Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan

What a time to be alive. Growing up alongside slasher horror movies in the 80s’ was certainly a peak moment for many adolescent horror fans in the decade. As the villains’ became pop-culture phenomenons appearing on lunch boxes and bootleg toys, our special boy Jason Voorhees was no exception to the horror synthwave of the 80s’. With the exception of 1983 and 1987, Friday the 13th was the ONLY series of films to release one movie every single year from 1980-1989 with everyone bearing some charm, gore, and new angle to bring Jason back onto the scene for more murderous rampages on teenagers. After 1989, they tried to resurrect him again, but people like me just weren’t buying it. Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan was the true and final ending to a decade-long franchise of the Crystal Lake Killer.

Fight me.

Let’s rewind a bit: In The Final Chapter, Corey Feldman’s Tommy Jarvis successfully accomplished what everyone was trying to do for 4 years- kill Jason. While technically, this right here would have been a dignifying sendoff for our special, special boy, fans clamored for more and the studios pulled a 180 by bringing him back in A New Beginning… Well sort of. We all THOUGHT we were watching Voorhees torment a now teenage Tommy laying low in a camp for troubled teens- mass murder from a guy in a hockey mask in a Friday the 13th film, who else would it have been? The twist is that it was actually paramedic Roy Burns who, like Pamela before him, went into a homicidal rage after the death of his kid. Jason was still dead and the murders were done by a copycat. This kind of pissed off audiences and they felt cheated. While I always thought that was a clever route to go down by refreshing the storyline, much like with Halloween III, fans wanted the REAL Jason.

Bending to the fans who can make or break the studios, Paramount begged for forgiveness with Jason Lives. A more focused, and determined Jarvis returns to Jason’s grave to ensure he truly is dead. And he is until Jarvis and a friend open the casket for a Frankenstein resurrection moment to happen with Voorhees. And we’re off to the races again with a more powerful zombie Jason in predator mode- until he gets trapped at the bottom of the lake not once, but TWICE. The first time is when Jarvis sends him back to his watery grave from which he was formed in Part 6, and again with Tina’s telekinetic powers in Part 7. I mean, if it didn’t work the first time what made anyone think it would a second? Now, let’s get to where Jason takes a boat, I mean Manhattan, and the true and final ending to Voorhees.

I honestly don’t give a shit what anyone says. Jason Takes Manhattan is probably the most fun Friday movie given to us in the 80s’. It almost becomes such a parody of itself in the process of the film that you just can’t help but overlook the cop-out of him only spending about the last 20 minutes of the movie in New York; which at the time, had quite the reputation of being a dangerous place indeed full of crime and sketchy individuals. Jason fits right into the mold.

Jason’s final confrontation with main characters, Rennie and Sean, has them ending up in the city subway system, where it’s coincidentally revealed that a river of toxic waste is released every single night. In pursuit, Jason gets trapped inside the toxic waste, and reverts to a child-like state- and HE SPEAKS! This is blasphemy! Jason never uttered one word throughout the whole franchise, yet while his face is melting away and sees a river of more sewer waste pounding towards him, he cries for “mommy”. It’s actually sort of gut-wrenching and a stern reminder that Jason really just has the mind of a child. This is only validated further when Reenie sees Jason’s childhood self, at peace in death among the waters.

Ok, who’s cutting onions in here!

I truly feel as if this was the proper send-off to an otherwise tragic character. Not this Jason Goes To Hell garbage that made him a demon-body-hopper. I don’t know, maybe I’m too sentimental, but I believe an icon as important to the genre as this deserves a fitting ending if we’re going to give him one.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Friday the 13th Collection [Blu-ray]

Horror movies love to play on our real-life fears, because hey what’s the point then, am I right? Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns is a great example. Then there’s Gerontophobia, where you know as well as I do that the elderly can make Pennywise look like preschool nursery rhymes. But today, we’re gonna talk about good old-fashioned Trypanophobia, ya’ know the fear of needles, which seems to be more rampant among society now than in years prior and no one seems to know why. It’s estimated that a quarter of adults today have some sort of needle fear ranging from mild to extreme and the horror genre takes no prisoners in capitalizing on that phobia with viewers whether it’s intentional or not. As the saying goes, or at least I always throw it out there, “Horror is what you make of it,” and personally speaking here, I am goddamn terrified of medical needles so whenever I see a syringe being used as a weapon of death, much like how I view them now even though I realize it’s totally irrational, I cringe like a mother fucker.

The irony in all of this is that I’m a trained Phlebotomist and never had an issue with needles up until a few years ago- right around pandemic happenings. As someone with a bonified anxiety/panic disorder and also a person who loves to analyze everything to death, I concluded that all the fear, uncertainty, and various images of needles shown across the media board may have certainly contributed to it. Tattoo needles? No problem, and seeing as how my husband is a tattoo artist and we own our own shop, that would be a disastrous situation. However, you come at me with a medical syringe, I better be dying or you might just end up being crucified with those needles like this crooked-ass cop from Tales From The Hood who rightfully had this shit coming.

Anyway, the use of needles as an instrument of woe and murder in the horror genre is quite ironic as for the most part, this tool is used to save lives while in the horror world, they love to utilize it as a symbol of death. For people with needle phobias, these scenes can be both traumatizing and even more horrific than intended. Or for some, it can be a path of healing if they’re trying to conquer their fear. In any case, deaths by a syringe in horror films are some of the most terrifying and brutal unique kinds of deaths in horror history and I’m not just saying that because I myself, have a needle phobia, but because before I developed this fucked up fear, I would still agree with this statement. The art of the horror scare loves to exploit real-life fears and no one gets a pass.

One of the most obvious traumatizing examples of needles in horror is, of course, the needle pit in Saw II where ex-drug addict Amanda is thrashing about in a sea of hypodermic needles. No death here BUT this scene is just about as uncomfortable and painful to watch as it gets, with, or without a needle phobia. Even worse, is if you’re someone in recovery.

“SHUDDERS“

Speaking of hypodermic needles, arguably a more recognizable prick of death is that of Taryn’s in Dream Warriors where Freddy plunges not one, but eight syringes of lawd knows what into the recovering teen junkie. I don’t care who you are, if you didn’t cringe in the slightest upon seeing this, you might be a sociopath.

Then of course there’s Friday The 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan where Homes not only rapes Rennie of her virgin sobriety but also attempts the physical act. But not before Jason takes the druggie thug’s own needle and stabs his right through the chest before consummating the despicable act. Imagine being such a piece of shit you make Jason look like the good guy? That’s one needle death I gleefully enjoyed.

As cringy as those are, the ones seen in actual medical settings are the ones that make me squirm the most. Perhaps the biggest one for me that makes me want to literally get into a fetal position is Regan’s Arteriogram procedure in The Exorcist. This movie, with some that would consider containing some of the most fucked up scenes in horror history, doesn’t phase me a bit. As a matter of fact, I laugh every time Pazuzu Regan says vile and filthy things to the priests, much like Beetlejuice would.

But this, no thank you a million times.

As messed up as they all are, the very first needle death I ever saw was at the hand of Michael Myers taking down Candy Striper Alice and Dr. Mixter in Halloween II. Set in again, a hospital, this one is just all kinds of fucked up. Everytime I think of the use of needles in horror, Alice stumbling upon a dead Dr. Mixter in his chair with a syringe stuck in his eyeball while meeting the same fate as Myers plunges a squirt full of air into her skull is an image that stays tried and true inside my newly formed needle phobia brain.

The things I blog about because of my love for you nostalgic nuggets. Now that I’m stressed, you’ll have to excuse me as I go pop an Ativan for my anxiety.