Review of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) by Erik O — 13 Jun 2008

Definitely my favorite entry in the series. I, personally, liked seeing Jason wreaking havoc in a setting outside of the familiar Crystal Lake camp grounds, and the surrounding areas. My only real complaint, is that the many manifestations of "kid Jason" were a bit too varying.

In one vision, he looks like a little Asian boy with brown hair; in another version, he looks like Squiggy from 'Laverne and Shirley.' And, in yet another version, he looks like a skinny zombie child with long white hair.

Not to mention, at the end, he looks like a chubby 12-year-old with short brown hair. My point is, in none of the manifestations does he actually look like he did in the brief glimpses that we got in the original "F13.

" And the kid kept asking the female lead for help, but adult Jason didn't really show any signs of being in distress, until the very end when he was drowned again. Even with those little mishaps in mind, I still really like this film, and I feel that (even though it is, for all intents and purposes, a "gimmick movie") it's one of the best, if not the best, films in the entire franchise.

It's too bad that they decided to "jump the shark" on the 9th one, after having two solid outings in a row.