Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And uh, Rob,
Speaker 1: we got one of your your famous calendar tie ins
Speaker 1: today because today is a Friday, we are finally doing
Speaker 1: a Friday movie. And uh, of of the original series,
Speaker 1: what could we pick except Jason Takes Manhattan, the one
Speaker 1: where Jason goes to New York years after the Muppets did. Now.
Speaker 1: A lot of times on this show we dig up
Speaker 1: obscure weirdness that not many people have ever seen. Uh
Speaker 1: and sometimes the Sometimes we find the diamonds that are hidden,
Speaker 1: you know, wonderful little gyms of movies that are that
Speaker 1: are little known. Sometimes we find stuff that is not
Speaker 1: so great but funny. In this series, we're going in
Speaker 1: a very different direction because as weird as the Friday
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth series is, and if you really like examine
Speaker 1: the contents of the series, it is a bizarre phenomenon.
Speaker 1: We should not forget that these movies were immensely popular.
Speaker 1: These hockey mask horror movies made hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in total, which is a lot for a horror franchise,
Speaker 1: And I believe until uh, maybe just recently, Friday, a
Speaker 1: movie about a guy in a hockey mask who walks
Speaker 1: around stabbing people, was the highest grossing horror franchise of
Speaker 1: all time. And you know, Rob, you and I as
Speaker 1: horror fans, probably have different types of movies we think
Speaker 1: of when we consider the genre as an ideal what
Speaker 1: is horror? Maybe some of your your favorite maybe the
Speaker 1: classy or horror movies come to mind. But in the
Speaker 1: general culture for decades from the eighties probably through the
Speaker 1: two thousands, if you said horror as a genre, I
Speaker 1: would say the average American would be more likely to
Speaker 1: think of Friday the Thirteenth and Jason Vorhees than anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these movies were big money. Uh, they were everywhere. Um.
Speaker 1: And and I think you know, to your point about
Speaker 1: about weirdness, um, just as we have to remind ourselves
Speaker 1: that that very popular things can still be very good,
Speaker 1: very popular movies can still be quite weird in a
Speaker 1: number of ways. And with these Friday the Thirteenth films
Speaker 1: in particular, I think it's very easy to either absorb
Speaker 1: them through pop culture or cable viewing and just allow
Speaker 1: it all to be sort of refined down to just
Speaker 1: the core scares, the kills in each film, sort of
Speaker 1: physical incarnation of Jason Vorhees. But there's there's a load
Speaker 1: of additional funky weirdness that absolutely should not be overlooked
Speaker 1: in in many, if not all, of the films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So are the Friday the Thirteenth movies good? Uh? Not? Really?
Speaker 1: Are they? Are they classy? Certainly? Not that I mean
Speaker 1: they I think they meet the definition of tracksh by
Speaker 1: by pretty much anybody's standard. But are they kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to watch and talk about, especially when you think
Speaker 1: about their place in the culture. Absolutely? Yeah. I The
Speaker 1: thing about the Friday the Thirteen films is that I
Speaker 1: grew up hearing about them from other kids, like an
Speaker 1: elementary school. Though I didn't see them, but this is
Speaker 1: one of the things that was talked about. Certain kids
Speaker 1: had the lore, had the knowledge, and they would share
Speaker 1: with the others. And and I do remember later catching
Speaker 1: parts of them on late night TV during I guess
Speaker 1: late elementary early middle school. My family lived in the
Speaker 1: country for part of this, very close to a large
Speaker 1: lake in fact, so so frankly these films um and
Speaker 1: and they were all Crystal Lake episodes installments that I
Speaker 1: was catching parts of it this this time. Uh, they
Speaker 1: terrified me because Jason seemed very much like this creature
Speaker 1: of the woods and the wilds that could potentially emerge
Speaker 1: out of the dark at any moment, in the darkness
Speaker 1: surrounding my house. Oh. Absolutely, he is one of the
Speaker 1: He is a nature spirit. He you know, he is
Speaker 1: born or he's like radigas the brown. He's like one
Speaker 1: of these figures that belongs to the trees and the critters.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a he's kind of a a murderous
Speaker 1: tom bomba dill Um. So you know, I think that
Speaker 1: maybe the my my childhood fear or in in certainly
Speaker 1: maybe apprehensions concerning this character, Uh, maybe they've led over
Speaker 1: into my adult life as well, because prior to this week,
Speaker 1: the only Friday the thirteenth film that had actually set
Speaker 1: down and watched from beginning to end was two thousand
Speaker 1: one's Jason X, which of course is awesome obviously a
Speaker 1: late franchise detour, and when you you picked Jason Takes Manhattan,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm definitely gonna watch this one obviously,
Speaker 1: but since this one's also kind of a a detour
Speaker 1: obviously styles itself as a detour. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to watch another one as well. The Blu
Speaker 1: ray disc that I rented from Video Drome here in
Speaker 1: Atlanta had Part seven The New Blood on it as well,
Speaker 1: so I decided to give that one to go. So
Speaker 1: I watched two Friday the Thirteenth films this week in
Speaker 1: preparation for this discussion. I'm gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 1: that I think Part seven is a better movie than
Speaker 1: the one we're talking about today, pretty much, hands down.
Speaker 1: But I think Part eight is a more appropriate pick
Speaker 1: because of how bizarrely it upsets the formula while still
Speaker 1: being incredibly predictable. Yeah. I really enjoyed both of them. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean because New Blood you have Tina, the telekinetic
Speaker 1: gal um, you know, whipon butt. Uh, you know the
Speaker 1: final portion of the film anyway. Um, I think there's
Speaker 1: some share DNA between these two films. Uh. But while
Speaker 1: the first one was definitely a Crystal Lake movie, this
Speaker 1: one takes us to Manhattan and well that's that's that's
Speaker 1: the cell anyway, right. It sort of does. So one
Speaker 1: of the famous things about Jason takes Manhattan is. I
Speaker 1: was watching it with Rachel and she had a pretty
Speaker 1: good one. She said, Uh, she sometimes calls it Jason
Speaker 1: takes a long time to get to Manhattan, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could also call it Jason takes boat. This movie
Speaker 1: has something in common with Eliminators, which we did I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe a month or two ago. A movie
Speaker 1: that you think is gonna be about a man droid,
Speaker 1: a scientist, a mercenary, a ninja out there getting in
Speaker 1: fights and stuff, and they do that a little bit.
Speaker 1: But really what the movie mostly is is about a boat.
Speaker 1: It's about a boat going up a river. And that's
Speaker 1: the same thing here. You think Jason's gonna take Manhattan,
Speaker 1: he gets there in the last fifteen minutes or so.
Speaker 1: The rest of the movie is a boat. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the but the last fifteen minutes or so is really strong,
Speaker 1: and when we'll get to that, well, I guess the
Speaker 1: secondary critique is also when he gets to Manhattan, it's
Speaker 1: mostly not actually Manhattan but Vancouver. Um. Yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Canadians to this film, and certainly
Speaker 1: in the cast, so that'd be fun to tell talk
Speaker 1: about in a bit. But but hey, we should slow
Speaker 1: down here, because first of all, I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on this genre. I've only seen the three films and
Speaker 1: then bits and pieces stitched together through my my childhood
Speaker 1: cable viewing UM and also the audience out here, not
Speaker 1: everyone out there really knows the full history, the full
Speaker 1: mythos of Jason Vorhees, Joe, can you give us a
Speaker 1: a previously on Friday walk through here? Oh? Yes I can.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll start with some some general thoughts and then
Speaker 1: go movie by movie. So the first thing I would
Speaker 1: say is that the Friday the Thirteenth series begins as
Speaker 1: a rip off of Halloween, as basically all modern slasher
Speaker 1: franchises too. So you had you had John Carpenter's Halloween,
Speaker 1: which is actually a great movie, but it gave rise
Speaker 1: to all of these copycat series which are about a
Speaker 1: guy with a mask and a knife chasing people around,
Speaker 1: usually usually young attractive people who are up to no
Speaker 1: good at chasing them around and killing them one by one.
Speaker 1: But most of these follow up series of major differences
Speaker 1: from Halloween, one of which is that they're just generally
Speaker 1: not as good as filmmaking products. You know that they
Speaker 1: don't have that visual flare, but Another thing is that
Speaker 1: when you watch Halloween, it is a great experience of
Speaker 1: of heightened suspense. You know, It's it's like you you
Speaker 1: are deeply worried for the fates of the characters and
Speaker 1: you want them to escape Michael Myers, you know, he's
Speaker 1: chasing them around, and you're on the edge of your seat.
Speaker 1: This is less the case with the series that follow
Speaker 1: where I would say the tension is notably lower, and
Speaker 1: I would say most audience members are far going to
Speaker 1: be far less concerned about the fates of the characters
Speaker 1: who Jason is chasing around. You're just not that upset
Speaker 1: when Wayne in this movie gets thrown into a circuit
Speaker 1: board or whatever. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 1: hallmarks of of of the franchise, isn't it That you
Speaker 1: have certain types of victims. Uh. And we see this
Speaker 1: beyond Friday their Cather as well. But there are characters
Speaker 1: that were clearly either supposed to morbidly want Jay and
Speaker 1: to kill Um or that we're less less concerned with.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some they're definitely there's definitely some fodder
Speaker 1: in any of these films. There are a number of
Speaker 1: kills that have to you have to sort of get
Speaker 1: them out of the way, hopefully creatively, before you move
Speaker 1: on to your your final girl and some of the
Speaker 1: the later survivors, right, and so that's another common element
Speaker 1: of these slasher movies is they will usually have a
Speaker 1: main character, often referred to in the literature as the
Speaker 1: final Girl, who is typically a cut above the other
Speaker 1: characters in terms of virtues, Like, whereas all of the
Speaker 1: other characters are kind of dumb and mean and just
Speaker 1: want to want to do bad, the final girl is
Speaker 1: usually presented as more virtuous in some way. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: because you almost inevitably have the bad girl earlier on
Speaker 1: who gets Yeah wait, okay, so I should actually recap
Speaker 1: the movies. So warning they're going to be spoilers for
Speaker 1: about seven movies. Uh in a moment here, but uh,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I mean, are you really that
Speaker 1: concerned about what happens at the end of the Friday
Speaker 1: thirteenth movies? Okay? So the first movie establishes the premise
Speaker 1: you have counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. This is a
Speaker 1: summer camp on a lake. The counselors are pretty much
Speaker 1: as always like, uh, young good looking people who like drugs,
Speaker 1: and promiscuity. So throughout the first movie, these counselors are
Speaker 1: attacked and killed by an unknown assailant, somebody who's whose
Speaker 1: face is hidden. But then at the very end of
Speaker 1: the movie, there's kind of a twist because you get
Speaker 1: a little bit of Jason lore. There are stories of
Speaker 1: a boy who drowned in the lake years ago, but
Speaker 1: maybe he's still out there. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie, the killer is actually revealed to be Mrs Vorhees,
Speaker 1: played by an actress named Betsy Palmer, whose son Jason
Speaker 1: drowned in the lake years ago because the camp counselors
Speaker 1: were partying instead of paying attention when the children were swimming,
Speaker 1: and so she's on a on a psychotic quest of revenge.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the movie, Mrs Vorhees is
Speaker 1: b headed by the final girl. And then we also
Speaker 1: get that that scene right where Jason, the child mutant
Speaker 1: or zombie like jumps out of the lake and pull
Speaker 1: somebody out of a boat, right like this is a
Speaker 1: This is a great sequence and is frequently referenced or
Speaker 1: celebrated in Isolation online. So I think it's actually been
Speaker 1: a while since I've seen the first movie, but I
Speaker 1: think this is presented or at least perhaps interpreted as
Speaker 1: a dream or a vision. So the final girl has
Speaker 1: survived the ordeal, she cuts off the killer's head, and
Speaker 1: then she's like floating in a boat on the lake,
Speaker 1: and then there's this horrible vision of the kid popping
Speaker 1: out of the lake at her. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's I don't think it's supposed to be taken
Speaker 1: as something that literally happens. Okay, but it's still It's
Speaker 1: good going into our discussion of Jason Takes Manhattan, that
Speaker 1: that dreams, hallucinations, visions are part of the franchise from
Speaker 1: the get go, So what what what can you do?
Speaker 1: In the second movie, the killer was beheaded at the
Speaker 1: end of the first one. Well, actually second movie says
Speaker 1: scratch all that Jason is not head. He is now
Speaker 1: a grown man, and he runs around murdering camp counselors,
Speaker 1: still in his a live state, wearing a bag over
Speaker 1: his head, and he worships a shrine containing his mother's
Speaker 1: severed head. From the first movie. It's got like candles
Speaker 1: all around it. Oh wow, I don't think I've seen
Speaker 1: this one, but this all sounds really solid, even if
Speaker 1: Jason has not really finalized his his headwear situation just yet.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so the hockey mask is not here yet.
Speaker 1: It's a sack sack head for this one. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say in my personal taste, like the second
Speaker 1: and third movies, I don't know if they're silly enough
Speaker 1: to to achieve the maximum uh fun of this series.
Speaker 1: Yet that happens more once it gets supernatural. We're not
Speaker 1: there yet. So third movie, Jason's back. He runs around
Speaker 1: murdering people hanging out at Crystal Lake. Except in this
Speaker 1: movie he trades the bag over his head for a
Speaker 1: hockey mask, which was I believe brought along to the
Speaker 1: lake just by one of the characters. There's just like
Speaker 1: a joker guy who's into practical jokes and pranks and
Speaker 1: he brings along hockey mask. Jason is like, you wink,
Speaker 1: I will take that, and he wears it for the
Speaker 1: entire rest of the series. Well as we do. I
Speaker 1: think we discussed this in one of our past Halloween
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind that, like the
Speaker 1: hockey masks is great on so many levels because it
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a skull. It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a death's head. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: if you know the answer to this, but I've often wondered,
Speaker 1: like where why did they switch to the hockey mask?
Speaker 1: Like I wonder is it a response to The Road Warrior,
Speaker 1: which features this villain name Lord Humongous who's super beefy
Speaker 1: and wears a hockey mask. Um. I'm also aware that
Speaker 1: there are some horror at the end exploitation predecessors involving
Speaker 1: hockey mask Alone in the Dark, which is very interesting
Speaker 1: looking film came out the same year as Part three.
Speaker 1: But then there's also a non slasher exploitation film titled
Speaker 1: Acts of Vengeance from seventy four that incorporated a hockey mask.
Speaker 1: So I don't personally know like where this really came from.
Speaker 1: I don't know either, Um, no idea really all right, Well,
Speaker 1: any of you Friday to thirteenth buffs out there, who
Speaker 1: if you have an answer or just a theory, certainly
Speaker 1: right in and let us know. Oh oh, and I
Speaker 1: forgot to mention a major feature of the third movie,
Speaker 1: which is that it is Friday Part three D, so
Speaker 1: it's in three D and there are glorious scenes of
Speaker 1: people like holding a coffee mug out toward the camera,
Speaker 1: or poking a clothes line, uh pole toward the camera,
Speaker 1: or like popcorn popping out of a pot toward the camera.
Speaker 1: It's it's riveting stuff anyway. So, uh, third movie, I
Speaker 1: think at the end of this the final girl hits
Speaker 1: him in the head with an axe. So Jason, is
Speaker 1: he dead? Well, nope, he comes back in the fourth movie.
Speaker 1: Uh mad slasher behavior continues, but this time Jason goes
Speaker 1: up against a character named Tommy Jarvis, a child played
Speaker 1: by Corey Feldman who his main character trait is he
Speaker 1: enjoys making tom Savini monster masks. That's like Bobby and
Speaker 1: so oh, and the fourth movie also has Crispin Glover
Speaker 1: in it. But Jason just yeah, Jason just runs around
Speaker 1: attacking misbehaving teens. And then at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: Corey Feldman uh whacks him in the head with a machete.
Speaker 1: So he's dead, Okay, dead the end, But I mean
Speaker 1: he's been whacked in the head with an axe before,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what's different about this time. I
Speaker 1: guess it's that you kind of see the machete like
Speaker 1: chop off basically an entire half of his head. Okay,
Speaker 1: so severe blow to the brain got you. Uh. The
Speaker 1: fifth movie, Jason seems to be back and doing his
Speaker 1: thing once again. Uh. This this movie features the adult,
Speaker 1: the grown up version of Corey Feldman's character from the
Speaker 1: previous movie. This is a guy named Tommy Jarvis. Uh.
Speaker 1: So Jason is like chasing Tommy Jarvis and his new
Speaker 1: friends around, terrorizing them. But in the end spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: it turns out this is a movie about a copycat killer.
Speaker 1: There is some complete rando named Roy who dresses up
Speaker 1: like Jason, puts on a hockey mask, and he is
Speaker 1: killer in this movie. Okay, I don't think I've seen
Speaker 1: anything from this one, but that sounds like a huge letdown.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Part five is I would say very funny.
Speaker 1: I would say of all of them, it is one
Speaker 1: of the trashy ist It feels this one feels really grimy. Um.
Speaker 1: But but but after the fifth one, Okay, what do
Speaker 1: you do now? So Jason got his head chopped in half.
Speaker 1: We already did copycat in the previous movie. How are
Speaker 1: we going to go for a sixth one time? To
Speaker 1: introduce magic? So in films two through four, Jason was
Speaker 1: just a human, just a mad slasher guy who was
Speaker 1: surprisingly resilient to counterattack. Part six, the series goes supernatural.
Speaker 1: Jason's body rises from the grave, he puts on the
Speaker 1: hockey mask again, and he attacks adult Tommy Jarvis. And
Speaker 1: so this movie ends with Tommy Jarvis doing some kind
Speaker 1: of ritual where he changed Jason to a rock at
Speaker 1: the bottom of Crystal Lake. Problem solved. There's a scene
Speaker 1: in this movie where Jason attacks an RV, which is
Speaker 1: uh interesting set piece. But another thing about this is
Speaker 1: not only does the sixth movie introduce magic into the series,
Speaker 1: I would say the sixth movie also is the first
Speaker 1: to introduce a palpable sense of irony. Like the sixth
Speaker 1: one is the first one that gets directly silly and
Speaker 1: has sort of uh jokes about itself for the viewer. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's become Yeah, it's become a little bit funny
Speaker 1: and play intentionally funny in places. And now we have
Speaker 1: Jason as a revenant. Uh So, so really, when you
Speaker 1: say the sixth movie is where we we finally arrive
Speaker 1: at sort of the iconic Jason, yes, I would mostly
Speaker 1: say that, though I think it needs one more element,
Speaker 1: which is the actor playing Jason. The canonical Jason actor
Speaker 1: Kane Hotter, actually doesn't show up till the seventh movie
Speaker 1: in the series. So here we are at part seven
Speaker 1: and the premises Whoops, a girl with psychic powers accidentally
Speaker 1: causes undead Jason to escape his chain trap at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the lake. He once again attacks the Sinful
Speaker 1: Youth and the lake shore vicinity, until he is defeated
Speaker 1: by the psychic powers of the final girl in this movie, Tina,
Speaker 1: and by the ghost of a Father's Love. And at
Speaker 1: the end of part seven he is yanked back under
Speaker 1: the water by by the main characters dead Dad, and
Speaker 1: he lies waiting there at the bottom of the lake
Speaker 1: until the beginning of part eight. This movie ruled. I
Speaker 1: loved it, especially loved Tina. It was just an absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure to watch her hit Jason with something like a
Speaker 1: dozen telekinetic home alons. You know, it's like nails flying
Speaker 1: at him, wrapping him up in something like the making
Speaker 1: the floor open up. Just I loved everything about uh
Speaker 1: that whole showdown. She's hitting him with like like power lines.
Speaker 1: Part seven also has so it's the first one with
Speaker 1: Caine Hotter. We can talk more about the Jason body
Speaker 1: actors in a bit, but Part seven also has really
Speaker 1: solid human villains. A couple worth mentioning are most of
Speaker 1: these movies have a character who's like the rich, mean girl.
Speaker 1: In Part seven it's a character I think named Melissa
Speaker 1: who is just uh, pricelessly cruel. Uh. And then also
Speaker 1: there is another human villain who is played by Terry Kaiser.
Speaker 1: He is Tina's evil, scheming psychiatrist. And uh so this
Speaker 1: is the corpse from Weekend at Bernie's. But he's like
Speaker 1: constantly like threatening and bullying the main character. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: you first mentioned this, I thought you were saying metaphorically
Speaker 1: that this is the the actor that is the guy
Speaker 1: from Weekend at Bernie's. But yeah it is. It's Terry Kaiser.
Speaker 1: Literally the body in that movie is the evil psychiatrist here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I feel like this is a great This is
Speaker 1: always a great formula for a horror movie when you
Speaker 1: have your true like even supernatural or just super like
Speaker 1: super humanly um evil character, but then you have your
Speaker 1: more like real world villain who's operating within a system,
Speaker 1: such as this guy. Well, yeah, this could. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one of those movie tropes of like the
Speaker 1: evil scientists who you know. I guess he thinks he's
Speaker 1: finally going to get tenure if he like drives this
Speaker 1: girl mad and and makes her like use her telekinesis
Speaker 1: to make the house explode. Yeah, so he's great, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I love Tina. I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason I love Tina is because you have your final
Speaker 1: girl standing up to like fully standing up to Jason
Speaker 1: and not just like you know, weakly hitting him with
Speaker 1: something and then not having the courage to go over
Speaker 1: and finish him off. Like she she goes for blood,
Speaker 1: and she she just unleashes with her brain like she's
Speaker 1: his brain power to overcome the darkness. And then, yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's something empowering about that, you know. It's like
Speaker 1: it takes me back to this idea of being a
Speaker 1: child and being scared of these things and these ideas,
Speaker 1: but also knowing that you could scream at them, you
Speaker 1: know that you could raise your voice and in a
Speaker 1: sense fight them with your brain. Um. So I've seen
Speaker 1: parts of this before, and I remember loving the part
Speaker 1: side scene, but I had no idea that the ending
Speaker 1: was so bonkers. I had it in my mind that
Speaker 1: she was probably going to defeat Jason by just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, telekinetically wrapping him up in a chain and
Speaker 1: blasting him off the wharf, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: this whole scene where she uses her powers to resurrect
Speaker 1: the uncorrupted body of her dead father from the bottom
Speaker 1: of Crystal Lake to drag him back into the deaths
Speaker 1: wearing a card again, Yes, still wearing a card again.
Speaker 1: Absolutely bonkers. I love everything about it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the idea of defeating Jason with your mind,
Speaker 1: and so, uh, now that we've laid out these movies,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is a point I was wanting
Speaker 1: to touch on about what, like, what are these movies for?
Speaker 1: Why were they so popular? This is something like film
Speaker 1: critics of the nineteen eighties would write about. You can
Speaker 1: read articles of you know, Roger Ebert and everybody else
Speaker 1: just saying like, I don't get it. I go and
Speaker 1: watch these movies. I review them. They're terrible, And the
Speaker 1: theaters are just packed with teenagers who are just shrieking
Speaker 1: with delight about these movies. And they're selling god knows
Speaker 1: how many tickets. They're making huge amounts of money, and
Speaker 1: the teens love these movies. What is it? They're seeing
Speaker 1: about this garbage and and thinking about it. I think
Speaker 1: that these movies offer something kind of different than like
Speaker 1: a traditional like a good horror movie in the traditionally
Speaker 1: understood since does. Like so you watch Halloween or another
Speaker 1: good horror movie, and you're you're feeling suspense, and you
Speaker 1: get that endorphin rush and it's like an exciting experience
Speaker 1: and you come out of it on the other side
Speaker 1: and you're like, WHOA, okay, uh. But in these movies,
Speaker 1: you never really reach that peak of like high suspense.
Speaker 1: Like just the fact that it's a movie about ludicrous,
Speaker 1: gratuitous violence but it's not really fully scary and you
Speaker 1: can laugh at it. I think is empowering, especially when
Speaker 1: you're like eighteen years old. I remember having that feeling
Speaker 1: watching these movies around that age. Yeah. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: I do have to say, I don't want to go
Speaker 1: on and on about this, but but turning on the
Speaker 1: television late at night and just finding yourself within one
Speaker 1: of these films, having no idea, ability to double check
Speaker 1: to see if it is a Jason movie, just just
Speaker 1: having to go with it and then seeing if he
Speaker 1: shows up. There was something kind of weirdly voyeuristic and
Speaker 1: and um and haunting about that experience. Alright, So that
Speaker 1: sets us up for up for this film. We brought
Speaker 1: everyone up to the level of Jason Takes Manhattan. We've
Speaker 1: put you in a position where you can follow Jason
Speaker 1: in his attempt to take Manhattan. And that's the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1: It's Jason takes Manhattan. What more could be possibly want
Speaker 1: to know? All right? For our for our our trailer here.
Speaker 1: So this is actually one where I feel like we
Speaker 1: need to describe the trailer because it doesn't completely translate
Speaker 1: to audio only. So I'm gonna tell you what what
Speaker 1: you would be seeing whilst you, you know, listen to this.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna start with some some gentle you know,
Speaker 1: New Yorky music, saxophone playing in there we see a
Speaker 1: figure on the waterfront, back to the camera, gazing dreamily
Speaker 1: at the island of Manhattan, resplendent in its glittering lights.
Speaker 1: What dreams does this figure have? Broadway, Wall Street, Love, Fame,
Speaker 1: a morning at the met and afternoon in Central Park.
Speaker 1: Who can say? But we zoom in closer and then
Speaker 1: the figure turns and it's Jason Vorhees hockey mask weapon
Speaker 1: in hand, instantly cut the various New York City folks
Speaker 1: screaming and recoiling and terror, and then we zoom in
Speaker 1: again on the great Hockey Mask of death and judgment.
Speaker 1: We got the camera goes into the dark eye of
Speaker 1: the mask, and we get the title card Jason Takes Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and some great voiceover from the voice of God himself,
Speaker 1: Don Lafontaine Friday that the party Jason Takes Manhattan, now
Speaker 1: New York has a new problem. It's great. You see,
Speaker 1: like I think at one point you see somebody who
Speaker 1: reads as a hot dog vendor, like throwing hot dogs
Speaker 1: up in the air and terror, and I remembering that, right,
Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, it's a bunch of like like
Speaker 1: you know, Jason p o V stuff, But it's great.
Speaker 1: It's essentially just a teaser trailer, but it absolutely tells
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know. You know. Also, in
Speaker 1: terms of marketing for the movie, have you ever seen
Speaker 1: that clip of Jason Vorhees as the guest on the
Speaker 1: Arsenio Hall Show. Yes, it's it's really good. I think
Speaker 1: it was promoting this movie right for Jason Takes Manhattan,
Speaker 1: I believe so, yes, yeah, uh, and so it's not
Speaker 1: like Kane Hotter as himself as the actor. Jason Vorhees
Speaker 1: in character is the guest. Uh. And again again, I
Speaker 1: think this speaks to like the surprisingly like mainstream level
Speaker 1: popularity of these movies that like Jason would be booked
Speaker 1: as a like late night talk show guest. But the
Speaker 1: clip is worth looking up. Arsenio just like asks him questions.
Speaker 1: I think he asks him like, why are you so angry?
Speaker 1: And Jason of course says nothing in response. He just
Speaker 1: sits in the chair holding an axe. Well, that is
Speaker 1: a question to ask in a bit is Jason angry?
Speaker 1: Is this even an appropriate question? Arsenio? I think that
Speaker 1: varies by movie. All right, let's get into the humans
Speaker 1: behind this thing. First of all, the director and writer
Speaker 1: Rob Heddon born nineteen fifty four American director making his
Speaker 1: feature film debut here, following a documentary about Terry Gilliams
Speaker 1: Brazil and various episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents mcgiver and
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, Friday thirteenth the series. Uh. Some listeners have
Speaker 1: recommended this series to us. By the way, now, Friday
Speaker 1: the thirteenth of the TV series was not about Jason
Speaker 1: vores about what it was about, like an antique shop
Speaker 1: that's old cursed items or something. Yeah, and they had
Speaker 1: to go like reclaim them. It was episodic, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever actually watched an episode in full.
Speaker 1: But it's it's its memory serves. It's very Canadian and
Speaker 1: David Cronenberg directed one episode of it. You know, I
Speaker 1: keep saying this, but someday on Weird House, We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to come around to the TV show Freddie's Nightmares,
Speaker 1: which was an episodic TV series not about Freddy Krueger,
Speaker 1: but like hosted by Freddy Krueger, like they returned to
Speaker 1: turn into the crypt Keeper. Yeah, yeah, I mean he's
Speaker 1: a perfect I don't remember when it came out. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a big Nightmare fan, and I was a
Speaker 1: little afraid of those films too, But I was all
Speaker 1: in on Freddie's Nightmares, you know, because here it was
Speaker 1: was on TV. It was episodic, Uh you know, I
Speaker 1: mean it was an it was an anthology series rather
Speaker 1: and uh, and it also seemed like a great gig
Speaker 1: for for Freddie, Like he's basically the crypt Keeper already
Speaker 1: at that point. Uh. I don't understand why I didn't
Speaker 1: go a million season Anyway, Rob Headen heading here, he's
Speaker 1: he's mostly done TV and TV movies since Manhattan, including
Speaker 1: Night Ride two thousand from the year and the movie
Speaker 1: Alien Fury Countdown to Invasion from the Year two thousand,
Speaker 1: which has one of the most boring movie posters I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. So the director here, I think he's been
Speaker 1: given a fair amount of grief over this film, but
Speaker 1: some folks love that. It's kind of interesting to see
Speaker 1: the see how polarized the reaction was, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: just looking at some some of the major like critics
Speaker 1: and commentators that I tend to look at. I don't
Speaker 1: know what Ebert thought of it, but Leonard Malton loved it.
Speaker 1: I think he thought it was the best one yet. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Michael Weldon Plectronic Film Chronicler, Uh, he's at least back
Speaker 1: in the day. I don't know if his thoughts changed,
Speaker 1: but he seemed to think this film was the worst
Speaker 1: yet it was just a downward trajectory. So like, they
Speaker 1: couldn't be more opposite in their evaluation of this film.
Speaker 1: And I went into an expecting a disappointing step down
Speaker 1: from New Blood because like Fresh on the Heels of
Speaker 1: new Blood, new Blood was so good, but I was
Speaker 1: still richly entertained throughout Jason Takes Manhattan. Yeah, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to like, what is the scale or standard you're supposed
Speaker 1: to use when judging how good a fridayte movie is.
Speaker 1: I mean, none of these movies are what you would
Speaker 1: think of as quote good. I would say maybe the
Speaker 1: closest to that is like the first one, which you
Speaker 1: could say, uh, sort of comes close to working as
Speaker 1: an actual like suspense horror film. But the other ones
Speaker 1: they clearly you know, they're extremely popular, they have some
Speaker 1: kind of powerful entertainment value, So I would rank it
Speaker 1: on like, um, just like how pleasurable is the experience
Speaker 1: of watching it, regardless of what you might mark as
Speaker 1: the I don't know a normal esthetic criteria by which
Speaker 1: you would evaluate an act of storytelling or filmmaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also interesting when you're doing with the franchise like
Speaker 1: this that's that ends up going so long, you know,
Speaker 1: for so long, and also has a lot of ups
Speaker 1: and downs and changes film to film. Like really, off
Speaker 1: the top of my head, there are very few things
Speaker 1: I can compare it too, because like do Halloween films
Speaker 1: really differ all that much, except for, of course the
Speaker 1: brilliant Halloween three, which went off in a different direction.
Speaker 1: Um wellt's think the first and the third one are
Speaker 1: very different than all the others. Yeah, and then there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of sameness. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: other franchises. It's about telling a cohesive story, like say,
Speaker 1: you know Harry Potter films, which you know all are
Speaker 1: within the same visual universe for the most part, and
Speaker 1: or you know very much I set on the finish line,
Speaker 1: like the only thing I can really think of to
Speaker 1: compare it to would be James Bond films, where you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're changing things up, You're you're moving to to
Speaker 1: cash in on this trend, trying to go with the times, like, oh,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to see Bond anymore. We better make it weirder,
Speaker 1: um or send him to space. 'll send him to space.
Speaker 1: And then like, oh, it's our Bond films. They got
Speaker 1: too weird and too funny. Let's make it depressing again.
Speaker 1: That's sort of thing. That's a very good comparison. I
Speaker 1: don't think I would have thought of that, but that
Speaker 1: that absolutely works. Jason and James Bond like iconic main characters,
Speaker 1: very lucrative franchises of widely varying aesthetics and qualities from
Speaker 1: film to film. Uh, though it's also very formulaic movies,
Speaker 1: like you know all the beats that are gonna happen,
Speaker 1: you know what the stock characters you're going to encounter.
Speaker 1: Our's just a question of, like what is the sort
Speaker 1: of slight dash of individual flavor introduced within those stock
Speaker 1: characters each time? Uh? Yeah, yeah, I think that parallel
Speaker 1: totally works. And so who is the Ian Fleming of
Speaker 1: the Jason Vorhees universe. It's Victor Miller Born. Miller had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this film, but he wrote the
Speaker 1: screenplay for the original Friday the thirteenth and nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: and created the character Jason Vorhees, or at least the
Speaker 1: sort of proto Jason Vorhees that would evolve into what
Speaker 1: we have in this film. I think there are I
Speaker 1: don't know to what extent they're ongoing, but there have
Speaker 1: been recent major legal disputes over the the i p
Speaker 1: of Jason, like who runs the character of Jason. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: we'll look to the legal literature for the for the
Speaker 1: legal answer on this, but he did write the screenplay
Speaker 1: for the first film. Well, let's let's go to Jason, though,
Speaker 1: because I mean as Jason takes Manhattan. His name is
Speaker 1: in the title. Um. Who plays Jason in this? It's
Speaker 1: Kine Hotter born nineteen fifty five, stunt man turned stunt
Speaker 1: coordinator and actor with stunt and acting credits going back
Speaker 1: into the nineteen seventies or at least like the late
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Survived some severe upper body burns from a
Speaker 1: fire stunt accident early in his career. Didn't start playing
Speaker 1: Jason like we mentioned tell new Blood in, but then
Speaker 1: subsequently appeared as him in three more Jason movies. But
Speaker 1: before new Blood he had appeared as an actor in
Speaker 1: such films as House to Alligator, in which he played
Speaker 1: the alligator. On did Um he seems to have done
Speaker 1: some stunt work and The Hills Have Eyes Part two,
Speaker 1: and he also he got to play leather face. We've
Speaker 1: got to do leatherface stunt work for Texas Chainsaw Massacre three.
Speaker 1: And he technically it's a kind of a technicality, but
Speaker 1: he played Freddie Krueger's gloved hand at the end of
Speaker 1: Jason Goes to Hell. Oh Man for the person who
Speaker 1: said part eight was the one we're talking about today
Speaker 1: is the worst of the Friday series that they just
Speaker 1: had to wait until the next movie, because Jason Goes
Speaker 1: to Hell is part nine of the series, and I
Speaker 1: think it is essentially unquestionable that that is the worst
Speaker 1: film in the series, and not only that, one of
Speaker 1: the worst movies I've ever seen. I remember the trailer
Speaker 1: for it where I was like, finally we've had enough
Speaker 1: of this Jason. A bounty team or you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, a swat team is going to take him out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does have that movie does have a good bounty
Speaker 1: hunter in it, but it is long. Sections of it
Speaker 1: are just unwatchable. I think I've really only made it
Speaker 1: through that movie one time. I think I've tried to
Speaker 1: rewatch it from friends and we like stopped and he
Speaker 1: doesn't even go to Hell, right, That's the thing that
Speaker 1: arguable at the end of the movie. I think maybe
Speaker 1: that's the idea of pulling the mask down into the ground.
Speaker 1: You know, Freddie's hand comes up and pulls the mask down,
Speaker 1: so it's like he is being pulled down to Hell
Speaker 1: because Hell is underground. It's down there now. Kane Hodder's
Speaker 1: portrayal of Jason is interesting because he's I think he
Speaker 1: is considered by most Friday thirteen fans to be the
Speaker 1: definitive Jason, Like, if there is a canonical Jason actor,
Speaker 1: it's him. And yet he doesn't show up until the
Speaker 1: seventh movie in the series. And again today's movie is
Speaker 1: the eight, so this is only the second one he
Speaker 1: was in. And uh and according to a making of
Speaker 1: documentary I remember watching, he said at some point that
Speaker 1: they originally weren't even planning on having him return because
Speaker 1: they didn't know if he had any interest in doing it.
Speaker 1: He had to actively like contact the producers and seek
Speaker 1: out the opportunity to to play the part again. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so you know, each actor to play Jason brings his
Speaker 1: own flavor to the role. Jason never speaks, always totally silent,
Speaker 1: so it's all in the body language. So some play Jason,
Speaker 1: especially earlier on in like parts like three and four,
Speaker 1: they play Jason is more kind of erratic, manic and unpredictable.
Speaker 1: Uh and and later Jason's I think usually tend to
Speaker 1: be more subdued in their motions. Kane Hodters Jason, in particular,
Speaker 1: moves in a way that I would characterize as sort
Speaker 1: of like a d personalized like removing a lot of
Speaker 1: personality on purpose. There is a wrote smoothness and efficiency
Speaker 1: to his movement that makes his Jason feel almost like
Speaker 1: a robot or like a disembodied physical process, like to
Speaker 1: the extent that this later Jason Vorhees is a person um.
Speaker 1: Something about the body language makes it feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he is not an evil murderer. This is more kind
Speaker 1: of strictly business not personal. Uh you know, he's not
Speaker 1: the mad slasher. He is a professional executioner doing his job.
Speaker 1: He's at work. Yeah. Yeah. The body language here is great.
Speaker 1: And in both of these films, which again both of
Speaker 1: these have Kane as as Jason, and uh yeah, there's
Speaker 1: so many nice little touches. I like it when Jason
Speaker 1: is problem solving or and or determining how to kill somebody.
Speaker 1: I guess that's one of the main problems he solved.
Speaker 1: That's what he's good at. But sometimes he'll do that
Speaker 1: head turn like a dog thinking about something, which is
Speaker 1: quite effective. It gives you a sense of the the
Speaker 1: the lethal wheels turning inside the head. There I gotta say,
Speaker 1: the masked killer head turning beat that shows up in
Speaker 1: a lot of movies, but that actually happens in the
Speaker 1: original Halloween, And I wonder if it all traces back
Speaker 1: to that they're all just copying Michael Myers, Like he
Speaker 1: uh PJ Soul's boyfriend, Remember he like stabs him against
Speaker 1: a wall and then he kind of turns his head
Speaker 1: at him. Interesting, um so, but maybe another movies earlier,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, Well, uh, I try not to
Speaker 1: get deeply invested in arguments over which actor has best
Speaker 1: at any of these various horror franchise roles. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Kine's work is great in this. He has
Speaker 1: that that that's subdued physicality, like you mentioned. But I
Speaker 1: also think his basic body shape and high are great
Speaker 1: for the party six four thickly built, and I think
Speaker 1: we really have to give a lot of credit to
Speaker 1: the man's skull shape and size as well, Like there
Speaker 1: you see so many shots of the back of Jason's
Speaker 1: head and um and granted there's you know, decay makeup
Speaker 1: going on there as well, because he's fully a revenant
Speaker 1: at this point. But uh yeah, Kane Kane Holder has
Speaker 1: that has that just fabulous skull shape, like it's undeniable.
Speaker 1: You can tell it's his skull under there, And when
Speaker 1: you see pictures of him out of the makeup, you're
Speaker 1: still like, that's Jason Vorhees his skull. I can tell.
Speaker 1: I've never had that thought, but okay, I see what
Speaker 1: you're saying. It should you know, in the future, I
Speaker 1: hope that that this goal will be preserved so that
Speaker 1: we can all continue to to admire it. All right,
Speaker 1: let's let's get into the rest of the cast here. Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, we have our final girl. This is
Speaker 1: Renny played by Jansen Daggett born nineteen nine and like,
Speaker 1: Renny's no Tina, So she doesn't have telekinetic and psychic powers,
Speaker 1: but she does have a kind of a spooky spirit
Speaker 1: connection with Jason and keeps experiencing terrifying hallucinations. So in
Speaker 1: a way you could see some you can see some
Speaker 1: connections between Tina and Renny here. The actor dagg It
Speaker 1: was also in a major league Back to the Miners,
Speaker 1: the TV movie Project Alf, and she appeared on various
Speaker 1: TV shows including Home Improvement. Uh, She's so, she's no Tina,
Speaker 1: She's no large Park Lincoln. But she's good and this
Speaker 1: was her first acting credit anyway, So like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty great if you think of it along those lines. Now,
Speaker 1: I think this movie was trying to recreate some of
Speaker 1: the dynamic of having like an older male human villain,
Speaker 1: like like Terry Kaiser in the previous movie, but in
Speaker 1: this one, it's the school principal who is just a
Speaker 1: strict mean man. Yes. Uh, Charles McCullough played by Peter
Speaker 1: Mark Richmond, who really had like he just feels in
Speaker 1: this movie like a walking talking uh CBS movie of
Speaker 1: the Week or something. Um, he's pretty great. He was
Speaker 1: born died in Um. Yeah, it definitely plays our our
Speaker 1: human sub villain and uh and it's it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of nicely put together his character because at first he
Speaker 1: seems like just sort of the you know, the stick
Speaker 1: in the mud authority figure. But then we learn more
Speaker 1: and more about him and we're like, okay, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's he's even worse. Um, but uh. Peter Mark Richmond
Speaker 1: was a veteran actor of TV and screen. Some of
Speaker 1: his bigger credits included nineteen sixties six is agent for
Speaker 1: harm TV's Dynasty in the eighties and pretty much anything
Speaker 1: you name from this time period, from the decades in
Speaker 1: which he was active. He even pops up on the
Speaker 1: original Twilight Zone in an episode titled The Fear from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, and he was also on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Speaker 1: All right, then we have some of the other Basically
Speaker 1: we're into the victims for most of the other characters
Speaker 1: we're gonna mention here. We have Sean Robertson. I guess
Speaker 1: he's he's sort of the boyfriend, the good the good guy.
Speaker 1: He is the final girl's boyfriend, the character who in
Speaker 1: part seven, this was the guy who was the quote
Speaker 1: teenager who was like thirty five years old. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: another thing I love about these films, like like old teens.
Speaker 1: It's maybe not as pronounced as some of the like
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties movies, which really pushed the boundaries of what
Speaker 1: you could buy as a teenager on the screen. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of folks in this movie and and
Speaker 1: in New Blood where you're like, these are teenagers. These
Speaker 1: these people were at least in their late twenties, if not.
Speaker 1: These these movies are full of people who are supposed
Speaker 1: to be eighteen, but they're actually thirty two. In a
Speaker 1: weird way. That also kind of sanitized the whole process
Speaker 1: of watching them all killed, because it's like, these aren't
Speaker 1: really teenagers. These these are grown people. Not to say
Speaker 1: that teenagers are not growing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: though these are actors. Yeah, I agree it it makes
Speaker 1: the movies better, It makes them easier to enjoy. Uh,
Speaker 1: it adds to the layer of absurdity, but it also
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, you don't have to feel as bad.
Speaker 1: So the actor here, Reeves had a long run on
Speaker 1: such TV shows as General Hospital, The Young and the
Speaker 1: Restless in Nashville, Born in n and I believe still active. Um,
Speaker 1: we'll get back to more victims here in just a second.
Speaker 1: But we have a wonderful crazy deck Hand and um
Speaker 1: and and doom speaker in this Uh he's credited as
Speaker 1: deck Hand. Oh okay, he doesn't have a name. No,
Speaker 1: unless his name is deck Hand, I don't know that
Speaker 1: his credit is dead cand So he just keeps showing
Speaker 1: up and sometimes it really like annoying places where he's
Speaker 1: just like, by the way, you're all gonna die, Jason
Speaker 1: Bred He's just returning from the grave, and you were
Speaker 1: you were filling me in. This is a throwback to
Speaker 1: another character, right right, there's a character in the first
Speaker 1: couple of movies known I think his name is Crazy Ralph,
Speaker 1: and all he does is he runs up to people
Speaker 1: and he goes, you're all doomed, that camp has a
Speaker 1: death curse. It's Camp blood. And then somebody will be like, yeah, Ralph,
Speaker 1: get out of here, and so it happens over and over.
Speaker 1: I think he gets killed by Jason in the second movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is exactly the same character. He even kind
Speaker 1: of looks like him. Yeah, it's like there's almost Simpsons
Speaker 1: parody um energy to him. In fact, I feel like
Speaker 1: there are a number of parallels between I guess later
Speaker 1: parodies on The Simpsons and this movie, including in the
Speaker 1: Treehouse of Horror episode. Uh well, it's the whole episode
Speaker 1: where groundskeeper Willie keeps coming to warn people about the
Speaker 1: evil and then falls over with an axe in his back.
Speaker 1: That is how this character dies in this film. So anyway,
Speaker 1: he's a lot of fun. Played by the character actor
Speaker 1: Um alex Da kun Born. Um worked quite a bit
Speaker 1: and even very recently, such shows as The Chilling Adventures
Speaker 1: of Sabrina The X Files. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this guy from popping up in different roles on
Speaker 1: The X Files. Oh no, I don't know who because
Speaker 1: uh supernatural and he was. He was in a fun
Speaker 1: episode of the nineties Outer Limits series that I've seen
Speaker 1: titled Alien Shop which kind of terrible title, but it's
Speaker 1: a really heavy handed mortality story in which an alien
Speaker 1: shopkeeper messes with people's lives through magical item sales. And
Speaker 1: he's he's the shopkeeper. Uh. Um, So a lot of
Speaker 1: Canadian actors um, as well as just anybody doing TV
Speaker 1: during the nine he showed up on the Outer Limits.
Speaker 1: Uh so it's no surprise that this guy did a
Speaker 1: lot of Canadian TV as well, not only out of Limits,
Speaker 1: but he also popped up on a show called Danger
Speaker 1: Bay that I remember watching as a kid. And imagine
Speaker 1: if there there any Canadian listeners out there who around
Speaker 1: my age, you no doubt remember Danger Bay as well.
Speaker 1: I do not know Danger Bay not Canadian enough, why
Speaker 1: would you? Alright, So some other victims here. We have
Speaker 1: the character Susie played by Tiffany Paulson. Um. She wanted
Speaker 1: to become a writer, producer and director. But I think
Speaker 1: this is one of her main film roles. She's in
Speaker 1: the boat at the beginning, not the first, not the
Speaker 1: second boat, the first boat. All right. Then we have Gordon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a movie of many boats, there's Gordon Curry who
Speaker 1: plays Miles Wolf. Which character was this? Uh? He's well,
Speaker 1: so he's the blonde guy with the mop cut and
Speaker 1: the surfer vibe. He is to be friends with Sean
Speaker 1: the boyfriend. I'm gonna come back to him when we
Speaker 1: explained some of the characters in a bit. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: he was born in nineteen sixty five. Other credits include
Speaker 1: puppet Master four and five, Laser Hawk um uh, that
Speaker 1: has Mark Hamill in it. Uh. And also he was
Speaker 1: in three Left Behind movies in which he plays this
Speaker 1: character what is it? Nicola Carpathia, Nicolai Carpathia. He plays
Speaker 1: the anti Christ in these Christian apocalypse movies. Nice. Um.
Speaker 1: On TV, he pops up in such shows as Highlander,
Speaker 1: The Raven, This was the Highlander, the TV series spinoff.
Speaker 1: He's on Forever Night and the nineties Outer Limits series.
Speaker 1: So a lot of your sort of nineties syndicated cable
Speaker 1: Canadian filmed TV shows. All right. Then we have Saffron
Speaker 1: Henderson playing j j uh Born five. This is our
Speaker 1: fun rocker character. Rachel always comments that she's really impressed
Speaker 1: by this girl's hair. Um, but yeah, she's a rocker.
Speaker 1: She she plays a Flying V electric guitar, the Hot
Speaker 1: Pink Flying V, and she's just jamming out constantly until
Speaker 1: Jason wax her in the head with her own guitar.
Speaker 1: I love how she goes into like the the grimy
Speaker 1: industrial inner workings of the ship to jam out, because
Speaker 1: this is the kind of place that you would jam
Speaker 1: out in a music video. Even though nobody's filming her,
Speaker 1: the sound in there must be awful. But Henderson's interesting
Speaker 1: because almost exclusively a voice actor, often for the English
Speaker 1: dubs of different anime titles, many of which were huge
Speaker 1: names and anime. But she also, weirdly enough, pops up
Speaker 1: in The Fly too. This is the sequel to the
Speaker 1: David Cronenberg Fly movie. She plays Veronica Quaif, the character
Speaker 1: that was played by Gina Davis ian Cronenberg's The Fly,
Speaker 1: though in this film it's a very small part because
Speaker 1: basically like the Killer, but they need her in the
Speaker 1: series in the movie just a little bit, and so
Speaker 1: Henderson steps in to play the part. Huh. I guess
Speaker 1: she looks a tad bit like Gina Davis. I can
Speaker 1: see that. Yeah, the fly to um, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a tough one to recommend. There's a lot of monster
Speaker 1: action in it, all right. Martin Cummins plays Wayne, which
Speaker 1: one was Wayne? I think he is the nerd of
Speaker 1: the movie. He's the a V club guy. Okay, alright, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta have your nerd and new blood. It was
Speaker 1: a very annoying would be sci fi writer and this
Speaker 1: one it's a less annoying would be videographer. Okay. So
Speaker 1: this actor, Cummins born sixty nine, plays the mayor of Riverdale,
Speaker 1: if that means anything to any of you. But he
Speaker 1: did a fair amount of TV over the years, including
Speaker 1: two episodes of the nineties Outer Limits, neither of which
Speaker 1: have I seen. And he also pops up on Highlander
Speaker 1: the series and Danger Bay. So strong Canadian presence here
Speaker 1: from Cummins. Oh and then we have, uh, we have
Speaker 1: an actor by the name of Vincent Craig Duprey or
Speaker 1: VC Duprey dupri rather uh, and he plays the character
Speaker 1: Julius um So. This actor is known for South Central
Speaker 1: He pops up here and there. He did one episode
Speaker 1: of Fredday's Nightmares, which we just mentioned, so it kind
Speaker 1: of makes him a two franchise actor here. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: the jock character in this movie. And whereas usually I
Speaker 1: think the jock character is more of a human villain
Speaker 1: or bully. Uh, he's like a more likable jock character. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. Oh and here's here's what you know. This
Speaker 1: is kind of the Crispin Glover factor where occasionally you'll
Speaker 1: have an actor show up in one of these films
Speaker 1: that goes on to do much bigger things. Because we
Speaker 1: have Kelly Who in this who plays Eva wanton Abbi.
Speaker 1: Uh so she was born night American actor of Chinese,
Speaker 1: English and Hawaiian ancestry, and uh yeah, Kelly Who is wonderful.
Speaker 1: This is uh this is her first film role if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, following some TV work. But one of
Speaker 1: her biggest roles and the one I think of instantly
Speaker 1: is her turn as Lady death Strike in two thousand
Speaker 1: threes X two X Men United. She has those long,
Speaker 1: uh you know, adamantium fingernails and she has an extended
Speaker 1: fight scene with Wolverine. She's sort of like the the
Speaker 1: evil counterpart to Wolverine. I think she I'm trying. Doesn't
Speaker 1: she only get killed by getting like adamantium like liquid
Speaker 1: metal injected into her blood stream or something? I think? So? Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is always one of my favorite X Men characters.
Speaker 1: I remember liking this character a lot when it popped
Speaker 1: up on the cartoon back in the day. But Kelly
Speaker 1: who also pops up another film. She plays the Sorceress
Speaker 1: and the two thousand two films The Scorpion King. This
Speaker 1: was The Sword and Sandals, the Mummy spin off, starring
Speaker 1: a far less experience of the rock I saw that
Speaker 1: in theaters. That was That was ninety minutes. Now here's
Speaker 1: a on little factoid. Uh. Kelly who also has voiced
Speaker 1: the Mortal Kombat character Devora in both Mortal Kombat games
Speaker 1: that have featured that character. This is a weird kind
Speaker 1: of cronin berg ee insect woman character. So she gets
Speaker 1: to do a cool female monster voice, which you know,
Speaker 1: there's a fine art two and she does a great job.
Speaker 1: But the crazy thing is that, Uh. In two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen Mortal Kombat X, Jason Vorhees was a downloadable character,
Speaker 1: so you could actually have Divora fight Jason in that
Speaker 1: video game. Oh so it's with this, I guess be
Speaker 1: a sort of digital reunion of Kelly hu and Kane Hotter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, And finally, a note on the music. Fred
Speaker 1: Mullen did the music. Mullin's work is fine here, but
Speaker 1: obviously he's no Harry met Fredini, who composed the original
Speaker 1: Friday the Thirteenth score, as well as the just absolutely
Speaker 1: excellent Friday the Thirteenth Part three theme song, which became
Speaker 1: a legitimate disco hit in two. If you have not
Speaker 1: heard it, go listen to it. It's a great track.
Speaker 1: I'll throw it on the blog post for this episode
Speaker 1: at smood to music dot com. Do you remember this track, Joe?
Speaker 1: I feel like you've sent it the Part three songs,
Speaker 1: You've sent it to you before, but I don't remember. Oh.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's got a little funkiness to it,
Speaker 1: a little simthiness to it. It's it's great. You can
Speaker 1: you can definitely imagine uh guys dancing to it uh
Speaker 1: at the disco in two. Okay, but anyway, Fred Mullen
Speaker 1: he worked throughout the eighties and nineties, especially composing scores
Speaker 1: for New Blood Uh. Though I understand new Blood also
Speaker 1: reused music from previous Friday films, but he also worked
Speaker 1: on Friday thirteenth the series, two episodes of the Outer
Speaker 1: Limit series, and something like eighteen episodes of Tech War. Oh,
Speaker 1: the Shatner authored series. Yes, quote unquote author. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: children will have to learn about tech War one day. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, let's get into the plot of Jason Takes
Speaker 1: Manhattan as it is. I mean, these movies tend to
Speaker 1: be very light on plots, so we're not going to
Speaker 1: try to do a scene by scene recap. I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the ones where we might zoom
Speaker 1: in on some particular parts, and we must zoom in
Speaker 1: almost to the molecular level on the very opening of
Speaker 1: this movie, which is genuinely hilarious U. I think, especially
Speaker 1: if you've seen the other movies, because the opening of
Speaker 1: this one is so unlike the opening of any other
Speaker 1: Jason movie. It starts with you just fade in on
Speaker 1: footage of the New York City skyline after dusk, so
Speaker 1: you're over the Brooklyn Bridge or one of the bridges
Speaker 1: into Manhattan. I don't know which one. Got car headlights
Speaker 1: creeping creeping along and there's this eighties perm rock just
Speaker 1: chugging in the background, like, uh, you know that sound
Speaker 1: where there is way too much chorus and reverb on everything,
Speaker 1: including the drums. And then you get a random voice
Speaker 1: coming onto narrate. I think we find out that this
Speaker 1: is the voice of a radio DJ, but it's just
Speaker 1: speaking over the song with no explanation at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And I had to make a transcript of exactly what
Speaker 1: it says because this is just too good. He says exactly,
Speaker 1: It's like this. We live in claustrophobia, a land of
Speaker 1: steel and concrete, trapped by dark waters. There's no escape,
Speaker 1: nor do we want it. We've come to thrive on
Speaker 1: it and each other. You can't get the adrenaline pumping
Speaker 1: without the terror. Good people. I love this town. The
Speaker 1: number of like just like the feeling of non sequitur,
Speaker 1: the pronoun antecedent confusion. There's no escape, nor do we
Speaker 1: want it. We've come to thrive on it. Escape I
Speaker 1: don't even know. I love too how this is like
Speaker 1: the voice of the dark barred of New York City,
Speaker 1: the guy who who is totally fine living in the city,
Speaker 1: as depicted in this movie. And you know, sort of
Speaker 1: adjacent hell city New York City films. And yet it's
Speaker 1: totally redundant because this is not a film that is
Speaker 1: it all concerned or interested in what it's like to
Speaker 1: live in New York City. Not really, people are. They
Speaker 1: don't factor into the plot really at all. Well, I
Speaker 1: would say that the movie follows the ethos that was
Speaker 1: very common at the time. In fact, I would say
Speaker 1: this is almost ubiquitous of films of the late nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties that would depict New York City as an almost
Speaker 1: fantasy level hellish environment. Um, they're like, uh in this movie,
Speaker 1: as soon as the characters arrive in New York City,
Speaker 1: they are immediately attacked by a heavy metal band and
Speaker 1: then uh. And then there's a part where they like
Speaker 1: flee and Jason is chasing them around and they like
Speaker 1: flee into a diner and they're like a maniac is
Speaker 1: trying to kill us, and the waitress just goes welcomed
Speaker 1: to New York. Yeah. Yeah, just this feeling that any
Speaker 1: people who actually live here are just lost, unknowable souls
Speaker 1: who are just so desynthitized to violence, just so dead
Speaker 1: to emotion. That and most they're going to say something
Speaker 1: rude to you, and they might help you if it's
Speaker 1: their job, right, And so in the further ence of this,
Speaker 1: the credit sequence here goes on to introduce you to
Speaker 1: the concept of New York. So after the monologue finishes,
Speaker 1: you get the song keeps like the They turn up
Speaker 1: the volume on that song that's been chugging the perm
Speaker 1: rock and it opens with the most nineteen eighties perm
Speaker 1: rock lyric ever. The line is fallen Angel into the Street.
Speaker 1: The song is called the Darkest Side of Night. But
Speaker 1: so the yeah after this, the the opening credit is
Speaker 1: a montage that is supposed to introduce you to the
Speaker 1: concept of New York, a mystical land somewhere east of
Speaker 1: a shy characterized almost entirely by crime car headlights and uh,
Speaker 1: poisonous chemical Yes, And so I want a catalog in
Speaker 1: detail everything we see in these opening credits. So the
Speaker 1: first thing is we see Times Square with the light
Speaker 1: up billboards bearing the Batman logo. I think this would
Speaker 1: have been for the first Tim Burton movie. We get
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, Sony, camel cigarettes, all kinds of stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and then we see punks loitering in Times Square, one
Speaker 1: of which has a mohawk and they're smoking cigarettes ominously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a mohawk. And you know, I also
Speaker 1: love these shots of Times Square because if you've been
Speaker 1: to Times Square over the last you know, ten years,
Speaker 1: at least you know that it is. It is hell
Speaker 1: on Earth. It is like a neon, uh, like garbage zone,
Speaker 1: you know what. It's just so overwhelming. Uh, you wonder
Speaker 1: why you have come here. Um, it's just a lot.
Speaker 1: And so these shots you see of Times Square in
Speaker 1: this film, they're not quite like I guess we're at
Speaker 1: this period in time where it's not quite the old
Speaker 1: days of Times Square, but it's a very subdued Time Square.
Speaker 1: Like I found myself thinking I would go to this
Speaker 1: Times Square looks like it would not just completely destroy
Speaker 1: me on a on a sensory crowd level. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's almost deserted. In fact, there are very few people
Speaker 1: there except for a few punks. Yeah, there's no Elmos anything,
Speaker 1: There's no Yeah. So, oh my god, imagine if if
Speaker 1: Elmos had been there and we could have had that showdown,
Speaker 1: like at least a stair down between generic Elmo cost
Speaker 1: him dude. Yeah, there should be a movie where Jason
Speaker 1: goes to Times Square now and so he like, there's
Speaker 1: like a guy in a Superman suit there and they
Speaker 1: square off. Yeah, maybe he clavers that naked cowboy guy.
Speaker 1: Jason runs into some minions. Oh man chases somebody through
Speaker 1: the min m store. Yeah, it would be great, it
Speaker 1: would be great. But anyway, after this, so any more
Speaker 1: sites to show us? So? Uh, they show us a
Speaker 1: bunch of garbage filled alleyways emitting just clouds of steam,
Speaker 1: with a wall that has been spray painted with the
Speaker 1: word gang. I think the full phrase is I don't
Speaker 1: remember the name of the gang, but it's like ex
Speaker 1: gang rules, very plausible graffiti. And then we see a
Speaker 1: filthy manhole with its cover popped open, also just billowing steam. Uh.
Speaker 1: It makes me think about that chapter in Moby Dick
Speaker 1: that's just all about chowder. Yeah. The New York City
Speaker 1: underground is absolutely key to this sort of mythology of
Speaker 1: the city because for starters, the real life New York
Speaker 1: City underground is beyond fascinating and I love reading about it,
Speaker 1: I love traveling through it. But the New York City
Speaker 1: underground of pulp fiction and horror cinema is a place
Speaker 1: where you encounter Chud's and ancient Chinese demons, toxic waste,
Speaker 1: Vietnam that cannibals, and just so much more rivers of slime.
Speaker 1: Toxic waste is quite troll to this movie's vision of
Speaker 1: New York. The lifeblood of the city is toxic waste,
Speaker 1: and it's veins frequently just flood with toxic waste. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've later learned there's like a tide of toxic waste,
Speaker 1: Like there's an ecosystem of toxic waste underneath this toxic city.
Speaker 1: Let's see. We see in the opening credits a man
Speaker 1: in a business suit walking down like a mile long, dark,
Speaker 1: steamy alleyway and he's just suddenly like beaten and robbed
Speaker 1: by more heavy metal criminals. Uh, and they're wearing like
Speaker 1: jean jackets, they've got long hair instead of mohawks. And
Speaker 1: so the guys from from Metallica like remove the money
Speaker 1: from the guy's wallet and they throw the wallet into
Speaker 1: what appears to be an open barrel of toxic waste
Speaker 1: with a wet rat crawling around on top. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I love this whole thing because, first of all, man
Speaker 1: taking a shortcut that no rational man of his station
Speaker 1: would take instantly set up on by youths. And then yea,
Speaker 1: this this barrel with the rat. I love that the
Speaker 1: wallet goes into the barrel, the rat comes up, and
Speaker 1: then we just linger on this rat for what seems
Speaker 1: like forever and a long time. Yeah, bear at shot.
Speaker 1: The wear the barrel here will become very important later on. Yes, uh.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly we're inside. We see a dinner with
Speaker 1: a jukebox assigned advertising chocolate milk for thirty cents and uh.
Speaker 1: A lady at the counter gets a coffee refill, but
Speaker 1: she seems dissatisfied, like she keeps pointing at her cup
Speaker 1: as if to indicate no more, fill it till it overflows.
Speaker 1: But the server just walks away. And I think this
Speaker 1: is the same server who will later say welcome to
Speaker 1: New York about the murderer. Uh. We see subway stations
Speaker 1: with escalators covered in graffiti that looks like it was
Speaker 1: all applied on the same day. People sitting on a
Speaker 1: subway car, but they are being filmed from the floor
Speaker 1: looking up. Interesting cinematography choice. Yeah, just more lost souls,
Speaker 1: more like punks and heavy metal rockers doing uh, doing
Speaker 1: drugs in the alley ways. They're like holding needles up
Speaker 1: to the light so that they form a syringe silhouette,
Speaker 1: and then just like squirting some jet of yellow green
Speaker 1: liquid into the air that sparkles in a lamp beam.
Speaker 1: It's possible this is mountain dew, yeah, or or it's
Speaker 1: the ouze from the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Oh the
Speaker 1: ouze yeah. Oh. And then finally the statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: Baby show us the statue, the promise, the promise of
Speaker 1: New York City. You know, we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 1: But there's a hilarious moment early in this film where Sean,
Speaker 1: the boyfriend, gives Renny, the final girl, a gift and
Speaker 1: they're on the boat. They haven't gotten to New York.
Speaker 1: They just got on the boat. She opens the gift
Speaker 1: up and it's like a jewelry case and inside is
Speaker 1: a necklace with the statue of Liberty on it. But
Speaker 1: they haven't gotten to New York yet. It's like a
Speaker 1: it's like a trinket you would buy on the street
Speaker 1: in New York. But they're on the way. So New
Speaker 1: York has been established heavily. And in fact, this whole
Speaker 1: sequence kind of reeks of producers or somebody saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we were put in Manhattan in the title. Is there
Speaker 1: any way you could put some Manhattan at the top
Speaker 1: of the picture so the people, because people aren't going
Speaker 1: to see it again for over an hour. Yeah? Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think probably the only thing in
Speaker 1: that opening sequence that is actually Manhattan is the shot
Speaker 1: of Times Square and the shot of the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: I think the rest is probably a Vancouver once again.
Speaker 1: Oh but then so anyway, we get a nice non
Speaker 1: diagetic to diagetic music transition where that song The Darkest
Speaker 1: Side of Night is suddenly playing on in a totally
Speaker 1: different place. So like you're at New York and the
Speaker 1: camera dips under the water, and then it re emerges
Speaker 1: from the water and you're at Camp Crystal Lake. Uh,
Speaker 1: and the music transitions to music coming out of a
Speaker 1: radio on a boat. It's like a cabin cruiser that's
Speaker 1: floating in Crystal Lake. Did you notice what the radio
Speaker 1: DJ was saying when it did that transition. The only
Speaker 1: thing I remember is that like this one goes out
Speaker 1: to something to do with Crystal Lake, Like he references
Speaker 1: Crystal Lake in it, which and immediately made me wonder, well,
Speaker 1: where is Crystal Lake. I've never, I never. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like Springfield in the sentence like does it is
Speaker 1: it anywhere? Is it just generically somewhere in the US.
Speaker 1: This is so weird. I made a transcript of it too.
Speaker 1: So the DJ says, you've been listening to W G
Speaker 1: A Z the Electricity of Manhattan. This request is going
Speaker 1: out all the way to Crystal Lake. The senior class
Speaker 1: of lake View High they'll be graduating on the thirteen
Speaker 1: of this month, and we wish them the best of
Speaker 1: luck and success when they come to visit our seductive city.
Speaker 1: Our lure is a great one, dear friends, but beware
Speaker 1: the city of lights casts many shadows. Indeed. So this
Speaker 1: is a New York based radio DJ interrupting the darkest
Speaker 1: side of night to give an on air shout out
Speaker 1: to a random class of a graduating high school graduating
Speaker 1: high school seniors from somewhere else who are going to
Speaker 1: be visiting New York in a few days. Okay, perfectly sensible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as to the location of Crystal like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is something that I think is not consistent throughout the
Speaker 1: films in this movie. Again, it's obvious they're like when
Speaker 1: they're in the port leaving in a bit there in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. It's obviously the Northwest, but other movies
Speaker 1: that have established the location of Crystal Lake, I think
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be somewhere in New Jersey. That would
Speaker 1: make sense wherever they're leaving from, whether it's Vancouver or
Speaker 1: New Jersey. In either case, does it make sense that
Speaker 1: they would take a boat to New York a voyage
Speaker 1: by sea for a class trip to New York. I
Speaker 1: guess it's the only way to get him there, Like,
Speaker 1: you can't have a bus trip. How's Jason going to
Speaker 1: get it? Stow away on the bus? It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the bathroom has been out of order for the entire drive. Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's got Jason four he's in it,
Speaker 1: or Jason's clinging to the top of the van, like
Speaker 1: this is just ultimately the way that he would try. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess. But so in these movies where Jason has
Speaker 1: become undead, you gotta have like a sort of waken
Speaker 1: him up scene. You gotta defrost him somehow. So in
Speaker 1: this movie, the way it happens is this yacht on
Speaker 1: the lake is occupied by a couple from that graduating class.
Speaker 1: Like they they respond to the radio DJ they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's us and uh so it's a boy and a
Speaker 1: girl who are generally up to no good. And the
Speaker 1: guy pretty early on dives into a big lore dump.
Speaker 1: He's like, gee, it's kind of spooky that we are
Speaker 1: floating right next to that camp where all those people
Speaker 1: were murdered. Uh and he he just explains all the
Speaker 1: lord he's like, Jason was of what you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't the stuff we talked about at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode. And then he ends up by saying that
Speaker 1: guy is dead now somewhere at the bottom of this lake.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, their boat anchor, we're seeing it just it's
Speaker 1: dragging across a power cable and bringing it into contact
Speaker 1: with Jason's chain bound body, and then it starts rubbing
Speaker 1: against the rock, sparks fly and whoops, electricity brings Jason
Speaker 1: back to life, just like a Frankenstein. I love it.
Speaker 1: They also happened to have a hockey mask on board
Speaker 1: the boat, so he got d masked at the end
Speaker 1: of the previous movie, but he gets a new mask
Speaker 1: just because they have one. It's very lucky. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I guess this is up north there, They're
Speaker 1: gonna have more hockey around in general, so maybe it's
Speaker 1: a little easier to come by. So yeah, he gets
Speaker 1: uh electrified into life. He comes up on the boat,
Speaker 1: of course he he He kills the two people on
Speaker 1: the boat with like a harpoon gun. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they even have that, but it's there and he
Speaker 1: does it. And when we first see Jason in this movie,
Speaker 1: I gotta say this, of the entire series, I think
Speaker 1: it's got to be by far the wettest to Jason.
Speaker 1: This is a generally slimy, almost mucus drench to Jason.
Speaker 1: Yoh yeah, Like he's just dripping in necro slime. And
Speaker 1: if if he's been somewhere sometimes their characters like like,
Speaker 1: why is there a hole punched in this door? And
Speaker 1: the hole is dripping this slime? Um. It's a what's
Speaker 1: a wonderful touch? And you know it it matches up
Speaker 1: with the way his skin looks, which it looks like that,
Speaker 1: you know, his hand could just de glove at any moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but okay, so Jason's woken back up. He's killed people
Speaker 1: on a boat, he's just on this boat. How's he
Speaker 1: gonna get to Manhattan. Well, here's where the premise comes in.
Speaker 1: And this is the premise. We follow the aforementioned graduating
Speaker 1: class of high school seniors as they go on their
Speaker 1: graduation trip, which is apparently getting on what looks like
Speaker 1: I'm no expert in ships, but this does not look
Speaker 1: to me like a cruise ship. This looks like a
Speaker 1: cargo ship of some kind getting on, like a dirty
Speaker 1: cargo ship, departing from somewhere that looks like the Pacific
Speaker 1: Northwest and traveling by boat to New York. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of the boat in Shock Waves a bit, and
Speaker 1: that it does not look attractive to venture upon. It
Speaker 1: does not look like a boat anyone would want to
Speaker 1: travel on recreationally. But then also, yeah, we have all
Speaker 1: these shots of the interior of the ship where it's
Speaker 1: like the Titanic in there, like the bowel with the Titanic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called the Lazarus. Nice. So here I guess we
Speaker 1: meet a couple of the main characters. So we meet Renny,
Speaker 1: the final girl of the movie. She's played very just
Speaker 1: straight down the middle. She is she is a nice person.
Speaker 1: She is smart, she has a cute dog, and don't
Speaker 1: worry that the dog is not harmed in this film.
Speaker 1: The dog just disappears for most of the movie. And
Speaker 1: then at the end, after Jason has defeated, the dog
Speaker 1: comes running up to them and they're just like, oh, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: that the ending I absolutely love because yeah, at that point,
Speaker 1: I mean, no real spoilers here, but Jason has killed
Speaker 1: everybody but these two kids, Um, it's been just a
Speaker 1: traumatic night of just murder and death and doom and
Speaker 1: running for your life. But then they encounter the dog
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, it's great. And then they just
Speaker 1: go off into the city like they're they're just on
Speaker 1: vacation and like everyone or most of the people they knew,
Speaker 1: did not just all die violently. Yeah, I think do
Speaker 1: they go get a hot dog or something? You get
Speaker 1: a hot dog? And they walked through the park that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Um, well we're finally in New York,
Speaker 1: um and uh. But so it's Renny in the car,
Speaker 1: along with another character named Mrs Van Duson, who is
Speaker 1: a kind and nurturing teacher who just repeatedly tells Renny
Speaker 1: that she is so smart and so special. She explodes
Speaker 1: later in the movie. Yeah, played by Barbara Bingham, by
Speaker 1: the way. Yeah, so they introduced them in this the
Speaker 1: scene where they're like sitting in a car, and it's
Speaker 1: so like the first like seventeen minutes of this movie
Speaker 1: where there's like all these exposition lines. It's like almost
Speaker 1: every single line like clangs in some weird way that
Speaker 1: feels wrong, and you're like, huh. But so they they
Speaker 1: introduced these two characters. And the first thing Ms. Van
Speaker 1: Duson does is she like gives Renny a gift. She
Speaker 1: opens up a box and inside it's like a fountain pen.
Speaker 1: And the teacher says, Stephen King supposedly used it in
Speaker 1: high school. I love it. Stephen King's holy pen, a
Speaker 1: holy relic, supposedly used it. Really, how did she acquire it?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Why is she giving it to Renny?
Speaker 1: I don't know is Renny a writer? If so, that
Speaker 1: is not not ever divulged. Yeah, yeah, but I love
Speaker 1: that this holy artifact is is implanted into the picture.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting too because new Blood, the previous picture,
Speaker 1: you know, is often summarized as being Carrie versus Jason yea,
Speaker 1: which I mean loosely so, but anyway, yeah, here Stephen
Speaker 1: King's pen and it will come up again. And then
Speaker 1: immediately Ms. Van Deusen is like, You're the best student
Speaker 1: I've ever had. You're so brave and strong, you are
Speaker 1: going to survive this film. Vote of confidence. But meanwhile,
Speaker 1: remember that boat Jason boarded in the previous scene. Uh,
Speaker 1: here it is. Suddenly it appears to be floating in
Speaker 1: the harbor next to the big passenger ship, the Lazarus,
Speaker 1: and we see Jason like pop up out of the
Speaker 1: water and begin to climb onto the second boat, the
Speaker 1: boat bound for New York. And here we come to
Speaker 1: a long running argument between my Friday the thirteenth enjoying
Speaker 1: friends and I, And the question is this, does Jason
Speaker 1: drive the boat? Does he drive the first boat to
Speaker 1: the other boat, or does he merely remain on the
Speaker 1: boat while it, I guess, drifts downstream to the harbor
Speaker 1: if the ladder, does he stand the whole time or
Speaker 1: does he sit while the boat is drifting. I have
Speaker 1: long been of the opinion that, yeah, Jason drives that boat.
Speaker 1: He's like work in the throttle, he's steering, he's driving.
Speaker 1: We never see either way, so it's it's up to interpretation.
Speaker 1: But a good friend of mine always insists Jason does
Speaker 1: not drive the boat. He just thinks it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: That's it reminds me of the whole Does Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: climb into the U boat or does he cling to
Speaker 1: the U boat for the entire journey part of Rated
Speaker 1: Lost start on this one. I'm edge brought. I brought
Speaker 1: it up because I got to think about it whilst
Speaker 1: watching the picture. I think, on one hand, this is
Speaker 1: essentially a Dracula Demeter situation. You know, Dracula kills everyone
Speaker 1: aboard the Demeter and it continues to deliver him to
Speaker 1: his destination. Uh. And of course the ship, you know,
Speaker 1: rolls up everyone's dead on board. Uh. But Dracula does
Speaker 1: not pilot that vessel. Um. You know, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like it delivers him there, and you know, through
Speaker 1: dark magic and destiny and so forth. Um. So on
Speaker 1: one hand, I feel like that's got to be what's
Speaker 1: going on here. But on the other hand, Jason can
Speaker 1: use tools and machines. He does so sometimes to kill people.
Speaker 1: And while water is part of his prison, he can
Speaker 1: also clearly get around on water, and he's not handicapped
Speaker 1: by it in like a vampire since so I guess
Speaker 1: he could drive it. But then also this comes back
Speaker 1: to why does Jason want or need to travel anywhere.
Speaker 1: He's been very local up till now, and suddenly he's
Speaker 1: going to go to New York or he's gonna check
Speaker 1: out this boat. I don't know. Yeah, and mean, so far,
Speaker 1: Jason has been almost like uh, like a like a
Speaker 1: century robot that protects a particular location. So it's like
Speaker 1: you come into his territory and then he will do
Speaker 1: violence against you. He's not like going out elsewhere until
Speaker 1: this movie. I guess it's supposed to be like a
Speaker 1: situation of he's an accidental stowaway or he's he's drawn
Speaker 1: in by the fact that Renny has this weird connection
Speaker 1: with him, like with at least with some aspects of him.
Speaker 1: It gets kind of weird with the various hallucinations she
Speaker 1: has a young zombie mutant Jason um some very nice
Speaker 1: hallucination sequences. By the way, there are some very artistic
Speaker 1: sequences in this film dealing with her flashbacks and visions
Speaker 1: and hallucinations that I don't think it enough credit. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're not gonna explain the whole plot, but we
Speaker 1: should at least mention who some of the main characters are.
Speaker 1: So you got Renny, and you've got miss van Duson
Speaker 1: and they're getting on the boat, then I would say
Speaker 1: you've got Sean. Sean is the pretty boy again. He
Speaker 1: fills the role of the final girl's love interest. He
Speaker 1: is handsome, heroic, and otherwise devoid of personality traits. They
Speaker 1: tried to fill in some character shading on this one
Speaker 1: with one of the most ludicrous connections they could have
Speaker 1: come up with. Sean's father happens to be the captain
Speaker 1: of the ship that they are all riding to New York,
Speaker 1: and Sean is a great disappointment to his father, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, kind of looks like l Ron Hubbard
Speaker 1: in his sea captain outfit. Because Sean, Sean is a
Speaker 1: disappointment because he is a failure at being a boat captain. Uh,
Speaker 1: He's like, I guess his dad wants him to be
Speaker 1: a boat captain as well, and Sean like forgets to
Speaker 1: do the international maritime signal when they're going underway and stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, So that's Sean, and Sean will redeem himself
Speaker 1: later on in my eyes anyway. Oh okay, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear it. Okay, So we also got like
Speaker 1: the principal guy, Mr McCulloch, who is a strict and
Speaker 1: overbearing either teacher or principal. He happens to be chaperoning
Speaker 1: this senior trip. His interests include scolding, shouting, finger wagging, warning, hectoring, excoriating,
Speaker 1: and naysaying. He's like a combination of Principal Skinner and
Speaker 1: Robert Stack from Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah, and like I said,
Speaker 1: this is a character that initially seems unlikable and is
Speaker 1: just a stick in the mud and is the authority
Speaker 1: figure to the teens. But also we get additional wrinkles
Speaker 1: later on where we learned that he is maybe a
Speaker 1: little slow to say, hey, teenage student, put your clothing
Speaker 1: back on. And also he is the type of uncle
Speaker 1: who will just push you into the lake to help
Speaker 1: you learn how to swim, even though there there may
Speaker 1: be like undead monster children down there somewhere. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so Rennie's like character flaw is that she's afraid of
Speaker 1: the water. Uh. Yeah, And and we learned in a
Speaker 1: flashback later on, I think when Rennie is staring at
Speaker 1: us puddle in the street, or maybe it's all of
Speaker 1: gasoline after a car explode. God, yes, it's after the
Speaker 1: car explode. This is one of the many wonderfully shot
Speaker 1: like this is like a beautiful moment in this film.
Speaker 1: Um that I was captivated by m okay. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: she does look into a puddle and she has a
Speaker 1: memory of when uh this guy, oh, who we also
Speaker 1: find out is her uncle and guardian. Yeah, she's looking
Speaker 1: into the flaming puddle and then we see something's moving
Speaker 1: across the puddle. What is it? Is it a tiny boat?
Speaker 1: And it is like the yeah, the memory that the
Speaker 1: that the wide shot of the boat on the lake
Speaker 1: on Crystal Lake, but like superimposed or whatever within the
Speaker 1: flaming puddle, and everything's very soft focus because it's a flashback,
Speaker 1: and it's like her as a kid and her her
Speaker 1: mean vice principal uncle is like, you're going to learn
Speaker 1: to swim, and the way that will happen is I
Speaker 1: will shove you into the water and command you to swim.
Speaker 1: And she's like, no, I can't swim, and he's like, swim, swim,
Speaker 1: you can do it. Oh, but the principal here, he Also,
Speaker 1: he's the guy who once people start concluding that the
Speaker 1: murders are being committed by Jason Vorhees, just like the
Speaker 1: in the old stories, this guy is the doubter who
Speaker 1: must be punished for his skepticism. Most of the Jason
Speaker 1: movies have some form of this. Somebody's like, Jason Vorhees
Speaker 1: is dead. You know, you're being ridiculous. He can't be
Speaker 1: behind this, and then a couple of scenes later, Jason
Speaker 1: cuts them in half of the saw or something. So
Speaker 1: let's see who are the other major characters among the
Speaker 1: mini victims. There's there's Julius. As we said, he's kind
Speaker 1: of the jock character, but he's not the standard jock bully.
Speaker 1: He's more of a a sort of likable, brash hero.
Speaker 1: He's a boxer in training. We see him doing a
Speaker 1: boxing scene. There's like a boxing ring on this boat. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's a scene where once they figure out Jason's
Speaker 1: murdering everybody. Um, Mr McCulloch is like, everyone do what
Speaker 1: I say, and Julius says, no schools out and he
Speaker 1: has a stupendous boxing match with Jason on the roof
Speaker 1: of a nondescript building. I think In an earlier draft
Speaker 1: of the script, this was going to take place at
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. Oh, it's a it is a wonderful
Speaker 1: fight sequence because, yeah, he stands up to Jason. He
Speaker 1: starts throwing punches. He's connecting with these punches. Jason staggering
Speaker 1: a bit. He's working Jason towards the edge of the roof,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you know what's gonna happen. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna get a knockout on Jason, or if
Speaker 1: he does, Jason's gonna get up and stab him or something.
Speaker 1: So you know, this isn't gonna work. But but for
Speaker 1: a minute, there's hope. But then he's he wears himself out,
Speaker 1: just wears himself out punching on Jason, and then out
Speaker 1: of breath, he he's he dares Jason to give him
Speaker 1: a shot. He's like, give me your best shot. Jason
Speaker 1: rears back, punches his head completely off, which goes flying
Speaker 1: off the roof of the building into a dumpster. And
Speaker 1: then we get rolling headcam. Did you know they like
Speaker 1: they have like a tumbling camera shot. It's from the
Speaker 1: point of view of the rolling head. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: they took that from Polanski's Macbeth. I think we had
Speaker 1: a rolling head shot. There is a there's there is
Speaker 1: a decapitated head p o V in that movie. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's some connection. Let's see, there's some other characters. There's
Speaker 1: there's the mean girl in movie like this, you gotta
Speaker 1: have the mean girl. I think the character's name is Tamara.
Speaker 1: Uh So a lot of these movies have a character
Speaker 1: like in part seven, I think the one she's named Melissa.
Speaker 1: This is basically a blonde girl who is implied to
Speaker 1: be from a rich family who's at the top of
Speaker 1: the social pyramid, who bullies everyone of a of a
Speaker 1: lesser station in that social pyramid. Uh usually including doing
Speaker 1: some kind of mean prank or diss on the final girl.
Speaker 1: Tamera also does the drugs though, and she she shoves
Speaker 1: Renny off the side of the boat for no reason,
Speaker 1: like really just like oops, whoops, shoves her into the water,
Speaker 1: though she was on the drugs at the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: speaking of the drugs, you also have Tamora's friend Eva.
Speaker 1: This is the one played by Kelly who who is
Speaker 1: like the nicer, cool girl. She's best friends with the
Speaker 1: evil rich girl. There's one part where the mean girl
Speaker 1: is like, um hey, let's do illegal drugs, and Eva
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know what if I lose my
Speaker 1: science scholarship. Yeah. Yeah, she seems like a good character.
Speaker 1: I thought she is. She is doomed by association. You
Speaker 1: got Wayne, this is the geek of the movie. This
Speaker 1: is the a V Club guy. He's running around with
Speaker 1: a video camera. Actually predating the creation of the found
Speaker 1: footage movie. This is a movie where a character in
Speaker 1: a life or death scenario is still filming everything. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought about that a little bit. Yeah, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is kind of like this would be
Speaker 1: the whole movie later on annoyingly. Um so maybe that
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons it. I was increasingly in
Speaker 1: favor of this character's death. We already mentioned Miles because
Speaker 1: this is the guy played by Gordon Curry who's in
Speaker 1: the Left Behind movies, but also I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: a few things about him, even though he is not
Speaker 1: a very notable character. In fact, I don't know if
Speaker 1: he has any lines that remain in the final cut.
Speaker 1: He's just standing around. Maybe he's a couple. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: so unnotable that I had him. I had his his
Speaker 1: character misattributed in the notes here. I was thinking this
Speaker 1: actor must be the guy who plays the video game.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I added backwards, it's easy to blend
Speaker 1: these characters together. Well, I wanted to mention a couple
Speaker 1: of things about him. One is that when we first
Speaker 1: see him, he's in like the pilots I don't know
Speaker 1: what you call it, the pilot's room, the place where
Speaker 1: you pilot the ship. He's standing there with Shawn and
Speaker 1: Shawn's dad, dressed up in the captain's uniform. Uh. And
Speaker 1: uh he appeared and in the scene he appears to
Speaker 1: be wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of the Titanic
Speaker 1: on it. And also there's a deleted scene that you
Speaker 1: can watch. You got the low ray of this. Uh.
Speaker 1: This when we very first meet this character. Uh. Captain
Speaker 1: Daddy here says some hilarious line to It's hard to
Speaker 1: capture the exact awkwardness of it, but it is something like, hello, Miles,
Speaker 1: congratulations on winning second place on that intramural diving competition.
Speaker 1: What do you say Once we're out on the ocean
Speaker 1: and I cut the engines, throw anchor and let you
Speaker 1: take a few dives off the back Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: something you do. Yeah. Yeah, and uh I I can't
Speaker 1: imagine why they cut that moment out. But then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I think blond guy is just like whoa
Speaker 1: bodacious Yeah. Captain the actor playing Captain Daddy in this
Speaker 1: uh is he has some some other line. There's one
Speaker 1: where he's talking to I don't know his like first
Speaker 1: night or something, asking him about his kid and how
Speaker 1: old his kid is, and he's like eighteen months. And
Speaker 1: then with like just such this earnest delivery, Captain Daddy
Speaker 1: says hell of an age or something like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it was, but it was like so earnestly delivered.
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, is it it was? Was
Speaker 1: eighteen month? Really a hell of an age? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it really was. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I would have been didn't didn't. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: all relative, but I was I was quizzing. I was
Speaker 1: quizzing myself over that proclamation. Okay, so you got all
Speaker 1: the people on the boat, Jason gets on the boat,
Speaker 1: the boat departs. After that, there is not a whole
Speaker 1: lot of plot. Rather, there are just the standard mechanics
Speaker 1: of a Friday and movie with some location twists. So
Speaker 1: Jason murders basically everybody on the boat one by one.
Speaker 1: This is the majority of the movie. Then the boat
Speaker 1: starts exploding. Then the remaining survivors at the time, which
Speaker 1: is Renny, Sean, Mr. McCulloch, Mrs Van Duson, and Julius
Speaker 1: and the dog. The dog's okay. They take a rowboat
Speaker 1: the rest of the way to Vancouver or I mean
Speaker 1: New York. They see the Statue of Liberty and they cheer.
Speaker 1: Then they like go up to a dock, and the
Speaker 1: moment they arrive in New York, like literally as they're
Speaker 1: leaving the dock, they are attacked by a heavy metal band. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Jason chases them around New York for like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes and kills everybody except Renny and Sean. And
Speaker 1: then in a final twist, Jason is defeated when he
Speaker 1: follows them into the sewer. The sewer, we're told by
Speaker 1: a sewer worker, floods every night at midnight with toxic waste.
Speaker 1: The clock strokes midnight, Jason is hit by toxic waste.
Speaker 1: Renny and Shawn avoided by climbing up a ladder, and
Speaker 1: then the toxic waste turns Jason back into a child
Speaker 1: version of himself. Well, um, I have some thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about a little bit about this off Mike,
Speaker 1: because yes, the flood of toxic waste moves in, destroys Jason,
Speaker 1: and then when she looks down, she sees him as
Speaker 1: a child again. Now, my interpretation of this is that
Speaker 1: Jason is actually just um sludge at this point. He's
Speaker 1: toxic sludge like floating in the shape of Adjason in
Speaker 1: the water. But via her weird hallucinogenic connection with ghost
Speaker 1: kid Jason, which has established several times in the movie
Speaker 1: with some really at times I think, very creative hallucination sequences. Um,
Speaker 1: she sees the child, That's what she sees there instead
Speaker 1: of of the sludge. It's like she sees Jason the
Speaker 1: child finally at peace, finally uh you know actually, and
Speaker 1: so he's sleeping, but he's sleeping the eternal sleep of
Speaker 1: of of true death. But I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: movie with magic in it, so it could be he
Speaker 1: was turned into a straight up child. Uh, and the
Speaker 1: child is floating now in the sewers of New York.
Speaker 1: It invites interpretational like this film is like taxi driver. Um, okay, oh,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's see, let's see. What else did I
Speaker 1: want to so? Um? I love that the new Even
Speaker 1: you spend so much time on the boat, it feels
Speaker 1: like you're always going to be on the boat. And
Speaker 1: then when you do finally get to New York. Despite
Speaker 1: the fact that this was the selling point of the movie,
Speaker 1: it weird. It weirdly feels like bonus movie. It's like
Speaker 1: it was an interesting feeling, even though again this was
Speaker 1: what we were sold in the teaser trailers that it
Speaker 1: was gonna be Jason in New York. Right before you
Speaker 1: logged on here, Rob Seth and I were talking about it,
Speaker 1: and Seth suggested that the movie could be called Jason
Speaker 1: Still Cruising. That would be good because it is mostly boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It's kind of like I mentioned Dracula and
Speaker 1: the Demeter earlier. Again, the section where Dracula is on
Speaker 1: the boat is just a small portion of the novel,
Speaker 1: a great portion, that is, you know, given adequate amount
Speaker 1: of time and space in the novel. Um But then again,
Speaker 1: the novel is not titled Dracula Goes to England, so
Speaker 1: or Dracula takes England or whatever. So it's it's like
Speaker 1: it's different in that regard as well, but there's at
Speaker 1: least well, I think there's a movie project in the
Speaker 1: works called like the Last Voyage of the Demeter that
Speaker 1: is going to be like, okay, that one section of
Speaker 1: the novel as a full blown motion picture. What happened
Speaker 1: on the boat that that that transported Dracula to England?
Speaker 1: How did all those people die? What's all sorts of
Speaker 1: horrible things occurred? And to a certain extent, you could
Speaker 1: almost look like, look at this movie like that, like
Speaker 1: this movie is trying to fill in a gap that
Speaker 1: nobody wanted filled in just yet. This is interesting comparing
Speaker 1: Uh Jason Takes Manhattan to Dracula, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of parallels. I mean, they're both a movie about a
Speaker 1: sort of monster that is the that is the master
Speaker 1: of its own rural domain. It is out somewhere far
Speaker 1: from the city, and it's even tied to the soil
Speaker 1: of that location. Yes, yes, it's tied to the soil.
Speaker 1: And then makes a journey by sea to the metropolitan
Speaker 1: center and uh and arrives where there is you know,
Speaker 1: great population density and modernity and technology and comes in
Speaker 1: collision with all these things. Okay, yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: good Dracula is Jason takes Manhattan. I like it. Um.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned major center of population. That's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I love when they initially show up in
Speaker 1: New York because it seems almost completely depopulated at first.
Speaker 1: This is the largest city in the US, and Manhattan
Speaker 1: Island is a major center of population, and yet there's
Speaker 1: virtually nobody there. It's it's only violent criminals. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: expect to see snake pliskin wandering around back there is something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found it interesting that McCulloch dies in that what
Speaker 1: I think is the same barrel of sludge that had
Speaker 1: the rat in it from earlier. Uh, Jason just dumps
Speaker 1: him over and drowns him, pushes his feet down into it.
Speaker 1: He kills him with the dip from Roger Rabbit. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's the judge. Yeah. Yeah, And meanwhile he's
Speaker 1: down there going in current b Jayson warries. We we
Speaker 1: get subway tunnel action, which instantly, I mean, you put
Speaker 1: a monster in a subway and I'm there, I'm committed
Speaker 1: to the picture. And this is this the action sequence
Speaker 1: to where Sean totally redeems himself, jumps at at like
Speaker 1: leaps at Jason and administers a lying bulldog like a
Speaker 1: flying headlock head driver like he's a Steiner brother coming
Speaker 1: off the top rope and drives Jason head first into
Speaker 1: the third rail electrocuting. I want to hear the math
Speaker 1: promo for that. It was fabulous. I loved it. I
Speaker 1: had to watch it twice. Um so, yeah, they battle
Speaker 1: down there, they come out into Times Square and all
Speaker 1: there's this glorious moment where we had established punks in
Speaker 1: Times Square earlier, same punks are there again, listening to
Speaker 1: rap music. They have rap music playing on their um
Speaker 1: their boom box, and Jason comes by. He's after our
Speaker 1: main characters, but he has time to to violently kick
Speaker 1: over their boom box. They do not react well to this,
Speaker 1: and they're like, they're like hey man, They're like, you know,
Speaker 1: stepping to Jason. Jason just turns around. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: time to kill them all. He's suddenly in an area
Speaker 1: where they're just this is a new situation for Jason, right,
Speaker 1: there are too many people to kill all of them.
Speaker 1: He has to leave some behind. But to to get
Speaker 1: rid of the punks. He just turns around, actually lifts
Speaker 1: up his mask. We don't see anything. He's facing away
Speaker 1: from the camera, but they all just run away in fear.
Speaker 1: Wonderful moment. Loved this moment, but we don't. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's great because in this movie, we haven't seen
Speaker 1: what his face design is going to look like yet,
Speaker 1: so we're we're enticed. We're like, how scary is it
Speaker 1: gonna be? And oh boy, the reveal is so underwhelming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially coming off of New Blood, because in New Blood
Speaker 1: the reveal is horrifying. They do a great job of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you've ripped off his mask and it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's the thing is I guess sometimes in these
Speaker 1: films it's like Jason is supposed to be kind of
Speaker 1: awkward and disfigured underneath. Like it comes back to the
Speaker 1: basic hard trope, what does removing the mask do? Are
Speaker 1: you like, are you revealing like the shame or the
Speaker 1: weakness of the individual. Are you unleashing the monster even more?
Speaker 1: And in New Blood it was definitely a release of
Speaker 1: the monster because this this this grizzled and disfigured and
Speaker 1: rotting face of a rev It is just just terrifying
Speaker 1: to it to behold. In this movie, I feel like
Speaker 1: we take a step backwards and we get more into
Speaker 1: the Let's reveal the like the awkward dirtiness of the
Speaker 1: of the Revenant. Let's take away some of his strength
Speaker 1: by unmasking him. Yeah, his face in this movie is
Speaker 1: kind of cute. He's almost like a slimy gray muppet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has kind of a muppet qualities, kind of like
Speaker 1: kind of a sensibility when in the face is revealed.
Speaker 1: After Um, I believe, she picks up a bucket that's
Speaker 1: labeled toxic waste right down in the sewers, because they
Speaker 1: end up going into the sewers down the Chud territory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: throws it in his face and it starts steaming, and
Speaker 1: the mask comes off, and there's his there's there's the
Speaker 1: face of Jason, and Jason takes Manhattan. It looks and
Speaker 1: while it looks a little dirty at first, I will
Speaker 1: say that as we proceed and we see him like
Speaker 1: shambling down the tunnel after them, Um, I didn't look
Speaker 1: as to me. So, Yeah, in this tunnel, they're they're
Speaker 1: trying to escape Jason. They've come up out of the subway,
Speaker 1: he chases them. They're in Times Square. This is the
Speaker 1: actually shot in Times Square. I think there's like one
Speaker 1: or two scenes actually shot in New York. This was
Speaker 1: really Times Square. I guess they had to get the
Speaker 1: crowds to the side, like behind the barricades to clear
Speaker 1: it out for Jason. And and there are great stories
Speaker 1: of when they were filming this, like it did draw crowds.
Speaker 1: People were really excited to see Jason shooting in Times Square,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were all waving to him and
Speaker 1: blowing him kisses and stuff. And but yeah, after this,
Speaker 1: they run into a diner. Somebody's trying to kill us.
Speaker 1: Welcome to New York. They run out the back of
Speaker 1: the diner. They run down into the sewers. They meet
Speaker 1: a sewer worker who's like, we've got to get out
Speaker 1: of here. The sewers flood with toxic waste every night
Speaker 1: at midnight. And then Jason hits that guy with a
Speaker 1: wrench and then she throws toxic waste in his face,
Speaker 1: and then the floods come and and that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a magical ending. But the
Speaker 1: dog is okay. They come up out of the sewer,
Speaker 1: They're like, Oh, everything's okay now, and then the dog
Speaker 1: runs up to them and it's happily ever after. M hmm,
Speaker 1: or is it because here's another read? This is this
Speaker 1: is this is kind of a radical read on the picture.
Speaker 1: What if they died in the tunnel with Jason, they
Speaker 1: were dissolved as well, and when they emerge, they are
Speaker 1: emerging into the afterlife. That's why they're suddenly okay and
Speaker 1: New York isn't threatening anymore, and the dog is the
Speaker 1: psychopomp that's gonna guide them the rest of the way
Speaker 1: so they can continue to traverse the risk and terrors
Speaker 1: of the afterlife. Well, what does the monologue say at
Speaker 1: the beginning? There is no escape, nor do we want it. Uh,
Speaker 1: those New Yorkers, you know it's weird. I'm just looking
Speaker 1: at our page of all all of the weird house
Speaker 1: cinema movies we've done, and I got to say that
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this episode and that Jason Takes Manhattan
Speaker 1: is simultaneously one of the most mainstream movies we've ever
Speaker 1: done and one of the stupidest. Oh yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 1: Jason Takes Manhattan. Uh, And and it is it is
Speaker 1: tooken for sure. Uh So if you want to see
Speaker 1: Jason Takes Manhattan, I mean, for starters, there's a very
Speaker 1: good chance you've seen it already. But if you haven't,
Speaker 1: if you managed to get through most of your life
Speaker 1: without watching it, beginning to end like like I had,
Speaker 1: it is widely available obviously. Um. I can't speak to streaming,
Speaker 1: and I have a friend of mine who recently decided
Speaker 1: he was gonna watch all the Friday the thirteenth movies,
Speaker 1: and he was going through other franchises as well, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of having to play hop scotch from
Speaker 1: one streaming site to another to watch them all. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly where how you need to stream
Speaker 1: this movie right now, but it's widely available as physical media. Uh.
Speaker 1: They've put out I think multiple special blue ray can collections.
Speaker 1: I rented a disc at Video Drome off of I
Speaker 1: think the the Friday eight movie collection, which I quite
Speaker 1: liked because again I got to watch to Jason movies
Speaker 1: for the price of one. A little bit of trivia
Speaker 1: going back to part seven the New Blood, did you
Speaker 1: know that this is only one of the possible scripts
Speaker 1: that could have become Friday the thirteenth, Part eight. Another
Speaker 1: option was going to have the Tina character, the psychic
Speaker 1: girl from part seven, return and do battle with Jason again. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds like a winning concept as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't have wanted a world in which Jason
Speaker 1: takes Manhattan. Doesn't happen though, But Tina was a great character.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have seen her again. Oh,
Speaker 1: you could have combined them. I mean, it could have
Speaker 1: been Tina's graduating class, so she's a psychic, she's on
Speaker 1: the boat and the Jason gets on the boat the
Speaker 1: gold Manhattan. It could have worked. Yeah, Or then the
Speaker 1: one after this where they send out the bounty hunters
Speaker 1: to to bring him down. If that had been conceptualized differently, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you could have had a Tina be the
Speaker 1: go to, like, who are you going to go to
Speaker 1: to take Jason down? Go to somebody who has not
Speaker 1: only survived him, but overcome him with inhuman powers, do
Speaker 1: you want to hear? Or one other alternate idea for
Speaker 1: Jason A it was going to be that the hunk
Speaker 1: from part seven. Actually it turns out that part seven
Speaker 1: was a dream and he was the real Killer. What, Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's awful. I'm glad they didn't do that. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine that if you transition from Hunk to Jason,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jason is is he is a physical specimen
Speaker 1: to be sure. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and close it out right there, but we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: Jason Takes Manhattan or The Friday the Thirteenth franchise in general,
Speaker 1: any of the specific movies we mentioned in this episode.
Speaker 1: Let us know, we'd love to hear from you. What
Speaker 1: do you think about this film's depiction of New York City?
Speaker 1: New Yorker's uh tourists to the City of New York
Speaker 1: certainly chime in as well. Oh yeah, I can't believe
Speaker 1: they didn't end it with Jason buying a bunch of
Speaker 1: Yankees gear and it's just decked out, head out Yankee stuff.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. There's so much stuff with that. There's
Speaker 1: so many ideas that you could have pitched for Jason
Speaker 1: spending let's saying, an entire films length within the city
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. There's so many directions to have gone into.
Speaker 1: You could do a whole film series just about about
Speaker 1: Jason in Manhattan. But well, in earlier plans for this
Speaker 1: movie they did want that. I mean, he was gonna
Speaker 1: go to go to Madison Square Garden, go to the
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty, all that. They just didn't have the budget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kept getting scaled back more and more boat less and
Speaker 1: less New York. Well there you go. But in the
Speaker 1: end I was pretty pleased with it. So hey have yeah.
Speaker 1: If you want to check out other episodes of Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema, we published it every Friday, and the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but on Friday's we put most of that aside and
Speaker 1: we just talked about a weird film. Again. I'll blog
Speaker 1: this up at some new to music dot com And
Speaker 1: also we have a letterbox that's l E T T
Speaker 1: E R b o x D dot com account or
Speaker 1: user name is weird House and I update that as well,
Speaker 1: adding the films that we have cover word and sometimes
Speaker 1: will cover to that list, so you can also get
Speaker 1: a nice visual representation of what we've done so far.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello.
Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow Your Mind's production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
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