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

Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes a Boat. Jason Vorhees is once again brought back to life and goes on a kill crazy spree aboard a boat bound for Manhattan. As is the norm with the "Friday 13th" sequels, this one garners scorn and praise in equal measure, so you roll the dice and take your chance really. By now the makers were trying to come up with new ideas to keep the series afloat, here the gimmick is to take Vorhees out of his Camp Crystal Lake "comfort" zone, and pitch him on a boat - a boat which naturally is full of ripe high schoolers who are ripe for killing in variously gruesome ways. The presence of Manhattan in the title is not wholly accurate since three quarters of the pic is set on the said boat, with standard series rules applying, though Vorhees seems to have attained the dexterity of a paratrooper given that he remarkably appears in kill scenes where the time frame is impossible for him to do so. The sequences in Manhattan are fun, which only makes one lament that more time wasn't spent on this particular gimmick. The acting is generally weak, while the effects work is standard fare - though the cinematography (Bryan England) is very impressive. So all told, it's another divisive "Friday" sequel, from breasts and butts, to blood and bone, and onto The Big Apple, part 8 you will either hate or think it's great. 6/10