Slick Dungeon back to review another film in the Friday the 13th series. Strap in, to your life boats, put on your life jacket and brace for stormy seas because there be spoilers ahead for all the Jason movies up to this point. You have been warned.

Well, we need a new idea for the ever popular Jason movies. We’ve seen Mrs. Voorhees kill camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. We’ve seen Jason kill camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. We’ve seen Jason kill people at houses near Camp Crystal Lake. We’ve seen Jason kill other people at a different house near camp Crystal Lake. We’ve seen someone who is not Jason kill people at a halfway house near Camp Crystal Lake. We’ve seen Jason go back to he neighborhood of Crystal Lake after being resurrected from the dead. And we have seen Jason go toe to toe with a psychic at a house near Camp Crystal Lake. You know what we should do? Send Jason to Manhattan! He’s never been in a city before so let’s do that! Great. Only, you know location costs are high when filming in New York City right? You have to stop traffic and all that stuff. Okay, here’s the plan. We call it Jason Takes Manhattan but we have it mostly take place… on a boat! Err… on a boat? Yeah on a boat, it’s gonna be great. Didn’t Jason drown and wouldn’t be be afraid of being out on the water? Yeah, but boat. But how do we get him to New York City? Isn’t Camp Crystal Lake, you know, a lake? Meaning it doesn’t connect to the ocean? It’s Jason on a boat! No one will notice. I think they will. We’ll have Jason knock someone’s head off with a single punch though. Oh, okay if Jason is going to do that, we’re all in, no need to explain plot holes at all here.

Oddly, there are some things that are done really well in this movie despite the whole Jason on a boat thing. There are decently developed characters and there is even some character change by the end. This starts off a little weird with some shots of grungy city life in New York but with a radio station talking about kids from a high school in Crystal Lake coming to visit. Then we shift over to a boat on Camp Crystal Lake where a couple of teenagers are hanging out uh… doing what teenagers do. The boy tells the girl the legend of Jason. It’s not the whole old crazy man warns kids away scene that I love, but it is the let’s tell a spooky story and then have that story come to life scene. Moments later these teenagers are dead after Jason has been resurrected with the unlikely combination of an anchor hitting a power line under water just right, sparking electricity that flows directly to where Jason has been chained.

Next we see high school students loading onto a cruise ship that, again is going to the ocean, from wherever Camp Crystal Lake is, (I think somewhere in upstate New York that does not have a lake that connects to an ocean). The next third of the film is the same thing as all the other movies. Jason stalks and kills people, only this time, this time, it’s… yes… on a boat. The boat goes through some major damage caused not only by Jason but also by those trying to stop him. Finally, the boat sinks and a few people make it out on a row boat and do in fact make it to New York City. Guess who tagged along? You got it, Jason climbs out of the water soon after they dock. There’s a bit of a run around through the city, on the subway and in the sewers until Jason is finally killed by… toxic waste. Yep, all it takes to get Jason to go away for good is some good ol’ New York City toxic waste.

I had a few questions and comments here.

1. We didn’t get the old man warns people away from Crystal Lake scene but you know what we did get? That’s right, we got the ship’s crewman telling everyone this voyage is doomed scene! I love it. Also, if anyone out there needs me to stand on a ship and warn people that their voyage is doomed, give me a call.
2. In the beginning when we get the narration of why Jason kills people, they say he haunts the lake, killing teens to get revenge. You know what that does not explain at all? All the adults who are not teens that he kills. Sorry, I want my ghost stories to be consistent.
3. Again, I don’t think that’s how electricity works but apparently if you want Jason to live, pump him full of electricity. But also, if you want to slow Jason down, you can, hit him with electricity. So uh.. yeah, there’s that.
4. There was no car trouble whatsoever in this. You know why? It was on a boat! People finally figured out that their cars wouldn’t save them from Jason so they thought to give the boat a try.
5. Speaking of boats, the harbor where people load on at Crystal Lake is way larger than one would expect considering this is always talked about as a small town.
6. That boat that those teenagers from the beginning were on floats into the harbor and it’s covered in blood but no one seems to notice or care at all. Come on people, when a ghost ship rolls into town there is trouble on the way. Have none of you read Dracula?
7. Most things won’t kill Jason but a few stop them. At one point in this movie, Rennie, one of the few who will survive, is given a fountain pen that supposedly belonged to Stephen King. Later in the movie, Rennie stabs Jason in the eye with it and he totally slows down. Stephen, can we get some more of those pens?!
8. In this Jason also picks up a brand new hockey mask but in some shots his mask still has the ax mark from like the third film. Did no one think to make sure the mask damage was consistent here?
9. Jason lumbers all around New York City, in Times Square, on the subway, in a diner, on the sewers and when people first see him, they have no reaction to him at all. Checks notes: yep, this checks out perfectly.
10. Years before this the Muppets took Manhattan. In that movie, I learned that to take Manhattan, you had to make friends with rats at a diner, bring all your pals along, have a fight with them and send them away then be sad for a while, then have a memory of all of you as adorable babies before successfully putting on a Broadway show. Guess who didn’t do any of that? That’s right, Jason. So let me be clear here: Jason never took Manhattan at all!!
11. Jason is killed by toxic waste in the New York Sewers. Uh, seriously? Why would that be a weakness of Jason’s?
12. Also, why is there so much toxic waste around here?
13. Well, it’s been a fun eight movies but Jason is finally at rest where he belongs. In the sewers of New York City, swimming around in toxic waste. We can all rest easy now, there won’t be any more Jason movies or deaths. What? What is that you just said? Jason Goes to Hell? Okay yeah that seems about right but isn’t that pretty much where we would expect to find him? Oh, Jason X? I mean what, Jason X marks the spot? This is getting silly. Freddy Vs. Jason? Yeah, okay I guess that could be fun. A reboot?! A reboot?! Can you actually do that? Friday the 13th? And we are just going to pretend the rest never happened? Oh man, there are a lot of these. Can anything kill Jason? I mean besides toxic sludge in New York City, or the pen of America’s favorite horror author of course.

Will I be reviewing all of those other Jason movies? Eh.. maybe? Depends on if I can get them on a subscription service I already have or not. I am sure eventually I will get to all of them but for now I am only doing the ones on Shudder.

I am going to watch and review the two documentaries about the series on there and I will report back on those for sure. I hope you have gotten a kick out of some of these reviews and let me know in the comments or @DungeonSlick on twitter if there is another movie series you would like me to obsessively watch and then rip apart in reviews full of nonsense and questions.

Stay safe out there and remember. Take a buddy with you when you go camping!

Slashingly yours,

Slick Dungeon

PS: Want to watch Jason get turned back into an eight year old boy by New York City’s finest toxic waste? Check it out below by clicking on the image.

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