DON'T: JAWS 3-D

DON'T GO TO SEAWORLD.

The first JAWS still scares the shit out of me. There I said it. It is fun and bold. It is tacky, yet well done. It runs full blast through the whole movie and you leave it thrilled as fuck. There is the lackluster JAWS 2, but it still has some decent scares and isn't afraid to have a body count. And both are rated PG. The seventies treated kids right! But then we have to deal with another sequel. JAWS 3! And for those lucky enough to see it in select theaters at the time of release you got to see it in 3-D. If you lived in a poorer community or watched it on TV or video, you got the EVEN more awesome JAW 3-D NOT IN 3-D, which is always better in my opinion.


Our first taste of some 3-D action is detached fish head that floats right up to the screen and just lingers there, while I am assuming theater audiences oohed and ahhed at the marvel of 3-D technology. In NOT 3-D, you get to study the fish head from all angles, because you have that much time. Then the credits start and the titles come blazing out at you while a team of water skiers (including a super dumb and charmless Lea Thompson) do tricks. FUN!!!! Joe Alves worked at production designer for Steven Spielberg for years and went on to do art direction for the rest of his career. But he only directed one film and honestly, if I directed one film, I would LOVE to have my name look like this in the opening credits! KICK ASS!


1983 was a great year for mens fashion and I try to model my style after those long gone days of hot camp counselors and horny teens in skinny ties, but who knew SEA WORLD employees would have the best style EVER! The polo shirts are rockin' and the mens bathing suits are the best ever. Not as scandalous as a speedo, but not ugly and boring as the board shorts that have taken over the beaches. They are just the right length and show some leg but without telling you all the secrets. AND it is a known fact that Dennis Quaid (the star of JAWS 3-D) was placed on this earth to make me fucking nuts. How is he this hot? Then and NOW?! It truly does not make any sense. The man is dreamboat material through and through...okay...I'm done. Back to the movie.

WELCOME TO SEA WORLD!!!! It seems the fish institution and tourist attraction's branch in Florida has built a beautiful 30 million dollar exhibit called The Undersea Kingdom. Lucky for us, it isn't real and all just a set, which only means one thing. The motherfucker will get either blown to bits or crumb and mayhem will ensue! I am fine with both. Louis Gossett Jr. the the scheming and evil boss of SEA WORLD and he is really weird. He nails the southern drawl, but he seems to be reading off of cue cards or something. Or he learned his lines that morning over a cup of coffee and just went for it. He is just there. You might think he is going to be super evil, but he is more like a really irritating boss, that everyone listen too when they are around him, but once he is gone they go back to doing whatever they want too.

Playing a dolphin scientist and hot and cold girlfriend to Quaid, is Bess Armstrong. Bess is beloved by millions for two very, very important pieces of work. JAWS 3-D is not one of them, but is quickly becoming a contender for a third spot. Armstrong bedazzled housewives and little gay boys across America when she starred as one of the many leads in the mini series LACE. If you have not seen LACE, you have not lived! And it is true that all three LACE ladies play themselves in teenage flashbacks! JOY!


Bess Armstrong will also forever be locked in my mind frame because of the wonderful portrayal of Angela Chase's mother on MY SO CALLED LIFE. What a brilliant show....Sadly, watching JAWS 3-D, you would NEVER EVER think that Bess would go on to do such high caliber stuff. Did you ever see THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH with Denise Richards? If so, think of Denise's character but with more dolphins! I tend to think Bess knows what she is doing, but she is so annoying that you keep hoping Jaws jumps out of the water and gobbles her up. But does go into the murky depths of SEA WORLD to search for Jaws, but it is kinda dark and boring for the most part. But don't make a sushi joke around her or you will get the stink eye from hell!

One day the underwater creatures start to go nuts. Not like jumping out of the water and attacking patrons, but swimming in fast forward and not giving out wet kisses like they normally do. Something is afoul. Some random throw away character gets eaten and we get to see a floating arm linger around the screen for a little while. Bess and Dennis capture a great white shark and nurse it back to health. BUT!! Something is up, because they toss in an easy kill of two teenish coral hunters and they get eaten! Now how can there be another shark attack when they captured the great white. I'm confused? It doesn't make any sense...unless.....

Unbeknownst to the head of the marine life department, Gossett puts the captured shark on display and it dies in front of a massive ground of people. Bess jumps in the water and tries to help him and Dennis gets into the action too. He emerges with clinging wet jeans....soooo sexy...okay enough of that. So that's the end of the movie. But what about those two dead coral hunters?

The next day, the park is jumpin' jumpin'! The water skiers are in the middle of a high octane show with a stunt Lea Thompson and The underwater tunnels that connect the UNDERSEA KINGDOM are packed with people. All of a sudden this appears!!

OH SHIT!!!! It seems that Bess had a great white alright, but a baby one and now MOM is PISSED!!!! Bess does get to scream, "THE SHARK'S MOTHER HAS BEEN HIDING IN THE PARK THIS WHOLE TIME!!!!". In all her not 3-D glory JAWS mom sets about smashing SEA WORLD to bits and scaring the hell out of everyone. Outside the water skiers are going to town on their act and suddenly there are cloggers! And two of the said cloggers are dressed up like pigs. It doesn't make any sense and is kinda creepy. There is also a beautiful mermaid perched on a ledge waving to everyone. She is my favorite character in the movie. She looks like she is quite possibly the dumbest person to ever work at SEA WORLD and that is saying a lot after seeing this movie. I kept hoping they would show Jaws leaping out of the water and shallowing her. But no luck. For some reason, even though there is tons of mayhem, there is a very low body count in this movie. OH! There is the great fake scare when these three girls are walking through THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM and suddenly an octopus comes alive and wraps one of it's tentacles around one of the girl's waist. It gets too close to the screen and lingers a little too long, but it is funny. And then her friends point and laugh at her. Good times!

So we now have tons of people trapped underwater and Bess and Dennis having to battle it out with JAWS underwater and at night for some reason. But Dennis and his younger brother have a sexy off as they undress to put on diving suits. Oh, yeah Dennis has a brother that is scared of water, but for some reason is constantly in the water. We do get a great shot from inside JAWS mouth and she eats up somebody. Then She blows up and bits and pieces come flying at the screen and float around for awhile. Bess and Dennis hug and the people are rescued and everyone is happy. The end.

I don't understand why SEA WORLD thought it was a good idea to allow the filmmakers of JAWS 3-D to set and film their movie within their compound. Did they think it would attract more tourist? I don't know, but I tell you this, after seeing this movie I wouldn't set foot in this place. The owner is a jerk and the security seems a little lacking. BUT i would fly down there right now if I knew that Dennis Quaid was on staff!! I will take him any day. Preferably in 3-D!!!!

ICONIC: Exorcist 2: The Heretic

You wanna get crazy? You wanna get real crazy? You wanna get real fucking crazy? Then Exorcist 2: The Heretic is here for you. It takes more than it gives, but what it does give is so abundant and thought provoking, that you will be mulling it over for years to come. It takes a very special type of movie to break you down viewing upon viewing, but the more times you watch it, the more you discover the secrets of this film. They are hidden deep in the catacombs of continuity problems and the trenches of plot hole after plot hole, but sometimes the shock of not knowing what is about to happen to you is so enticing, that you can let yourself go. With a virgin viewing of Exorcist 2: The Heretic, you descend into a world of mass market madness and lost focus. And with an invisible spirit stick in her hand, our leader lifts her hand in triumph and swings the stick around and around, beckoning all adventurers to her lair. There is only one person who can navigate us through this film and her name is Regan MacNeil, otherwise known as Linda Blair the great.


At the time of its filming, the ill-fated sequel was the most expensive movie produced by Warners Brothers. They went all out. Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair had both been pursued to do a sequel, but both kept turning down offers, because the scripts were so bad. Finally, Linda approved of a script, but Ellen did not. An omen? A glaring one I think. But since I am always on Linda's side, I say why not? Linda was still a teen and had nothing to lose, Ellen on the other hand needed to move on...
Sadly, the script that Linda signed on for, ended up being re-worked constantly and the film got mocked and the audience tossed trash at it's big premiere. Yanking the movie from movie houses to rework it, the filmmakers re-cut it and tooted up some of the special effects and re-released it, but the damage had already been done. There was no saving it now and once again audiences turned on it. It went down as one of the biggest horror bombs ever, but strangely enough would become the biggest money maker of all The Exorcist sequels. Luckily, for BadMovieArt it became a movie that would grow more powerful as it aged and would become a time capsule of the latter 70's, when acclaimed film directors would start making their big Hollywood bombs and slowly each of them would fall aside to the glitz and merchandise tie-ins of the Blockbuster.

John Boorman arrived on the Hollywood scene when he directed the nail biting and beautifully filmed DELIVERANCE. Balancing the line between art and commercialization is always hard, but Boorman created a masterpiece of the what it means to be a real man and the depths of the soul a man will go to when he needs to preserve his masculinity. He was on board to direct the film version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but when it got cancelled, he moved to his weird Sean Connery in a diaper movie ZARDOZ. A complex space adventure though littered with quality actors, failed to get a good response and he moved on to EXRORCIST 2.
After that movie escaped his hands, he took a couple of years off and came back blazing with the boring, but pre-teen boy favorite EXCALIBUR. Moving away from the Hollywood system and the big budget, he went back to his roots and made the compelling EMERALD FOREST and the understated HOPE AND GLORY. His talents really shine when he has more control over his projects and one of his latter films, BEYOND RANGOON, has got to be the most intimate of his films. Sometimes you have to go to the far side of hell and back to realize just where your talents lay. And I wish every one's personal hell was as much fun as EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC.


The screenwriter, William Goodhart, forgo adapting William Peter Blatty's actual novel sequel( which later would be filmed as Exorcist 3) and set out to create something completely original. He drew his inspiration for the teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His source material has popped up in A SCANNER DARKLY and THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN films and it all sorta revolves around God and nature combining and getting to a higher ground. In a nutshell of course. But knowing that tidbit, makes EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC a little more comprehensible. A little. And when Boorman and the producers failed to recognize the brilliance of Goodhart's script, they brought in a couple of Boorman minions to "toot" it up a bit. Aka more gore and scares.

The always unbelievable Ennio Morricone delivers a film score that will drive you to the brink of reality and back. The score feels more like an actual character in the film than just some background music. It is used to seduce you, hypnotize you and scare the shit out of you. It is a force. Not as grand and legendary as "Tubular Bells" from the first Exorcist, but still a fantastic effort. Ennio, you ROCK!

So five years have passed and lil' Regan MacNeil is a budding teen on the verge of womanhood. Linda Blair looks beautiful. '77 was prime Linda Blair time and she gives good face and has a huge rack! She tries to remain very serious, but her joy of being young and being a movie star show through the cracks. She is having way too much fun. Regan is trying to pull it together though. She has left the demons behind and has been going through intense therapy and also has a supporting role in the school play where she gets to TAP!! Yes, ladies and gays, she has a fucking tap number. They tease us a little at first, with a little soft shoe, but the movie focuses on it a little too much so you know it will be a minor plot device. Or a major one, depending on who you ask. So everything is going not great, but manageable, sorta...

Regan mother, Chris MacNeil, is on location filming a movie. Hopefully the sequel to her, "WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE" college campus drama that she was working on in the first Exorcist. Regan is left with Sharon, her mom's assistant in a penthouse made of glass in the middle of New York. Because it is always a good idea to let a once disturbed person live in a high rise condo where the outside decks do not have railings. Sharon is wreck. She can't seem to get a grasp on anything. She is either running around freaking out or standing in silence with tears welling up in her eyes. A wreck. A throw away in the first film, her character becomes a major supporting role in the sequel. She even gets to find lots of clues!

Since Burstyn could not be bothered with the film, we get the poor man's version, Louise Fletcher. She plays Regan's therapist at a highly experimental and super duper bizarre children's hospital. Seriously, the minute you see the inside of this place, you know that nothing good can come from it. The place is full of glasses offices and an assortment of creepy child actors leaning on the glasses looking sad and actual mentally handicapped kids roaming around. It's weird. There is one classic scene of a very serious conversation between Blair and Fletcher and all you can focus on are the kids on the other side of the glass rolling a HUGE ass foam tire around and around. At least the kids seem to be having fun on the set. I swear a couple of them keep looking at the camera. There is some mumbo jumbo about a synchronizing mind machine, that if you stare a blinking light, you will go way under and into the deepest darkest parts of your mind. Fletcher is trying to make Regan remember what happened during that horrible time in Georgetown, but she just can't seem to get inside. Regan utters the first of many memorable lines when she stares blankly at Fletcher and says, "You can't handle what's in my head!" HOLLA!!!


We are a good 45-50 minutes into the movie and Louise Fletcher seems to just give up. Call it method acting or call it sick of doing the movie, but Fletcher turns into a stone statue and never returns. Also, what the hell is actually going? One minute we are having to listen to Linda Blair say to Dana Plato, "I was possessed, but I'm better now," then thrust into an amazing version of SOARIN' over Africa. The viewer feels like they are trapped in a mind fuck tug of war, not knowing if they are going to be able to stand their ground or slip into the muddy puddle of all that is Exorcist 2. I say, let the rope go and just spread open your arms and go face first in the mess. It is much easier and more fun.

So there is a lot going on in this movie. Blinking lights, Sharon freak outs, A bug flying across the African landscape and then we get him! Richard Burton shows up as a drunk priest who connects with Regan in a way no one else can. Why? Cuz they both has been paid visits by the devil. They call him Pazuzu and he kicks ass. Ole Paz is the demon of the southwest wind who causes famine and brings about locust to ruin everything. In the first Exorcist we get this version of Pazuzu:



In the sequel Pazuzu shows back up in a Father Burton flashback. It seems that he saw a vision of Paz when doing a mind meld with Regan and it all came back to him and WE get to go on the journey through time with him. You remember that little hint of a tap routine, well the wait is OVER! Linda straps on her tux and taps and goes for it. She steals the whole thing from all the other students, but suddenly gets confused with all that devil stuff going on and tumbles off the stage. It is just as good as it sounds. Regan whispers, "Call me by my dream name," and we are off. Jousting into a completely different movie, we find ourselves with Father Burton as he is scaling a mountain with extras helping from left to right. He climbs all the way up and discovers a forbidden temple of lust and general unholiness. This involves lots of dancing and creepy white out eyes. That is where he meets his version of Pazuzu and I must say, this version is much CUTER!!


And I think this is the point when everything went out the window. I would love to have a time machine and go to the opening weekend of this movie and watch the audience react. When did they actually lose their shit and turn on the movie? There are so many moments that will break you, but you gotta be strong, cuz Linda is about to get re-re-re-repossessed and John Boorman is going to bust all the sets, so beautifully crafted, bits. The entire cast ends up at the old George Town brownstone where the original possession happened. There are tons of flashbacks, but instead of using footage from the first movie, they opted to re-create some scenes, but without Linda in the make-up. She claimed it fucked up her skin. Most likely true. Father Burton battles Pazuzu and the Sharon has ANOTHER freak out and burst into flames. GOOD SCENE. The house starts to crumble and break apart, but Linda channels the ancient tribal woman who can calm the locust (yes, this is what is going on) and using an invisible spirit stick to make all right in the world. It is FUCKING AWESOME.

And it's over. The end. You spent almost two hours in the trenches of BadMovieArt and either you emerge a new and better person or just a shell of what you use to be. Linda is your guide. Take her hand. Trust her and you will find the purest of joy and you get to see her roll her eyes in the back of her head.

DON'T: Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

DON'T TRY TO KILL YOURSELF ON ELM STREET.


Let's quickly discuss the genius that is Chuck Russell. He is a BadMovieArt hall of famer not only for his outstanding work as a producer of BMA classics like Hell Night, Body Rock, Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Eraser, but he has also written and directed two of the best horror films to emerge from the late 80's. One being the remake of The Blob, starring Shawnee Smith, which is just as much fun as the original, but slimier. But the crowning achievement in his body of work is Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.


The third sequel in the legacy of Nightmare on Elm Street set out to change everything. Pretending that the second part didn't even happen, Russell did something that had NOES fans cheering. He brought back the character of Nancy, played by the wonderful and stunningly beautiful Heather Langenkamp. A brilliant move. Now who doesn't love Nancy? She had to forgo any help from her parents and could not even count on Johnny Depp to make sure she didn't fall asleep. She had to battle Freddy all on her own and use all her know how to kill him. And when a rash of teen suicide attempts erupt on Elm Street, she is the only one who can help.

A handful of normal-ish teens have all ended up in the same psych ward under close observation by Priscilla Pointer AKA "mean mommy" from DALLAS. The kids all complain of seeing a nightmarish figure in their dreams and are all fighting not to fall asleep. And it seems that all the kids are bound together by the fact that they are the last kids on Elm Street. Now, why anyone would not see a weird connection to this is beyond me, but that is where Nancy steps in and she is a grown ass woman now! I guess she quickly dealt with the death of all of her close friends, went to college and got a degree in dream psychology and landed a sweet state job. I like to think that she made it all up and dresses like a Golden Girl to make herself look a little older to infiltrate the hospital because she knows that she is the only one who understands the kids. Armed with a patent pending drug to suppress dreams, she launches a full scale attack on Freddy, Mean Mommy and the health board.

The true successor to Nancy Thompson is Kristen Parker, played by Patricia Arquette, who gives good scream! We are first introduced to Kristen when she is trapped in a nightmare and finds herself at Nancy's old house. The front yard is full of little creepy kids jump roping to" 1,2....Freddy's coming for you..." and what could possibly be the scariest little girl in the world. The little girl in the yellow dress on a tricycle. If you ever see her pinch yourself and wake your ass up, cuz you won't be coming back if she is around! Kristen finds herself face to face with Freddy Krueger and awakens to find she has blotched a suicide attempt. Of course, her parents don't understand and it is off to the teen nut house for her.

Once there, a resident doctor starts seeing a nun dressed all in white roaming around. Every time he tries to catch up with her, she is gone, but he knows that something is up. And a young and super hunky Larry Fishburne plays an orderly. He and Nancy's chemistry is bubbling over with sexual tension. All their scenes together is so electric you keep waiting for them to make out. They don't. Nancy has no time for romance, even when the nun seeing doctor tries to get some. NO TIME!!! NO one seems to truly understand just how much danger the kids are in.

Then, in what is the first in a series of super gross outs, one of the kids has their veins pulled from both wrist and feet and is led by Freddy to jump from a building as all the kids have to watch in terror. Still writing them off as trouble teens, the doctors put all the kids on lock down, but the a girl with dream of Hollywood goes head first into the wall mounted TV ( FUCK PRIME TIME!), the kids have had it.


With the help of Nancy, the kids join forces to enter their dreams and make sure that Freddy doesn't get his razor sharp claws on any more of them. The teens go under group hypnosis and once in a dream state, unleash their inner powers. The wheelchair bound boy can walk and is a master wizard, the druggie girl is an S&M tough talking punk chick and the black dude is mash up of pro wrestler/rocky knock off. Together, they seem like they would be an unstoppable force, but it doesn't take long for Freddy to slash the group in half and leaves Nancy and Kristen alone to battle it out with Freddy.

On the outside world, the resident doctor finally gets to talk to the nun in white. She tells him that Freddy's dad was not just one man, but 100 crazy dudes! WOW! He tracks down Nancy's dad, played by the still smoking hot John Saxon!


Now a washed up drunk ex-cop, he reluctantly takes the doctor to Penny Bros Auto Salvage where the parents of elm street buried Freddy's body. The goal now is bury the body in hallowed ground (the first time the religious aspect for cheap scares is used in the series) and do it in time before another kid gets killed. Battling honking cars and dancing skeletons, the two have as much to deal with as the girls do in dreamland.

Nightmare 3 ushered in a new type of Freddy. It amped up the gore and one liners, he had yet to go into the annoying yuks factor that would haunt the rest of the series. He was still horrifying and a menace. Audiences were still on the victims side, but that would all change with Part 4 and audiences would start cheering for Freddy as the kids got more annoying and the death scenes got more and more elaborate. Roach Motel anyone?

The joy of seeing Nancy and Freddy together again is so fun and they really do seem to have a bad romance. Nancy resurfaces years later in New Nightmare and once again her character is brought back to reboot the series. Robert Englund is a true master at his craft. He has always been a fantastic genre actor and Freddy is his role of a lifetime. He will forever be known as the child killing monster, but he brings a depth to the character that is not really necessary, but is welcomed. Dream Warriors re-introduced Freddy to a new generation of kids that couldn't see it in the theatres, but could easily get it on home video. Causing most kids to either want to be Freddy or end up traumatized by Freddy! Robert you ROCK!

THRILLS: RENT- A- COP

The late eighties were pretty good to Liza. Or Liza was pretty good to the late eighties. Hot off her international best selling album RESULTS, that contained the gay dream come true song DON'T DROP BOMBS, Liza proceeded not to follow her own advice and dropped a bomb herself. Luckily, she snatched Burt Reynolds to help her and most of the blame fell on his shoulders. Why? Because everyone loves Liza!! The two joined forces to create a low octane, zero romantic thriller called RENT- A- COP. Or as I like to call it, RENT-A-WRECK.


The first rule of watching RENT-A-WRECK is that you must have a lot of ice cream to get through it. It doesn't matter what flavor, I prefer Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough. It helps. Promise. Following the trend set by Jane Fonda (The Morning After) and Babs (Nuts), Liza plays a hooker that is suppose to be in her late 30's, but looks like she is close to her early 50's. She looks good, but to hand over a wad of cash to get a BJ or a half and half in a back alley? I guess I can suspend my disbelieve. But only for Liza. While on a job in a posh Chicago hotel, she is the only witness to a mob murder and instead of joining a convent and making the sisters sing R&B classics with a spiritual twist, she turns to the only man that can help her, Burt Reynolds.


We are first introduced to Burt's character, Church, when he is playing a department store Santa. Oh, yeah, RENT-A-WRECK is set during Christmas. But this is no ordinary Santa. He is an washed up cop who ends up tearing the department store up while trying to catch some bad guys. Customers look horrified and are pushed aside in what looks to be very painful stunts for day workers. Merry Christmas Extras! You got a broken nose!!

Burt is called to investigate the hotel murder and runs into Liza! They call her "the hooker from the hotel" for most of the movie, but her name is Della. In a brilliant move, they decide to re-trace Della's steps which means eating Chinese food and Liza confessing to Burt that she use to be a dancer. Sadly, no musical productions. SIGH. They do meet up with a coke dealer who might have some clues and Liza seems to get a little too excited by the coke dealer. Like she forgot she was actually in a movie or something. The great thing about all this is, that Burt and Liza are falling in love!!! Like ROMANCING THE STONE love/hate falling in love, but without the charm. They have some of the worst on screen chemistry ever. Liza really tries to go there, but Burt just seems like he hates her and the movie. Everyone seems to be FREEZING their asses off and the cast looks miserable anytime a scene is set outdoors or some place that does not have a roaring fire place. But at least Liza gets to wear fur coats for most of the movie.


Then it happens. Divas collide. In gay world, there is nothing better when Divas collide. Two for one! Liza and Burt turn to the only person they can trust. Dionne Warwick!!! Dionne is Liza's madame and has all the files of her clients on a computer! And she can print them out on a floppy disk! If you have ever been to my house, you most likely have seen this clip from the movie. It is GOLD! All of Dionne's lines are looped in and she looks as uncomfortable as Liza does when she has to kiss Burt. If you get me drunk enough, I will perform the scene for you. That being said, they do get some good clues and Dionne has to say mom/son domination and it makes everyone feel weird.

The movie turns into a mini-chase movie and there are a couple of hit men who can't seem to get the job done. Dionne gets knifed on a bridge to nowhere. Burt's house blows up, but don't worry, cuz it is just a miniature. Kinda cute. Liza puts her bionic hip to good use and does a couple of medium dangerous stunts, but leaves the big ones to her stunt double, which looks like Dina Martina in her Liza wig. I ain't complaining. The couple celebrate the holidays and take a break to do this:


Believe me it is worse on the screen!

By the end, Liza has left hooking behind now that her pimp is dead and the bad guys are all murdered by Burt. And the movie goes from RENT-A- COP to SNATCH-A-HUSBAND. Merry Christmas indeed!!!

The movie failed on all accounts. It died at the box office and most video stores only carried one copy of it on their shelves, which is the kiss of death for a movie. Every time I watch it I express my concern about how it should not be viewed, but alas Liza draws me back in. If you are brave enough to go down the road of RENT-A-COP remember...have ice cream!

DON'T: Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan

DON'T GO TO NEW YORK!

Gather 'round and I will tell you the story of how Jason decided that if he can slaughter people in the Big Apple, he can slaughter people everywhere! The bright lights of Times Square are calling his name. Lady Liberty reaches her arms out to him. Welcome to New York!! But all in time.


Just to bring us all to same reference point, just a touch of horror history. In Part Six: Jason Lives, Tommy tied an anchor around Jason and sunk his ass in Crystal Lake. Then in Part Seven: The New Blood, Tina sees her father drown in Crystal Lake as a child. She returns to the watery grave, but this time armed with psychic powers. Her goal is to raise her father out of the lake, but instead she gets Jason!!! SHIT!! But then at the end, Tina is fighting Jason on a pier and her dad busted out of the water and grabs Jason and drags him back to the bottom of the lake.

We finally arrive at present day. The seniors from Crystal Lake High (not the real school, but it should have been called that) are all boarding a huge yacht to take a senior trip to NYC. I'm not sure how the lake connects, but those CLH students are smart. The kids all get their two seconds of character development. There is the Jock, who can box (CLUE!), the son of the ship's captain (CLUE!) and a girl who is trying to film a music video in the ship's basement (NO CLUE!).

But what! There is one more passenger! Rennie!! Played by the beautiful Jensen Daggett, this is one character you are going to fall in love with. Her mom/aunt/legal guardian gives her a pen that was supposedly used by Stephen King! WOW!! Rennie looks mildly happy about it. What is her problem? But Rennie has other things on her mind. Like how she has been battling her fear of water since she was a little girl, but was about to take her first boat ride in ages to try and face her demon. She is stressed.


There is a handful of other students. A surfer, a bitch and a indie filmmaker. But you can really only tell that by what they are wearing. Rocker girl goes first, but at least she goes rockin' out! HELLZ BELLZ!! But the first BIG kill in the death of the yacht's captain. That means his son has to take over. "Let's sink this bitch!" Within twenty to thirty minutes, the entire senior class, sponsoring teachers and other ship personal have been reduced to five and a dog!

AND WE ARE STILL NOT IN MANHATTAN!!! THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!!

More than an hour into the film, the survivors of the CLH senior trip massacre land their row boats into the docks of late eighties NYC. Naturally, it is the middle of the night and the place is crawling with robbers, rapist, drug abusers and streetwalkers. The CLH team immediately get mugged and they run in all sorts of directions, which makes it easier to kill off.
The Jock has fist fight with Jason and loses BIG TIME!! Rennie gets everyone into a car to escape, but seizes the moment to run Jason down in a back alley. She totals the car and everyone is fine except for the lady teacher who remained in the car, cuz it blows up! OOPS!! Rennie!!

They run some more. The dog is gone. He is like, "see ya suckas!" Then we get to see Rennie and the captain's son finally arrive in Times Square!! YAHOO!! We made it. Now, we only have ten minutes to spare, so we are going to go gaga over NYC right?!
Nope. Jason also arrives in Times Square (best part of the movie), but Renni spots him and ushers her potential new boyfriend down in to the sewers. So we are yanked off the streets of New York and down into its underbelly. And you know what happens when people go down into the sewers? Rats! And a big flood of "clean sewer" water! And we get them both. But this time the "clean sewer" water has been replaced with toxic waste!!! The kids scramble to safety as Jason, now mask less, STILL tries to kill them. He never gives up. Jason gets hit with a wave of toxic waste and miraculous becomes a little boy. Just a little boy who drowned in the lake all those years ago. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

Renni and now her new boyfriend climb out of the sewer and just as the end credits roll, the dog comes running back!! YAHOO! With this installment everything in the Friday the 13Th universe changed. Paramount dumped the franchise and it found a place at New Line Cinema, but by then it seemed too late. The first 8 will always be considered the true films. Well minus part 5.

Elizabeth Berkley auditioned for the role. And most of the movie was filmed in Vancouver, B.C.