‘Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan’ By Richard Harrington Washington Post Staff Writer July 29, 1989

Director: Rob Hedden Cast: Jensen Daggett; Scott Reeves; Peter Mark Richman Under 17 restricted Compare prices for this movie Find local video stores More movie shopping Save money with NextCard Visa

For bettors, then, these are the key numbers: 19-20-13-8. Also zero, which is the amount of inspiration and achievement in this continuing saga of the little boy who drowned in Crystal Lake 30 years, seven films and approximately 286 teenagers ago (30-7-286). As to why the saga continues, think of this kind of gross: $200 million (and realize that lottery tickets and numbers games are just the homeboy version of Hollywood).

The most amazing conceit of "Jason Takes Manhattan" is that Crystal Lake High School even has a graduating class to warrant a senior trip to New York. For some reason (script necessity, one supposes) they don't fly, or take the train or bus -- they take a dilapidated freighter with cruise ship aspirations. It's called Lazarus, which is appropriate since Jason has been raised once more from the bottom of the lake (probably around the same time the script was scraped from the bottom of the barrel). "This voyage is doomed," says a deckhand, and sure enough, Jason's doing his bit for population control in nasty ways that will be familiar to anyone who saw Parts 1-7. He's still a tricky devil, moving into the frame just as a victim slips out the other side, looming from all directions and generally saving the scriptwriters from being concerned with anything approaching logic.

Most of the film takes place on the Lazarus, possibly the only ship more dangerous than the Exxon Valdez. Heck, even the radio's dead by the time Jason goes overboard. Among the passengers is a bright girl who's having visions of a drowning boy, her smarmy guardian, her concerned teacher, a boyfriend whose soon-to-be-late father is the ship's captain, and assorted high school stereotypes. Not all of them make it to Manhattan, of course. The survivors abandon ship and row the rest of the way to New York, emerging from a raging storm and a raging Jason as drip-and-blow-dry as the day they left their dressing rooms.

Jason, of course, has been moldering in his watery grave, but when he shows up on a crowded subway train for the finale he doesn't make much of an impression on his fellow passengers, typically blase New Yorkers who seem thankful he's not a panhandler (lucky for him, Bernhard Goetz isn't around). The hero and heroine are saved by a timely river of toxic waste -- no, not the Hudson -- but one suspects Jason Vorhees hasn't killed the last of us yet.

"Friday the 13th: Part VIII -- Jason Takes Manhattan" is rated R and contains a little nudity and a lot of graphic violence.

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