Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection (WB)

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Pizzamorg

I just watched "Jason Takes Manhattan", which is not only the lowpoint of the series so far but easily one of the worst films I have ever watched.

Ahhhh.... Jason Takes Manhattan.

I agree that Jason Takes Manhattan is a huge step down from The New Blood. I happen to share your high opinion of The New Blood, incidentally.

I still get a kick out of watching Jason Takes Manhattan, although I tend to view it from the rose-colored lens of my 1980s nostalgia. I think of it more or less as a series of random vignettes (Jason using a guitar to kill a headbanger, Jason killing a girl on a disco ball dance floor, Jason killing someone from the point-of-view of a handheld video camera, Jason killing a boxer by punching his head off, etc.) that are loosely connected by a comically flimsy storyline.

It's a shame that the lovely telepathic girl from The New Blood did not realize that Crystal Lake was directly connected with the Atlantic Ocean, and that it lies underneath some rather picturesque snowcapped mountains. She certainly could have helped her friends escape with greater ease.

I was not offended by anything in Jason Takes Manhattan, although I do think that the scene you mentioned in the above post is a below-the-belt stereotypical jab at New York City, as is the sewer waste removal sequence.

Finally...

Laugh and point fingers all you want, but I love love love "The Darkest Side of Night" by Metropolis. It's so 1980s that it rules.

[Show spoiler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHLQLkFU-pE

Look at it on the bright side...
If you're watching the Friday the 13th films in sequence, then Jason Takes Manhattan will probably not be your least favorite for long!

[Blu Myers]

Jason Takes Manhattan might be my least favorite of the franchise as well, as it is the entry that I watch the least. I think I've full gotten through it only once. Unfortunately the next films aren't that much better.

[redrunner97]

At least Jason Takes Manhattan is fun and overflowing with 80s cheese. There are other films in the franchise that are dull, boring, un-scary, and offer nothing except Jason in the woods yet somehow people prefer those... Jason Goes To Hell is the real low-point and there is a wide gap between it and whatever I consider to be 2nd worst.

[Pizzamorg]

If rape, mean spirited tormenting and hard drug abuse are "fun" for you I'm clearly in the wrong crowds. There isn't a single film worse than Manhattan in the franchise in my mind, and very few films worse than it in general.

[HarrisonJohn]

Jason Takes Manhattan has the odd distinction of being the 1st (maybe only?) Friday the 13th movie to receive some OK reviews from critics.

[Pizzamorg]

Originally Posted by HarrisonJohn

Jason Takes Manhattan has the odd distinction of being the 1st (maybe only?) Friday the 13th movie to receive some OK reviews from critics.

Jason Lives begs to differ.

[HarrisonJohn]

Originally Posted by Pizzamorg

mean spirited tormenting

Are you referring to the girl in the shower? I don't like drawn out murder scenes (which are so common in horror films now) so I always found this scene unpleasant.

[Muyfa666]

JGTH is probably my least favorite in the series, followed by 8 and X, in no definitive order. I also always disliked part 5, but not because it's bad (it's actually quite good) but because Jason isn't in it.

[Pizzamorg]

Originally Posted by HarrisonJohn

Are you referring to the girl in the shower? I don't like drawn out murder scenes (which are so common in horror films now) so I always found this scene unpleasant.

That was unpleasant but I felt the same for all of them to some extent. The teleporting made it seem futile when people ran, it always has been futile to run from him but before there was an actual chase, now Jason is just toying with the victims and in such a slimy, greasy, grimy movie it takes on this whole other foul meaning.

Julius is probably the crowning bullshit moment though, allowing him to survive once, fight for his life and then be killed in such a way that I think the audience is meant to laugh. Anything can be funny in the right context but this is not the right context, it's just mean in this context like the worst of the exploitation nasties that deserve to remain banned.

That and Suzi's teacher who dies in that car crash in such a neck turning moment of brutality that comes totally from the left field I got physical whiplash. She didn't commit the cardinal sins nor was she a side character there to bump up the death count so what made her deserve that?

Big shot out to the character who tells the audience of his nineteen month old child and then to immediately get killed off. Friday always needed to remind us of the families left behind in the mayhem to add to the "fun".

The true villains of the film, like the thugs or Suzi's uncle seemed to receive far less punishment which only further adds notches to the long list of things that make me question the levels of depravity from the people behind the camera. It took all the great parts of Friday and imbued it with all the moral panic BS snooty critics slapped on films they hadn't actually seen. This is the Friday film the critics warned you of and I hope to never watch it again.

[HarrisonJohn]

I saw Jason Takes Manhattan in theatres and when all the teleporting was going on, I said to my friend "I think there's two Jasons!?" That's my main issue with the movie; I have no idea what the writer/director was going for. Is the teleporting an editing mistake? A joke? A misunderstanding of past films? The lead girl having visions; is she psychic? It was a bit like Tina in the last film. Then the ending that makes no sense.
It seems the films felt they needed to go in a supernatural direction to compete with Freddy, starting with the 7th, and they were also bringing in a number of people from the supernatural-themed F13 TV series to do the writing/directing, music etc.

[Pizzamorg]

They didn't even get the eye the right side, did you expect anything from that moment forwards? Jason's only power in this film is that he never dries. What is that. Why is that a thing. Then again he literally gets turned into a little boy by getting hit with toxic waste. What the balls.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Pizzamorg

If rape, mean spirited tormenting and hard drug abuse are "fun" for you I'm clearly in the wrong crowds. There isn't a single film worse than Manhattan in the franchise in my mind, and very few films worse than it in general.

At their core, the Friday the 13th films are basically fairy tales that remind us to be good. Drug use, promiscuous sex, back-stabbing, lying, and general maliciousness are always overt invitations for an unfavorable encounter with Jason Voorhees.

A few genuinely good people end up as casualties as well (namely the teacher in Jason Takes Manhattan), but the most memorable casualties are the people who misbehave, even if such misbehaviors do not warrant grisly murders.

In their own offbeat and skewed way, the Friday the 13th films were perfect for the era of Nancy Reagan and the "Just Say No!" movement, and there was always a generic moral to the equation.

I myself grew up attending church, and I still have Christian beliefs. As such, I believe that there really is such a thing as a true evil that counters the greater good. The Friday the 13th films are cathartic in a sense, because, as dark as he is, Jason Voorhees does get defeated in each movie. The good guys win in the end, even if Jason does inevitably return, just as evil itself inevitably returns. After that, though, the good guys win again...and again...and again...

[Pizzamorg]

I understand that argument but the argument was also put forwards far better in other films. There are other brutal entries in the franchise like Part 4 and Part 7 but I can't quite put my finger on what the difference is but it just didn't seem to be nearly as mean there. Maybe it's because we rarely got a sense of the teens outside of their partying which meant we had nothing else to go on but Jason's perceived sins they were committing I dunno. Manhattan's Jason is actually a lot softer, but just the context of the events and the way they are set up make them seem far nastier yet not nearly as brutal.

[HarrisonJohn]

I can see what you are saying about the film. The Captain/ Dad guy is another character that just doesn't belong in a Friday the 13th movie and you just end up feeling bad.

[Pizzamorg]

The only other time I felt bad in the entire franchise was when the Granddad died in part five.

[Donl1282]

Is there a good chance we'll see a new boxset sometime in the future? I would love to get a set with individual packaging and original theatrical artwork.

[Pizzamorg]

But the boxset we have already is so gorgeous?

[Donl1282]

Originally Posted by Pizzamorg

But the boxset we have already is so gorgeous?

They need to release one similar to Halloween Complete Collection.

[Pizzamorg]

Originally Posted by Donl1282

They need to release one similar to Halloween Complete Collection.

Why?

[PuppetMasterBlu]

Originally Posted by Pizzamorg

But the boxset we have already is so gorgeous?

Jason Goes to Hell being the correct version.