![Friday the 13th, Part V - A New Beginning [DVD]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VNEQCYN1L._AC_UL160_SR160,160_.jpg)
The basic gist: Two teens Jimmy and his hot and gorgeous girlfriend Suzy are on a boat over Crystal Lake. They discuss the stories regarding Jason and are intent in having an enjoyable night of passionate sex, when shortly after Jimmy drops the anchor, it hits an electrical line under the water and shocks Jason back to life. Jim not believing in the legends of Jason puts on a hockey mask and pulls a prank on Suzy including poking her with a retractable knife. It isn't long before the real Jason climbs aboard and stabs Jim with a harpoon barb. Suzy attempts to hide from Jason, but it's not long before Jason finds her and stabs her with a harpoon. You're now introduced to beautiful main girl Rennie, her dog Toby, her teacher Colleen Van Deusen, and unfortunately her complete a**hole uncle Charles McCulloch. Rennie is an aquaphobic who's trying to brave this trip all the same. They find that Jimmy and Suzy haven't shown up so they continue on boarding the Lazarus and departing to New York City. We next meet Rennie's boyfriend Sean being shouted at by his father Captain Roertson, about following proper ship captain protocol. There's a pretty boy handy man on the ship, and a deck hand reminiscent of Crazy Ralph. We meet a boxer named Julius, a sexy and beautiful yet mean coke head named Tamara and her equally hot and gorgeous friend Eva(Kelly Hu), a beautiful female rocker named J.J., a nerdy wannabe filmmaker named Wayne, some young boxer that loses a fight with Julius and some non-descript character named Miles. Rennie sees several hallucinations of Jason as a drowning boy, several people get killed by Jason while on the ship, and the surviving people make their way to New York City with Jason not far behind. New York will be a different killing ground for Jason, but considering the crimes they show in New York, will Jason prove to be their only problem?
It's written and directed by Rob Hedden. Produced by Randolph Cheveldave. The music is by Fred Mollin. The special make-up effects are by Jamie Brown. The mechanical effects are by Martin Becker.
The acting is awful to the point of totally insulting. There is literally not one performance that is convincing, nor is there one performance that is anything but corny and half-a**ed, to say nothing of the performances of the actors being forgettable.
The score by Fred Mollin is terribly uneven and inconsistent. There would be an occasional cool tune in the score, but more of the time the tune(s) would prove bland, dry, forgettable, not at all scary, not present in some scenes where it might've helped, and above all, more often than not emotionless.
The kill scenes are atrocious and unimaginative. One victim gets an guitar to the head, another victim gets a wrench to the head, one less important teen gets a hot sauna rock to the stomach, Jason strangles another victim with his bare hands, one character gets drowned in some sludge, and Jason throws some character off the ship's mast. The overall flaws of these kill scenes is: some are off camera, some contain no gore, and the rest are completely lazy with no real thought put into them.
There was very little gore and what gore there was neither looked convincing nor did it show any sense of creativity.
The drama between Sean and his sea captain father is totally annoying and doesn't even belong in this sort of movie. The drama between Rennie and her scumbag biology teacher, uncle Charles, is also really ridiculous. What the hell is this a soap opera?! Come on already!
There's not much chemistry between Sean and the lovely Rennie. I just wasn't feeling it.
These were just a bunch of spoiled and priviliged rich kids that I could neither relate to nor did I honestly give a crap about. Some were really unlikable as well.
The movie's length was far too long for no real reason. 97 minutes was just far too many for this sort of movie.
There's no comic relief of any kind. The characters could've at least joked around in some scene(s). This movie took itself way too seriously in general.
There's absolutely no suspense what-so-ever. Jason doesn't hide for any real time, he more attacks his victims head on than really stalks them, every other scene consists of one kill by Jason after another, and as a result, this movie completely fails to be scary and leaves the audience with nothing to anticipate. After a while this movie just got boring because of it's lack of suspense.
The constant hallucinations of Jason as a boy, both served little purpose as it didn't make any sense that little Jason starts out looking and sounding normal rather than deformed and silent. Later on little Jason appears normal. What?!!
There's hardly any nudity. There's only partial nudity and sort of nudity. What good is that?!!
SPOILER ALERT: I will now talk about the ending. If you haven't seen this movie then you'll most likely wish to skip this part of the review.
Two words about say it, TOXIC WASTE! It made absolutely no sense that there would be barrels and barrels of toxic waste in the sewer. So if that's the case then how come anyone can come down there and not get their feet burned off or any other part of their bodies that touch the are? What are the barrels even doing there in the first place? How can anyone even breathe the air in general? Why does the toxic waste always comes flooding through the New York City sewers every night/morning at midnight? How did the sewer worker even know that in the first place? How does anyone even use their toilets then? Does it have the potential of invading everyone's drinking ,bathing, and pool water then? It there's a problem then why don't they seem to be getting rid of the toxic waste? I know that this is a horror movie, not factual, and the toxic waste in the sewer bit doesn't have any great relevance to the plot, but it just makes one wonder about these things. Finally, back to the movie, since none of the aforementioned things regarding the toxic waste make any sense what-so-ever, then why would they kill Jason off with the midnight deluge of toxic waste? Finally why is it that once the waste shreds Jason down to nothing, Jason turns back to a little boy? Furthermore, why is that even a relevant thing to show? END OF SPOILER
Finally, the majority of the characters are killed on the ship. There are very few kill scenes in Manhattan and also very little of the movie even takes place in New York City. The subtitle of, "Jason Takes Manhattan", doesn't seem to serve much purpose in general.
Overall, If you're looking for good suspense, creative kill scenes, a bevy of gore, plenty of nudity, laughs, interesting and relatable characters, good scares, a riveting musical score, a good plot, or even memorable performances, well you're best off looking elsewhere because this movie offers none of those things. Kane Hodder was(this time) just not enough to make it watchable even little. The only thing that Jason takes is all your time that could've been spent on a far better horror movie than this leaky cesspool of a so-called horror/slasher.
| Additional DVD options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
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DVD
October 10, 2017 "Please retry" | Standard | 1 | $5.89 | $5.99 |
|
DVD
September 15, 1989 "Please retry" | Standard Edition | 1 |
—
| $5.22 | $3.01 |
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Friday The 13th Part VIII Jason Takes ManhattanI bought this because I want to collect all the movies. It came in perfect condition and it was a great purchase and the price was amazing!
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