenty of moments where I'm laughing with it. It's a fun time to watch with friends, and for as many pitfalls as it has, there are redeeming qualities for it. So it does just enough to earn a slash. Not uh put this at the top of your watch list slash, but a yeah, you're not gonna completely fucking die watching a Friday the 13th binge on this film. If you can fucking survive the telekinesis of the last film and you can survive going to hell in the next film, you're great right here. And with that, Friday the 13th, part 8, Jason takes Manhattan, although dishonest in its title, has earned one hack and three slashes, much to Binx's dismay. But there's a lot more to discuss here when we return from our break. Now, if you've already seen this one before, what would you rate it? Please do let us know. Are you as upset with us as Binx is? You can join that conversation for free in our Discord server. You can find the link to join in our show notes. And if you haven't seen it yet, you can follow the other link in our show notes to see where you can watch our streaming right now. When we return from our break, we'll dive deeper into that spoiler zone territory and Binx's shocking of all for us. We'll see you in a bit.

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SPEAKER_03 28:03

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Welcome to the Spoiler Zone

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Welcome back, folks. You are now entering the spoiler zone for Friday the 13th, part 8. Jason takes Manhattan, which has earned one hack and three slashes. We have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings and Binks' disappointment

The Body Count

SPEAKER_01 29:22

in us, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_05 29:23

Well, let's go through them because we have a surprisingly high kill count in this one with a total of 51 kills. And admittedly, this kill count gets a nice little bump with the semi-accurate, like 29 deaths or so from the rest of the people that drowned in that boat that sank. But aside from that, we do have a lot of really fun kills as well as a lot of really dumb ones. So I gotta ask, what were your favorite kills?

SPEAKER_03 29:51

I have a big favorite and kind of a small dishonorable mention. The big favorite depends on how you think about things, and that's Jason himself. And I think it kind of comes in multiple parts, right? Because the melting of the face, absolutely ridiculous. It was giving me Raiders of the Lost Ark, and for whatever reason, that just hit home. And I thought, wow, this is the kind of camp that we actually needed was that cheesy, animated melting face trying to move as if it were speaking with a child's voice. That was fantastic. And then of course we drown again and call out for mommy. But yeah, that face shot and then the kid thing, that was just so utterly over the top.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

It really was over the top. I don't know how Jason goes from, and actually you and I may be same, same but different on this. He goes from looking arguably some of the best he's ever looked in this franchise to the worst. Immediately in like five seconds. It's like when you look at someone and you think they're really attractive, but you turn around and they have a witch's nose and a gigantic fucking mole or something. I don't know. It just seemed really terrible. I hated every second of that. Absolutely awful. What was also awful was little baby sweet baby boy Jason going from completely normal looking in the flashback in the beginning to becoming progressively more and more and more deformed.

SPEAKER_05 31:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

And then all of a sudden, completely healed at the end, because again, thanks to Binks and the power of therapy, his inner child is healed.

SPEAKER_05 31:17

Yeah, I didn't get that. I didn't understand how each hallucination or what bullshit have you went down where we see Jason, young Jason, throughout the course of this movie just getting uglier and uglier and uglier.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I think they were trying to be profound with that. And instead it just read as them forgetting what they had him look like prior.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Oh shit, the uh effects are still baking. Just get in the water, kid. You're fine.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

Some of the theories, though, for that, some of the theories that I have read around that specific thing is maybe we don't know. These characters, right, never knew Jason. They never saw Jason as a kid, and so maybe they envisioned him a little bit differently. It's far-fetched. It's far-fetched, but this is these are the theories that are floating out there as to why this is happening in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

The fact that there are theories, okay, that are circulating about this film is also hilarious. It's just like, guys, it's not that deep. I promise you. The water is maybe somewhat deep, but not deep enough. But as far as this film, like there's no need to have lore and theories as to why he looks different. Most likely they just forgot.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

People love this shit, and that's fine. I respect it. Actually, one of my favorite moments in that Crystal Lake Memories documentary is one of the filmmakers talking about how happy, you know, people talk a lot of trash or like they'll write and complain a lot about a movie. He was like, Oh man, anybody who cares enough about this work to dedicate so much time to like having an opinion on it, I feel grateful for because that's what keeps them in the business. So, yeah, get on these people for having theories. However, to go back to the theories of it all and these people who never fucking knew Jason, again, I'm gonna point it out to Eagle Eye and Nathan out here. Jimmy and Susie, in the beginning of this movie, he's telling her the lore of Jason Voorhees. He then is wearing a mask, and the billboard that we see later on would have you think this is just what all hockey masks look like with the red markings and all that. However, he also has the axe mark or the machete mark in the fucking crack. It is the mask.

SPEAKER_05 33:26

It's the mask.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

The fucking mask.

SPEAKER_05 33:29

Where did he get it?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

It's a leap from these people have never seen him to oh, okay, maybe they're now getting it the more they imagine him and hallucinate him. To then also this idea of okay, well, if it was just a mask, it'd be a Bobo knockoff mask. It'd be like the Wishbrand Jason mask. It would be Roy's mask from the other Jason movie.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Yeah, it's really best not to look too far into this stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_01 33:53

I'm just gonna keep it moving.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Let me take this time then to tell you about my dishonorable mention, and that was Susie. Because for whatever reason, Susie's death, he stabs her with that little trident thing in the softest way possible. It's almost loving.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

He's so tender. It looks like it should have snapped off right in half.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

It's almost like it should be the fake one from earlier.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

I would like to give another dishonorable mention then in your spirits or her boyfriend Jimmy, because the inner tube intestines in the beginning, what the fuck? Oh, yeah. None of that shit is in your body. All right. I don't know that we're getting all loosey-goosey here. The budget is the budget, and when you have to pay the permits in New York City, I guess fuck it, you gotta take some compromises somewhere. But holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

I didn't even realize that that was supposed to be his guts until you just said that.

SPEAKER_05 34:43

I was wondering too. I was like, is that guts? Is that some weird rubber tube?

SPEAKER_03 34:48

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

I thought that was just props flowing around.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Well, what would you call that? Gigantic Udo noodles basically popping out? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

I thought that shit goes in a bicycle tire.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

What a hot mess express. I will say though, the one that actually got a little bit of a chuckle from me because at that point I was like, this scene alone has gone far too long is the entire fist fight between Julius and Jason, just for him to punch his head off. That was just like peak absurdity for me.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Oh, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 35:18

I think he threw like 50-something punches at this dude, and he could have just tried to throw this guy overboard, like just throw the motherfucker overboard.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Yeah, he could have. But can we acknowledge this man? He's a star. He was literally punching Kane hotter, and his swollen bloody knuckles were real. He was actually fighting this man.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

Look, I love that. I love that. It really turned into this rock'em sock'em robots moment, you know, just the fucking decapitated uppercut.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

Fantastic. Finish him. That's campiness at its fucking best right there. The moment where you see this fucking head fly, you're just like, oh, that's fucking pure gold.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I think they made three heads for that too. They did one for like close-ups, one the toss in the air, and then a separate one that was like heavy enough to like hit the dun on the dumpster. Fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_05 36:07

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Incredible. It is the most memorable kill. And I actually hate that it's the most memorable because you know what?

Spoiler Zone

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Damn, Julius, I really wanted you to make it. Because how are you the only motherfucker to actually find a phone booth? You really were out here prowl on the streets of New York. You knew the assignment, you stuck to the assignment, you gave a damn. And so I'm bummed that he had to go. My favorite death though was a throwback to the opening credits. It's Charles, that disgusting fucking toxic excuse of I mean, honestly, he's just a bag of bones who calls himself a man. I fucking hate this guy. But he gets dunked into the barrel of toxic sludge and it's waste, and he drowns in it. Jess kiss. These are the moments between Jason killing Charles that way, and then Jason also saving Rennie unexpectedly from the two men who were abusing her and a fucking assaulting her in the alley. These are the exact moments that make you root for a killer in a horror movie.

SPEAKER_05 37:13

Yeah, absolutely. I also have to give it up. Sauna Boy Jason. Alright? Sauna Boy Jason, what a great kill. I loved how ridiculous it was to be killed by shoving that extremely hot sauna rock right through his fucking stomach and searing him from the insides. What a great way. I mean, did that fucking rock somehow also catch fire while this was happening? Did you guys see that, or was it just me? Is the is blood flammable now? I don't know, but you know what else is flammable?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Wayne's crotch, because Wayne's crotch caught fire the second he touched the electric panel when he was flung. A lot of things in this movie are flammable, Sean. But also the Sonic Hill makes me wonder why the fuck have we not gotten a Sonic Hill in Final Destination?

SPEAKER_05 37:58

Yeah, it feels like a miss.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Maybe tanning beds don't. No, no. I'm talking about like saunas and rocks.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

That's what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of the tanning bed.

SPEAKER_05 38:06

Yeah, you're thinking of the tanning bed, and then there's uh what there's another movie where they get like boiled in the hot tub or whatever. There's that one too.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, not that shit though. I want Jason takes Manhattan, sauna rocks with Final Destination.

SPEAKER_05 38:21

Hot rocks.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

I want that shit to hit you like a fucking meteor or some shit.

SPEAKER_05 38:25

Death by humidity. It's amazing. But I do also want to point out, not necessarily for the kill, because let's face it, this kill is fucking absolutely absurd and illogical. But the chef dude that was thrown into the mirror and presumably died from that, I guess. I'm not sure. I don't know that anyone could die from that. But all right, that's cool. But the dude that played that cook or whatever, Ken Kurzinger, I think it is, actually went on to play Jason in Freddy versus Jason 2003. So look at that.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

What the fuck, really?

SPEAKER_05 39:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Oh, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_05 39:03

He went from getting killed by Jason to being Jason.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

What a reach. I love it. That is great. Also, sorry, another killed by Jason that's also a little bit of a reach. Shout out to Sean Robertson, who's basically our own Sean Roberts.

SPEAKER_05 39:17

Oh, my fucking arch nemesis.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:20

This fucking guy.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Okay. He finds his dad dead. But guys, his dad is literally just standing there. I I know that we know his throat was slit, but this man was just standing there. Sean Robertson was reacting way out of pocket for just seeing his dad basically asleep at the wheel.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

Yeah, I know. It was very strange because yeah, you walk in and you're just seeing him standing there. You don't know for sure, unless I don't know, maybe he saw some blood or something that we didn't see at the time, but okay.

SPEAKER_03 39:49

It was the tilt of his head. He just knew right away. Yeah, something's wrong. You know, of all the things that they showed in this movie, it wasn't the kills that I enjoyed because they were pretty weak. It wasn't the wardrobe for the most part, because that was pretty weak, except for Jason himself. But I honestly I think the ship was one of the best pieces of set that we had to work with. New York to me looked really bad and really just like a caricature of New York for a movie that's That's because it was Vancouver. You know, you could tell something's wrong, and it just seemed too Hollywood, it seemed too fake. But the ship in many cases seemed like a ship, especially when we get the exterior shots. And I think that was probably my favorite production thing we got going on here. It's like if you're gonna have a movie set on water, make use of the ship. They could have done a little bit better in many parts, but I'm glad they didn't have the camera swaying. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

The portholes, porthole in there.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Love a good porthole.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

The boat setting is a cool kind of setting to be in for a set design type thing. I'm with you there. I personally have a love-hate relationship with the way that Jason looks and is in this movie. I feel like on one hand, I like the way he looks, all slimy and gooey and gross from the depths of Crystal Lake. You know, that's like a cool visual. But on the other hand, I feel like there were times where I felt like it was just a dude in a suit pretending to be Jason. So there was like moments that were good and moments that were bad. And it didn't hold up to that same feeling in the earlier films. This one felt like there was just moments where there wasn't consistency in the way Jason was portrayed. I do like the idea of being placed also in a major city, not just the boat like New York, but I agree, doesn't really look great, probably because little to none of it was actually filmed in New York due to budgets and things like that. But, you know, it it would have been also nice to get a little bit longer than just the last 30 minutes of the film. But I also just feel like not just the way Jason looks, but also just the way Jason is. Like they I feel like they mishandled Jason in this setting, in the city, right? I know we haven't done it before, but when you're gonna put a character like Jason in the city, it just wasn't handled the right way, and the behaviors were off-putting.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

I completely agree in terms of the set design. I mean, the boat, I guess, was all right, but didn't really resonate with me. And I feel like the biggest disappointment, I didn't share it earlier, but Times Square in and of itself, like the look of Times Square, didn't hit as much as I had expected it would, considering that I only had that per particular scene or still really in mind in terms of this film. So that was a bit let down. I did mention I loved the makeup design and the practical effects of the ending, but I do want to highlight another moment that I was like, all right, I can vibe with this, even though this is not giving Friday the 13th. It was a particular scene where I thought the cinematography was displayed really well, and it was when the blood was coming out of the sink, and we see like young Jason coming out of the mirror. I thought that was executed really well, but it was definitely giving more like ghost story vibes than actual Friday the 13th. So I felt very conflicted.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah, you know why you like that shit? Because it was basically it.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

There it is. Yeah. I was trying subconsciously to make myself like this movie even a little bit, and that's why you got it.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Yeah, yeah. You got the sewer and you got the bloody fucking faucet from a sink. Absolutely. That's that's all it is. Listen, there are things that are pretty bad in this movie. There are a couple things though that really shine. One, we get some really weird fucking transitions a lot of the way through this movie, but one that worked really well was in the opening credits the opening underwater transition from New York to Crystal Lake. Again, it is a narrative leap and honestly, pretty fucking bold for them to expect us to think, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can absolutely navigate between these two places. They count on me being me and just ignoring this until Nathan points it out. But that One transition was spectacular, but also gooey, wet, deep sea gunk Jason. Once he steps on Jimmy and Susie's boat, Jason looks fantastic. I'm not a really big undead Jason fan. My favorite Jason is Friday the 13th part two. It's Sackhead Jason with his blue plaid button up and his overalls. I prefer a simple man. However, Kane Hotter, now he's back at it again for his second time as Jason. He has a great frame, but the makeup and the effects on Jason while he was gooey and wet were absolutely fucking phenomenal. And that's why I really love, and I know y'all were dogging it a second ago, the hour and 26 minute buildup to the best scene in the film, which is him stepping into Times Square. That moment honestly makes a lot of the bullshit in this movie worth it. And there's some dumb shit that happens. Like obviously, you know, he lifts up his mask, and these guys, these thugs, just fucking go, whoa, whoa, hey, we're cool, we're cool, we're cool. But there are a lot of moments in here, like there's a deleted scene, and again, I'm not pulling a Sean where this is my favorite fucking part. My favorite scene in this movie is the shit that we actually see in the movie, but I do think it's hilarious that there are deleted scenes from this movie where Jason's like fucking hitting a guy's head on a subway on the escalator going down. There's just a lot of comedy gold in this.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

But that's what should have been in the movie. That's Jason taking Manhattan, not the 14 minutes.

SPEAKER_05 45:32

That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 45:35

Jason can't just be walking by all these fucking people and not touching them. Like Jason is a dude that annihilates people in his path. He doesn't care. Why is he chasing just two fucking people or whatever, a handful of people through the fucking city when there's like thousands of people he could be killing?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Because he doesn't have the balls to be Michael Myers in Haddonfield on Halloween night.

SPEAKER_05 45:59

Man. Alright.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Michael Myers kills indiscriminately. Jason kills who fucks with him. Which is who came to my crystal Camp Crystal Lake? Who came to my underwater grave? Who disturbed me from my slumber? Who are these teenagers having sex over my head? That's what he's looking for.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

I I will say that as much as I talked shit just a second ago of the Times Square of it all, I don't have a favorite scene, so I'm just gonna say maybe that one in particular wasn't thumbs up, just because in that exact scene, though, they're playing this song Living in the City featuring King Lou, and that did make me laugh. The song itself made me laugh. I had looked at the lyrics and everything. So I think the ambiance with the song in particular was like, okay, I this is the camp. I'm still upset at you though for making me wait until the last 15 minutes of this film to get here. Also, there was a weird cut because since you hadn't noticed about the cut from the intro, I'll tell you another one. There is also a weird cut as he is going up there as well. Like it it almost feels like there was supposed to be a commercial break at some point when he is getting up from those stairs.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

But some of these feel like I should have noticed them.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

It's a quick, it's a quick moment. It's a quick moment in the Times Square, but specifically cred opening credits, when it is when it says Jason Kane Hotter, you'll notice that the song stops and then it goes back to the beginning again. It keeps the scene that keeps going. It's the music that skips.

SPEAKER_05 47:21

But you know, the one thing that I actually really liked, not that it's my favorite scene, but the one thing that I like that we're talking about Times Square and that whole part of the movie was that we get to see this big ad for Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Times Square, and that's legit because that was being heavily promoted around the time of filming this movie, so that was kind of cool to see.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

That's a fun touch.

SPEAKER_05 47:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

I think what's also fun though is a backwards timing because I think technically the movie allegedly takes place the year before that movie comes out. So it's like 1988 to 1989.

SPEAKER_05 47:56

Oh, yeah, you know, you know, it's okay. Like again, let's not look too far into it. All right, let's not look too far into it.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Bless us for watching this movie, we're reviewing it, and just last week we got Michael Keaton back at it again as Beetlejuice.

SPEAKER_05 48:13

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Good time to be alive.

SPEAKER_05 48:15

It is, truly.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yeah, that's actually a good point to bring that up.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

The 80s are cool, you know, apparently always. I have a scene that kind of just tickled me. I don't know that it's necessarily like, ooh, it's a favorite. It just tickled me. And that is these weird flashes of ghosts that we get throughout this film, of seeing Jason in a mirror or something. One, I don't really understand them because this made me think, is she the girl from the previous film? She's somehow like psychic or something, or is connected to ghosts. But this is the one that really entered it into the whole this doesn't make sense, but does it need to kind of level? And that's we see a young Jason in the porthole, and then even the dog is like WTF.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

So how did the dog see Jason? That's what I don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Bruh, you've never had a dog stare at the corner of a fucking room and just start barking at some shit. Dogs be seeing shit.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

They do, they got that sixth sense.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

She just opened her eyes to what her dog was already seeing that whole fucking time. And honestly, bless him, because this chick was also staring, and oh my gosh, I'm actually going to pull a note here. There is a point where there is a fiery flashback. Rennie is looking into a fiery puddle after the cop car blows up, and this is where we get the reveal that this motherfucker just threw her into the lake. I mentioned earlier how we have these like transitions of things that are just bizarre. This was an audacious one. She's fucking looking into this puddle, and then all of a sudden it's her and Charles in a fucking lake. What? I swear to God, this woman has been fucking tripping balls the whole time this movie's been on.

SPEAKER_05 49:53

Wouldn't that be a twist? She was just tripping balls the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Completely, completely.

SPEAKER_05 49:59

Tripping balls. I don't have any one super significant favorite scene, but I do have to tell you that this film is riddled with little moments that are absolutely fantastic. There is the first one I can think of is really early on in the movie when we're getting Jim telling Susie the lore, right? I think that's when it we're getting it. She's like, What's the matter? And he's like, We're right around where all those murders happen. She's like, What murders? And he's like, Oh, you wouldn't want to know about it. It's like, what the fuck, dude? Why did you even bring it up in the first place? It was just subtle humor, I guess. But there's also just these moments where I think Jason just walks right through a glass pane door, like casually, no force, just casually walks through it and it just completely shatters. That's the stuff that's so bad it's good kind of thing, where you just have to laugh with the film. There's also this scene where Jason is chasing them on the subway or whatever, and in the train at the end of one of the parts of the subway or whatever, you see a poster, and at the bottom in graffiti, it says Jason lives. Nice little Easter egg there, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Okay. Nathan pointed that out, and I was like, I'm gonna see if Eagle Eye Sean fucking points this shit out tomorrow.

SPEAKER_05 51:19

Oh, come on, of course. It was great. I had to I had to rewind, I had to go back 10 seconds just to make sure that that's what it said, but I did catch it. I thought it was good. But my favorite moment of all these little moments, it's probably when they find Julius's decapitated head sitting on the dashboard of the cop car, like some bobblehead. That was just such a good moment.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Listen, I got one more good moment for you, and it actually goes into what I find to be a real fun note on Jason as a character in this whole movie. Partially, this is funny in the moment, and then also it's partially funny to me only because in my headcanon, there's something happening here. We have the boat taken off, and Jason climbs onto their boat that is going to New York City. He climbs up on the rope and he's just like looking around real fast. And I swear to you, in my mind, Kane Hodder was fucking humming the Mission Impossible theme song. I know that that movie came out long before Mission Impossible. Not possible for this to be it, but if you go back and it's just looking at him pulling himself up, it's dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

SPEAKER_05 52:29

Yeah. It's a special forces Jason, dude. He's just coming out of the water, he's ready to attack.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Literal Navy SEAL shit. He is a first-class swimmer.

SPEAKER_05 52:37

That is that's it. He went from being a zero-class swimmer to a fucking first class swimmer somehow in the course of this franchise. Amazing. So much growth.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

U.S. Navy, global force for good or murder.

SPEAKER_05 52:50

Oh man, but we and we've talked about Jason a lot already. We've already kind of talked about his appearance and how there's moments that he looks really good, there's moments that he looks really bad, you know what I mean? And we talked about the mishandling of how he behaves in an inner city environment, and maybe that's because they cut out some of the stuff that we would have wanted to see from Jason in the city, and it's too late to go back now. But if we look at Kane Hotter, who plays Jason, I think there's some really cool stuff here. There's I think Kane Hotter even said, I think one of the most fun parts he had of being Jason in this film was the was when he was actually doing the scenes in Times Square, because he said that as they were filming, there was tons of people just lined up around trying to see the filming as it was being filmed. And he didn't want to lose the illusion of Jason in front of these like onlookers. So he just didn't want to remove the mask, and he did so he went even further, and in down moments, he would like quickly turn to the people that were watching and try to like do some kind of enthusiastic gesture or movement just to give them something, which I think was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Hell yeah. Kane Hodder seems like exactly the kind of guy that I want to meet as spooky empire, just a fans fan, you know.

SPEAKER_05 54:09

He is the fans fan, and he's dedicated. I think, even according to I think Fangoria magazine, he was actually able to vomit on cue in that final scene after drinking several pitchers of water. So this was not a special effect. This wasn't any shooting of water on the side and some kind of crazy camera magic or whatever. He actually downed a bunch of water and he was able to vomit on cue. That's some fucking dedication to your craft, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

That's method acting, if there ever was one.

SPEAKER_05 54:37

I think the worst that we haven't talked about yet with Jason as a character is somehow he has this ability to fucking teleport because I don't know how he illogically appears in front of you with no way of getting there in that amount of time. It is like beyond, it is beyond like a jump scare tactic. It is he was over there, I turned around and he's right there, and this motherfucker didn't teleport. There's no way he didn't teleport because that's the only way he can get there.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

We're gonna question whether he can teleport and just dismiss his revival technique in every film. This man's been electrocuted. Maybe he gains teleporting powers with that one or something.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah, he travels through the fucking electrons in the air. But here's the thing, Sean, I'm gonna stop your ass right there because a couple episodes ago, I wanna cite the book of Hellhouse LLC3, Lake of Fire, and Lake of Bullshit. You fucking said that movie had mystique.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

Yeah, mystique.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Jason Voorhees has more mystique than Hellhouse LLC.

SPEAKER_04 55:38

No, there's mystique.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Fuck the teleportation. That's the camp. That's the allure. That's Jason being Jason. The whole fucking thing is that it doesn't matter how fast you fucking turn or how fast you run because you can't outrun death.

SPEAKER_05 55:53

Yeah. Well, the first Hell House had more mystique than the third installment, but you ever seen Mystery Men?

SPEAKER_03 55:59

Okay, we had Invisible Boy. So basically, Jason is Invisible Boy, where he can turn invisible if only if nobody's looking at him. Maybe it's like that. If they as long as nobody sees him, poof, he can just go wherever he wants to and no one's gonna notice.

SPEAKER_05 56:12

That's great. I love that for him.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

We don't get a lot of depth on the other characters in this film, though. It's kind of confusing in many parts who's who and why they're there. You know, I mean, this is supposed to be a high school outing, but the guy who's in charge, what job does he have at the school, first of all, and then his niece is also there, and she's our main character, but he also caused her trauma as a child, and he's really mean to her, and there's like a custody battle. It all seems overly complex, but yet way too simple.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

It seems like de Grasse done extremely wrong. It's just a large amount of characters to up the body count, and that makes sense. I guess you have to kill a lot of people, so let's just give them a lot of characters. But quite frankly, I don't remember a single character's name except for Julius. I had to pull up IMDB and thank you, Sean, for having this in our notes because I couldn't tell you. Gun to head, couldn't tell you.

SPEAKER_05 57:08

I don't want to know their names though, you know. I just want to see people die.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

Right, exactly. And luckily it doesn't matter either way, so it's great.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Here are the four names that five names that matter Jason, Rennie, Sean Robertson, Julius, Toby the Dog.

SPEAKER_05 57:22

Toby the Dog.

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Toby the Dog.

SPEAKER_05 57:24

You know, Mac, you brought up a point there, and I don't think that's where we were trying to go with it, but it made me think because these motherfuckers are being chaperoned on a boat to New York City for their senior trip, right? And I also think like final destination, right? These motherfuckers are flying to Europe for their senior trip. You know where the fuck I went for my senior trip? Fucking Knott's Berry Farm. So what the fuck, man? Get me to Europe. Get me to New York. Why am I going on a fucking wooden roller coaster where I feel like I'm gonna get decapitated the whole time? Come on.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

That's some final destination shit. But on a serious note, looking at the characters in this movie, Renny, can we just acknowledge how consistent the Fright of the 13th franchise is with giving us traumatic final girls? First off, we have this young lady completely wrecked from her fucking guardian, Charles, throwing her in the lake. Mind you, her parents died in a car crash. This girl's not having a great time. He throws her into the lake to learn how to swim. Fuck you, Charles. In the same lake that there was a murderer. I just I wouldn't want my kid fucking learning how to swim in a body of water that has a dead body in it.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

I just think I would And lets her know that, by the way, when he pushes her for extra good measure.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

By the way, there's a dead body in there. Kick, boom, get in there and learn how to swim. Figure it out, kid. What's better than instilling fear? Don't let Jason get ya.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Wrong kind of parenting, my dude. Aside from that, in the prior film, we have a young lady who is surviving all manner of shit. Completely traumatic shit with her father being who he was, dying horrifically in the beginning of the film, and then looking at the way that her mom, unknowingly, but then also her doctor, preyed upon her. And then going back a few movies, we have Chris Higgins in Friday the thirteenth, part three, who survived an encounter with Jason. Again, this movie we talked about in originality, it's more of the same. It copy and pastes itself, but it's this is another I've been touched by the trauma, I've been touched by the Jason encounter in some way. Now, thankfully, what I do appreciate is that they stop short of taking it too far on the Jason trauma. There's always consideration of it being maybe an assault of a sexual nature, and they always pull back, which thank God they're showing some fucking restraint.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Yeah, that we're all glad for. It was a scene that was getting very questionable very quickly.

unknown 59:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

And then they're like, no, no, no, no. Jason has some standards.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:01

But you know, we've been talking about how bad some of these characters are, how bad some of the acting is, how unmemorable they are, but it all leads back to Jason. And I think that the worst part for me with this movie was unfortunately the way they handled Jason in the city. One, we needed more of it. Two, we needed to see Jason wrecking his way through the city, killing everything in his way, and not just chasing a couple of kids off of a boat down an alley and into a fucking sewer. That is not what we were here for. That's not what we signed up for. And I guess the budget didn't allow it, so they filmed it primarily in Vancouver, which probably is why the cast dubbed this film Jason Takes Vancouver and not Jason Takes Manhattan. But man, I just wanted a little bit more of Jason wrecking some shit in the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Yeah, Sean really said he wants Jason wrecking my way downtown, walking fast, faces smash.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:01

Wow. It would have been great.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Would have been great. Would have been great. There's a lot of things in here that I would say are the worst part of this movie. In no short order, some of the things we've already talked about, right? Little baby Jason flashbacks, the porthole was portholing, going from the normal face to the deformed face. Binks, you were generous in even thinking that maybe they were trying to be profound. I didn't even click with that. I also mentioned the fiery flashback that Rennie has of her guardian on the link when she's looking at the burning puddle. A couple other things here. It's an about an hour into the movie before we even get to New York, and that's just a fucking disrespect to my time, quite frankly. But before that flashback I mentioned, there's absolutely awful freeze-frame slow-mo when Renny is speeding the fucking cop car and sees a ghostly figure of a young deformed Jason. That was some of the worst looking shit in this entire movie. And that's saying a lot because Jason in the sewer also look like shit.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:00

So bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

Binx mentioned that the effects team was carrying the weight of this film on their back, and maybe they were to some extent, but honestly, just the sewage being the fucking fountain of youth, washing away Jason's decades of decomposition and transforming him into a tiny baby boy, the shit really literally healing his inner child, it was just too much for me.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

I just want to know how they're just washing this toxic waste through the sewer system every night at a specific time. Why is there toxic waste being flooded in the sewer system? That is concerning for the city, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:39

This is why there's alligators in the sewer, lizard people.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:42

This is also fucking rats the size of fucking dogs.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

Yeah, it's also rodents of unusual size. It's also the 80s. It's giving. Who fucking cares about the environments? Yeah. It's New York. Tough enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

I will say my wife commented when Charles got tossed into some toxic waste that great, now he's gonna be a ninja turtle.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:02

Oh no. Oh man. I thought of that when we saw the rat crawl out of that fucking barrel. I was like, is that splinter? Isn't that splinter right there?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

That's the next Friday the 13th. Don't write it off. Anything's possible. I will say though, because we are talking about the sewer of it all and Jason's silly face. God, the best part. Well, yeah, I guess it's that. The reveal post acid was hilarious. I thought that also was pretty funny. It was giving very like sci-fi zombie influence. It reminded me like Creature of the Black Lagoon and like basket case vibes type thing. So I'll give it that. He looked very weird for sure. And I do appreciate that to scare off that crowd of kids when he just landed in Times Square, he just lifted up his mask just to show his face. And I almost feel like he looked so ugly that it would have been really funny to see someone like their kill be like a heart attack from just looking at his face. Like being so scared from his face that they're just like gone. Oh man. That's a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

I think I would have also maybe liked them to be like almost like unfazed by it, like this is New York. I've seen worse.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:14

Yeah, there should have been more ignoring of Jason for it to actually be New York. People should have just been walking along. Go get a meatball sub.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:21

He just should have been killing people left and right. We should have had the kill count of 200 and something at least.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Yeah, it could have been a kill count higher than a quiet place day one.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:30

Could have been. I'll join in and say that the whole New York of it all was the worst part of the film. I think it's the fake New York just looked really bad and it looks like really run down. So that wasn't good. Misusing New York was a proper waste, honestly. Jason could have done so much cool stuff, especially with like alleys and shadows and dumpsters and the normal stuff you see inside of a city. But showing up to a city, getting off of a boat, one, they're not caught in the harbor. Excuse me, that's ridiculous. So they eventually roll all the way up, they get off, nobody's there, right? And then they get robbed by two tan dudes. That was the most bothersome part of this movie for me. I was like, wow, just keep those caricatures and stereotypes going. That's fantastic. This is really what people think about when they think of New York. In reality, it's ridiculous and honestly offensive. As cheesy as New York looks in this movie, and as ridiculous as it is that they even put it in the title, considering it's in less than a third of the film. I think if you're gonna do a franchise binge watch, you should include this. I don't think you necessarily need to include the reboot. And there might even be earlier films you can toss out, but for whatever reason, I think this still stands in the binge.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:41

Yeah, I think I agree with you there. Overall, I would say that I would watch this one again. I think you should watch this one if you're binging the franchise. I don't think you should skip any of them as you're watching this through the franchise, but I do align with the fact that the franchise really does end here, or at least this channel. Chapter for Friday the 13th as a franchise ends here, and whatever comes after Jason goes to hell, you know, Jason X, Freddie versus Jason, all that, the reboot, all that stuff. That's its own entity. That's some spin-off shit, but this is where the franchise ends. You know what I mean? And I would definitely watch it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

Yeah, it's like Child's Play and Chucky. Very different existences. This movie is one that I have watched before. I will continue to watch. Honestly, I think the biggest shock for me was looking back and realizing that this entire franchise, except for the first film, has been a slash for me. What the fuck am I on? I don't know. Seems like that's gonna change next year. But listen, this is one where you know Mackie Benchon, maybe you don't have to include the reboot. I think a good Friday the 13th binge is honestly, if you like more modern shit, watch the reboot, then go for like two through this movie, skip hell, go straight to Jason in space after that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:04

In space, space, space, space.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

I feel like it would probably take a lot to get me to re-watch this one. I think that at this point, if I find myself revisiting this franchise altogether, I'm just gonna pick out the ones that I like, which so far aren't many, and it won't matter either way in terms of continuity because it's all a mess, regardless. So there's

Toodles

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Well, Binks, I can't wait to see how you shake out on the rest of the films in this franchise and if there's anything that can even remotely redeem it. But for now, there you have it, folks. Right at the 13th part eight, Jason takes a boat towards Manhattan, has earned one hack and three sloshes. Now we certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:47

If you want to hear some off-the-wall conversation that is semi-unhinged, consider becoming one of our patrons to check out the B side of this episode where we discuss how you can become a third-rated swimmer without ever knowing how to fucking swim. You can visit patreon.com/slash hackerslash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

Enjoyed listening to us try to make sense of this massively nonsensical franchise? Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. This helps us continue to deliver great content for all you horror fiends out there.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:26

This voyage is doomed.

Free-side

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

So we all know the lore of me being a Navy veteran and not being able to swim. But what may surprise you is that maybe aside from one of you, I think I'm technically the most qualified swimmer here.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:51

This makes absolutely no sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

Absolutely fucking not.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:55

Makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

In boot camp, you have to qualify technically on paper. We all know how illegal these papers are, as a third class swimmer. I think it means you can swim enough to not die.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

And technically I haven't died yet. And unlike Jason, famously died before his movie even started.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:13

This is true. And that's third class. So what's the second and first?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

Oh, it's different layers of intensity. Like if you're gonna do rescue swimming, for example. I'm actually gonna look it up right now so we have the full receipts.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:25

Carry a body and do a nice half rest stroke, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

I'm just trying to determine like third class the what the difference is between third class and second, right? Like third, you won't die, and second is you're carrying a body?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Like uh the third class swim qualification is the minimum entry-level swimming requirement for all US Navy personnel. It's a series of individual events that test a person's ability to stay afloat and survive in open water. Again, goal, don't die. Without a personal flotation device long enough to be rescued in a man overboard situation. So the tower jump, jump 10 feet into the pool while keeping your hands crossed and looking in all directions. Then take a 30-inch step while keeping your legs crossed and swim back to the surface. This event simulates abandoning ship. 50 yard swim, swim 50 yards of using any of the four survival strokes, a five-minute prone float, and then inflate blouse and trousers while treading water. The trauma's coming back. But now let's look at second class.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:24

So that's all third class.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:26

Mm-hmm. The second class is an entry-level requirement for some jobs, such as small boat operators, naval air crew, and rescue swimmers. The test assesses a person's ability to stay afloat and survive without a personal flotation device. So they have to do deep water jumps, a hundred yard swim. So swim 25 yards of each of the following strokes. Basically, third class, fucking get in the water and don't die. Second class, prove you know these strokes and can do them. Prone float, back float, blouse inflation, trouser inflation. Trouser inflation. What a name. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:01

It is tricky because you have to get in the water and then take it off and then inflate it into your little floaty.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

I don't know about that. My coveralls, I got to just zip because so coveralls zip from the top and the bottom. So you open it up, create an air pocket, zip it back closed, and you have a little flotation.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:18

That's easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

Uh here's yeah, it's pretty great. The first class is required for certain jobs. So you do second class plus an additional 25-yard underwater swim that demonstrates the burning oil maneuver twice. A hundred-yard swim without touching the pool sides for longer than necessary to turn, and a five-minute prone float and back float. Okay, well, fuck that noise. So glad I didn't do any of that. My point is, I was able to do that shit without ever really learning how to swim. And maybe this year, this movie that came out in the year of my birth, maybe this is what has haunted me all along because I feel so fucking fortunate that no one decided to throw me into an open fucking body of water.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:58

That's the worst. I mean, you know, you find out if you can swim or not real quick.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:04

Is this how you all learned?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:05

No. Pretty much. What? Yeah, I mean, I just got tossed in the pool a few times. I sank a few times, got saved a few times. Eventually, you learn to kick your legs and shit. And then lo and behold, you're swimming across the pool.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

So yeah, it was kind of a combination of that. Yeah. My dad throwing me in the water a little bit, and then I did take classes because they realized something's not right with her in terms of exercise and my heart, obviously, as we know famously. But yeah, it was a combo of both.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:35

Yeah. Uh no, I don't remember how I learned, but we lived like down the street from a bay, so I'm pretty sure it was more natural and organic and and loving than good luck to be the Hondo treatment and just toss you in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

Good luck, Crystal Lake. Okay, I grew up in South Florida, a child of the Caribbean, Puerto Rican and Cuban. I should have learned how to swim, and yet did not.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:57

But that's a famous misconception about our people because Cubans float. Yeah, Cubans in particular, people think that they definitely should know how to swim because of the circumstances, and so many family members of mine don't know how to swim. So interesting. A big farce. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:12

Interesting. Goodness. Yeah, I mean, we just had a pool growing up, so I just feel like I was in there as early as two years old kicking around with my dad. So yeah, there's a couple times I just kind of stumbled in there on my own and just sank to the bottom looking up, hoping for someone to save my existence. And luckily there was somebody around in those times, but I just always was in there with my dad. So I just learned how to swim. I think by two years old, I was fucking going across the fucking pool.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:43

It's giving night swim in a better way, actually.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:47

Yeah, true. But it is interesting that this motherfucker in this movie did die literally from swimming or not swimming, right? Rather, like died in the water, but all of a sudden is like some kind of navy fucking seal in this movie fucking going underwater, emerging from the depths, and fucking just all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:07

Well, the difficult thing about swimming is the part with the breathing, you know, the breathing. That's what really fucks me up personally. But for Jason, he doesn't have to worry about that. That motherfucker's undead.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:19

This is true. He doesn't have to breathe. That is true.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

And really, we got a while into the franchise before adult Jason went into the water.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:29

He wasn't fucking around with water in part two, part three. Nuh-uh.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

Yeah, no water. I mean, you get trapped down there long enough, you know. They keep trapping him down there and chaining him to the bottom of the lake, but he's eventually gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:41

Yeah, he he became one with Crystal Lake.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:44

Binky looks shocked.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:46

One with the lake.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

I feel like there's yeah, I feel like there's something not right there. Wasn't he anchored to the bottom? So he dies as a kid before the Yeah, and then he emerged like a fucking flying fish in the second one, straight out of the water.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

Well, at the end of the first movie, yeah. Blase. But adult Jason, when the second movie picks up, it's almost as if deformed baby Jason jumping into that was all like a hallucination or a dream. Because adult Jason is just a guy in some fucking overalls, climbing through windows, carrying a pitchfork, fucking shit up. You know what I mean? Then part three, same movie, same story. He wanders, finds a change of clothes, and gets a mask.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:30

There's just a lot. There's a lot that this franchise has to flush out, you know what I mean? They just don't really explain enough to really make a whole lot of sense of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:39

When they eventually get the rights sorted out and do another reboot of this franchise, which they probably will. Maybe they'll make a requel one day. I truly hope that they play on the water thing, you know, either make him deathly afraid of water or make him fool the kids at one point into thinking that that he's afraid of water and then jump out and kill them all while he calmly walks through it not having to breathe. But do something with it. Don't just let it drown.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:03

Actually use it as a manipulation tactic. That's fair. I don't know. I'm still skeptical about the whole thing. I believe you guys, I it's all a blur to me, that's for sure. It's freaking Friday the 13th, 8th at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:16

So Well, here's the thing. If there's a franchise I know, it's not Friday the 13th, it's Halloween. But I'm pretty confident, and now even the faintest question from you has me questioning my entire existence. So I am gonna validate.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:29

I already looked it up on Reddit, and it was like Jason Voorhees versus Water, and referencing Jason X and obviously like films that we haven't reviewed yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:39

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:40

I'm like at this point, I just have also Jason versus Freddie in my mind, and I'm like, okay, he was so afraid of being submerged in water or just like water at that movie, and he couldn't breathe then.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

So the movie in which Jason Voorhees squares off against adult Tommy Jarvis, that's when he gets chained at the bottom of the lake. Yes. When he's facing Tommy Jarvis who's already an adult. Now there's child Tommy Jarvis who becomes an adult, who then excavates Jason and he gets fucking electrocuted, whatever. At the end of that movie, he goes into the lake, and then in the next movie he wakes up with a telekinetic teenager, goes back in the lake, and then he goes to New York. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

Yeah. And then he goes to New York. Okay, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:25

Because And then he goes to hell. Right. Oh Jesus. The man's been around, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:31

Yeah. And then he goes to space.