Chances are, you've already read my tribute to Freddy Krueger in preparation for the upcoming "Freddy vs. Jason" movie. Now it's time to pay a visit to Jason Voorhees, so on with Friday the 13th. It's a day that most people associate with bad luck, though that it rarely involves an unstoppable psycho with a hockey mask stalking them. Fortunately, we can always enjoy the Friday the 13th series and watch some other stupid bastards get hacked apart in extremely violent ways by your friend and mine, Jason Voorhees. Now I will eventually be doing a "Jason's Best Kills" list, but I really wanted to cover what I consider to be among the worst, yet funniest of the Friday the 13th films. I'm sure many people would vote for Jason X, in which Jason gets "upgraded". And while they couldn't possibly have made him look worse even if they threw in some IMac colors, the movie itself still had some great deaths. To me, the Friday movie that is more "out there" than Jason in outer space is part 8, "Jason Takes Manhattan".

It starts off with a nice advertisement for Coke right in the middle of the screen, so that right there is a sure sign that we've got a winner on our hands. No word yet on whether Jason is going to be wearing Nike sneakers in his upcoming films though. So anyway, cut to Camp Crystal Lake two stupid kids are gettin' down and dirty on a boat. The guy then tells the girl about how Jason drowned in the very same lake and we get some flashbacks of a kid desperately trying to look like he's drowning. Why couldn't they hire Macaulay Culkin to do this scene? At least then I could enjoy the fantasy of him drowning.

So, now that his girlfriend is all turned on by the story of a dead boy in the lake, they drop the boat anchor and get busy. The boat anchor catches onto a power line which causes an electrical surge to zap Jason's body. And we all know how much Jason likes electricity. All he needs is a little zap after anytime he gets "killed" and he's ready to rumble again.

So he climbs on board and grabs a nearby harpoon gun, because all teenagers carry harpoon guns on their speedboats. Seriously. He then walks right up to them and fires away... AND MISSES! He's standing less than 5 feet away and he can't hit them with the harpoon gun? Well this just pisses him off, so he stabs lover boy in the gut with the gun itself. Then he takes the misfired harpoon and stabs lover gal in the chest with it. Oh well, I guess if you can't aim a harpoon gun well, there's still plenty of other options. But a note to the kids: if you're firing a harpoon at a shark or something and you miss, do not jump in the water and try to stab it to death with the gun itself.

Cut to the next day and a bunch of high school seniors are going on a cruise to New York City with their biology teacher. We then see Jason pop-up from under the water and hitch a ride on the ship. What made him do this instead of going around the Crystal Lake camp to stalk the people there? I guess we'll never know. The only guy that seems to know is this deck swabbing creep who politely informs one of the kids, "This voyage is doomed. DOOMED!" Was he talking about the voyage, or the movie?

Now this movie was out in '89, and hair metal bands were still all over the place. So what better thing to do than to have Jason beat the crap out of a rocker girl who fakes playing her guitar quite badly? She sees him, drops her guitar and runs down a few flights of stairs and WHAP! Jason is standing right there at the bottom waiting for her and belts her in the head with her axe. "Hey, wait a minute Rog! How did Jason get down the stairs so fast?" Shhh... that's their little secret.

Next, we have one of the boys relaxing in the sauna. Nothing like a good steam... unless said steam involves a hot rock being shoved through your chest. Probably one of my favorite kills in the movie... you actually see the hot rock ignite his innards when Jason shoves it into the kid. Pretty vicious indeed.

"He's come back and you're all gonna die!"

Weirdo McDeckswabber then shows up once again to warn the people that Jason Voorhees is going to kill them all. But that's not important. What is important is getting your biology project turned in on time.

Every one of these movies has a bimbo, and in this one she paints organs all over her body as her "biology project" to show the professor as she strips down. It's all a setup though, because she gets a dork who is obsessed with her to film her seducing the professor. Unfortunately for her, she won't be able to use that video for blackmail because Jason decides to pay her a little visit. First he tears off her robe and she runs head first into the bathroom mirror. Again, he doesn't throw her into it, she actually runs directly into it all on her own. I told ya she wasn't too bright. So while she lays down in the shower instead of trying to escape or defend herself, Jason grabs a chunk of the broken mirror and kills her off. Bye bye bimbo. We'll miss you and your biology project. :(

Next on Jason's hit list is the Captain and his first mate. These deaths are fairly uneventful. A quick stab with a harpoon for the first mate and a throat slashing for the captain and it's all over. I like that Jason kills a lot of people, but these two kills weren't creative at all. Anything to bump up his body count numbers I guess...

"You're the one who's insane!"

Swabber guy is back yet again to warn them. No offense swabby, but I think they get the idea now. People are dying left and right, so it's obvious that there's a problem on the ship (besides the script). The asshole professor still dismisses him off as insane and thinks that he might even be the killer. So, swabby runs off as he tells the professor that "You're the one who's insane!" Preach on swabby! Stand up for yourself!

Next, Jason traps one of the other girls in the dance room and proceeds to choke her in mid-air. Once she's dead, he slams her to the ground. Death under a disco ball... not the best way to go if you ask me. Eh, at least they weren't playing the Bee Gees during the kill.

With people dying left and right, they decide to "split up" and hunt for the killer. Yeah, that's always the best idea. "Say, let's send this defenseless film school nerd to go hunt down a brutal killer! I'm sure he'll fare well!" Welp, film student geek captures Jason on film and then runs away screaming. He then finds the body of his old pal, the glam rocker girl with a huge chunk missing from her head. While I can appreciate the fact that he'd want to mourn the loss of his friend, perhaps now isn't the best time to do so considering he has a psycho killer (qu'est que c'est) chasing him down. Sure enough, Jason catches him and throws him into some kind of power generator and the kid gets fried. Jason loves watching the pretty sparkles. Awwww, he's just like a little kid enjoying a fireworks display. What a softy.

Here's another classic "run away from Jason as fast as you can, and he'll still be ahead of you" moment. This kid decides to climb up to the top of the main ship mast in order to escape Jason. But sure enough, out of nowhere, Jason appears right below him and throws him off. The kid is then impaled on an antennae. "Hey, wait a minute Rog! How did Jason get up that mast so fast?" Shhh... that's their little secret.

And here we have Rennie, the main heroine of the movie. She keeps having visions of Jason as a kid. He'll pop up all over the place. But what exactly is causing her to have these visions? We'll get to that later. I know, I know... the suspense is killing you.

The pen is mightier than the psycho?

Jason then bursts through the window and tries to choke Rennie to death, but she grabs a nearby pen and stabs Jason in the eye with it. No matter how big and bad the horror guys are, getting stabbed in the eye always seems to be a good way to slow them down a little bit.

I'd like to take this moment to thank swabby. He tried to warn the people about Jason but they just wouldn't listen. So now he shows up with an axe in his back. Let us hope that this final message of his got through their thick skulls.

Well it looks like it did! See folks, all you have to do to get through to some people is to kill yourself. Consider that a lesson learned. Anyway, the remaining survivors abandon the ship and start rowing away. How they end up in New York City so fast is beyond me. Maybe they had a high-powered outboard motor that didn't make the final cut of the movie. But when they reach the shore guess who is still right on their trail? Yep, it's Jason. Before he starts stalking them down, however, he runs into a little distraction.

AROOO?

So what exactly made Jason stop in his tracks?

CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 TO FIND OUT!

click here for more minimocks!