Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fairly fun installment made better on DVD!, October 12, 2009
A year after Tina Sheperd sent Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) to his watery grave in Camp Crystal Lake, he's been resurrected for more murdering. A beautiful senior student named Reenie (Jensen Daggett) with her teacher uncle Charles (Peter Mark Richman)and a fellow teacher Colleen (Barbara Bingham) are boarding a cruise boat to New York City with a class of students (Saffron Henderson, David Jacox, Kelly Hu, Scott Reeves, Sharelene Martin, VC Dupree, Martin Cummins, and Tiffany Paulson) to their graduation over there as Jason becomes a stowaway as he brings bloodshed to a ship of nightmares but later on Reenie with Charles, Colleen and two survivors escape to New York as they think they are safe for the mean undead goalie is gonna take over the big apple with any weapon or kill in a game of killer hide and go seek.
Very entertaining installment is one of the weaker entries of the neverending Friday The 13th saga. This movie does have some creative kills like a Sauna Rock through the chest, Syringe stabbing and some other sick killings that will make you feel almost dirty. The film does take first part on a boat then second half in New York like the title promised as i like the alright performances and atmosphere of this film. It did bad at the box-office as it was the final movie for Paramount to do a Friday The 13th movie before New Line Cinema took over the series in 1991 when they bought the rights.
This DVD has terrific remastered sound and picture with nice extras like audio commentary, a featurette, slashed scenes featuring gory violence that was cut to avoid X rating and gag reel.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Jason Takes Manhattan......Eventually., September 28, 2009
Yes, this final entry in the Paramount Jason franchise is most famous for being titled "Jason Takes Manhattan", but taking place mostly on a cruise ship. Yeah, old hockey mask doesn't carve up the Big Apple for about an hour. Until then he bides his time slaying stupid nubile teens on a school cruise ship. If you know anything about how films, especially low budget films are made, this wont surprise you much. It's expenssive to shoot in New York locations. It's cheap to shoot in Canada with locations doubling for New York. It's even cheaper to shoot on sets made up to look like the inside of a cruise ship. So, the wrongful advertising of this film doesn't bum me out too much. It reminded me of seeing the same car flips and helicopter explosions in the trailers for every Roger Corman New World Pictures and Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Film's movie trailers. Gotta' get those butts in the theater doing whatever it takes...I guess.
I like this entry slightly better then part VII. The MPAA, while still butchering the film, was less harsh to this one then the previous, so all the gory cheap thrills are mostly in tact. My favorite bit being a boxing match with Jason and a doomed teen on a roof top where said boxer-teen gets his block knocked off...literally. This sequel does have soemthing some of the previous entries didn't have. It's violence seems to be more malicious in spots. Jason seems to take a beat before each death prolonging the torture. The opening impalement by spear gun is a great example and a death by syringe towards the film's climax. The death in this entry makes one feel dirty enough for a shower.
While the ending cooked up for this film isn't as atrocious as the one for part VII, it's still pretty lame. Sure, we get to see Jason disposed of in a new fashion, but said fashion knocks a bit of the piss out of our beloved mongoloid, hockey mask loving, hulking zombie man. Toxic waste to the face and then a bath in the stuff turns Jason back into his inner child. Huh. Very deep stuff. The acting is actually not that bad in this flick. Our main protagonists are generally likeable and sweet. They're good looking but not too good looking. The vile characters are appropriately vile, if not believabley human in their vile motivations, but well acted. There are some casualties that actually hurt in this film. One of my favorite death scenes in this film is one of the more simple. It's when Kelly Hu(X2: X-Men United, The Scorpion King) gets her neck snapped in an empty cruise ship disco. It's blackly funny and firece. It works.
The new Deluxe Edition DVD doesn't add anything innovative as far as upgraded transfers from the previously released From Crystal Lake to Manhattan box set, but it does offer some new special features. We get the expected retro doc that itnerviews the principal cast and the director Rob Hedden(series director and writer for Friday the 13th: The Series). It's cool to hear some different voices, but some of the stories, especially the ones from Kane Hodder can all be heard on the previous box set's bonus disc and again in the documentary His Name Was Jason. The newly recorded commetary is the real treasure of this Deluxe Edition. It features the director, not solo like he was in the previous release, with Kane Hodder and the film's two young leads. It's fun and loaded with anecdotes. One of the best being the oft-heard about Kane Hodder being treated like a Beatle as he donned his character's costume for a night's shoot in Time Square. That's about it. That's all that's worth mentioning.
Like I said the transfer is no better then the box sets, so unless you're a completist like me there's no need to upgrade. Bottom line, this movie has some funny bits involving Jason in The Big Apple(spotting a hockey billboard, running into some boombox listening street thugs), but if you've seen the others there's nothing new to be seen here. The final act in New York is the only real innovation and it only takes up about thirty minutes of the film's ninety minute run time. The film also brings in some huge continuity gaffs. Now in this movie the main character, Rennie, ran into the spirit of Jason when her evil uncle pushed her over into Crystal Lake while maliciously trying to teach her to swim. This is Jason as a young deformed boy mind you. My problem is, according to the second film Jason never drowned, he just hung out in the woods, and his mother was nuts taking over some semblance of his personality. Correct? He didn't actually drown. Correct? So, why did Rennie see his inner child spirit thingy dragging her down into the lake when she was a child? Wasn't the ending of the first film with Jason rising from the lake a dream? He didn't really come back to life in the first film, right? And if he did, and that wasn't a dream, then why did his undead boy self mutate into a lenky, long haired skinny man, and then into a bald husky man? Ooh, Wait I think I got it! In Jason Goes To Hell we are told that Jason is really a demon that can jump from one body to another via some slimey worm monster, right? SO, the reason for all the changes in look are due to that, right? Hmmmm.... Either I don't care enough to find out or Jason Takes Manhattan director Rob Hedden didn't do his research well enough.....Or didn't care that much either.
PS: The original teaser trailer for this sequel is pretty cool and included on this DVD.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Deluxe Edition!!, September 26, 2009
This is one of the best in the series and finally it has gone to something different besides Crystal Lake for once. Great Extra Features. I recommend this one to everyone.First on a cruise ship packed with teens heading to Manhattan, then in the Big Apple itself, Jason Voorhees returns to continue his bloody slicing and dicing ways--even below ground on a packed subway train. New Yorkers, who claim to have seen it all, have never seen anything like Jason!
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