Many Days of Friday the 13th - Part VIII and Jason Takes Manhattan

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Okay, so when we last left off, (which was sadly over four months ago), I talked about Part VI: Jason Lives, which was one of the better installments in the series.  I also talked about Part VII: The New Blood, which was one of the worst in the series.  Well, my friends, things are about to get even worse than Part VII.  We're now up to the film that got Paramount so ashamed they sold the franchise.  The one that everyone makes fun of.  The one has about 1 1/2 minutes of footage actually shot in Manhattan even though Manhattan is in the friggin' title.  That's right.  It's pretty universally considered the worst in the series.  It's Jason Takes Manhattan.  I mean, can you even take it semi-seriously with a title like that?  It's almost as bad as Leprechaun In Space.  But at least no one could ever take Leprechaun even remotely serious.  I'll give it this though, the trailer was... interesting.

Isn't it kind of funny that the crime situation in New York City was so bad in 1989 that the movie's slogan was "Now New York has a new problem!"?  Seriously though, what difference was one more murderer going to make?  Let's get to the story.  The movie starts on Crystal Lake (where else?) as Jason is again revived (This time by an underwater electric line that hits his body.  Yeah, I don't get it either.).  Well, the day after he's revived, some graduating teens from the local high school are taking a trip from Crystal Lake to New York City on the SS Lazarus (get it?).  How the lake that through all the other films seems to be self-contained all of a sudden ends up leading to the Atlantic Ocean is never explained and is just one of the many inconsistencies in the film.  As the ship heads to New York, Jason slowly kills of the drug-addicted cast that are dressed like they're from Saved By The Bell.  I almost expected the main guy in the picture to start talking to the camera and get Jason involved in a get-rich-quick scheme.  Now, of course, about 3/4 of the way through the film, those living start to discover dead bodies and abandon ship.  Strangely enough, they were right outside of New York City when they did that, though no one saw the lights.  They get to New York City and Jason follows.  Chaos ensues.  Doesn't sound too bad right?  I mean, not what you were hoping for with the title, but no worse than the other films, right?

Well, here's why this film is a chore to watch.  Despite the bad acting, flimsy plot, and the fact that it doesn't take place in Crystal Lake so it feels different, it's also got many other problems.  The acting is VERY bad.  I mean afternoon special bad.  It does have two good actors in it.  Kane Hodder is an okay Jason.  He's a lot of peoples favorite one.  Not mine, but he's okay.  He does good stunt work here.  Then there's Peter Mark Richman, who is one of the last people you'd expect to see in a slasher film.  He was mainly known for his TV work as a main character on Dynasty and the one I know him for, his recurring role as Chrissy Snow's (Suzanne Sommers) father, who was a priest, on Three's Company.  Here he plays a tyrannical teacher chaperoning the kids on the trip.  He brings along his niece, who he is the guardian of, and who he's very overprotective of.  Besides those two actors, the work here is shoddy at best.  Still, we expect that in these films, right?  

   Well, there's also the fact that this is pretty much a bloodless film.  Remember how the MPAA caused so many cuts on Part VII: The New Blood that it was pretty much bloodless and you didn't see a lot of the kills?  Well, the same thing applies here.  I think there were two deaths here that had some blood in them.  There's one involving a harpoon gun and one involving a girl being smashed in the face by a Flying V guitar.  (which we see from her point of view, so it's not gory or anything). Seriously, even when Jason cuts a guy's throat, it doesn't bleed.  Paramount and the director, Ron Hedden, knew the MPAA were going to force a lot of cuts, so they didn't film much bloody stuff.  And sadly only about 4 of the deaths in the film are really memorable.  There's the Flying V I mentioned above, a guy being drowned in a barrel of toxic waste, and two great ones.  There's a scene where Jason  allows himself to be punched 60something times by the token black dude, and then when the guy is tired out, literally punches the guy's head off.  Not joking.

   I'm sure it got a lot of applause or hollers from the audience.  Sadly, it was hokey back then, and it's hokey now.  Not even any blood, and very much a plastic head.  Still, kudos for originality I guess.  Then there's my favorite death in the film.  It's pretty painful looking and the guy didn't even see it coming.  Jason puts a hot sauna rock through a guy's chest.

Oh, and have you noticed how horrible the music is?  Once Harry Manfredini stopped doing the scores after Part VI, the music never was as good.  And it's darned awful here.  So we have bad music, bloodless deaths, bad acting...  Seriously, what's left to watch?  Well, there's a tiny bit of side and rear female nudity, so there's that I suppose.  (If you like girls with big 80s hair.  It's not my thing.)  There's a lot of drug use in this one too.  Cocaine, heroin...  Not the small time weed that was in some of the earlier films.  In fact, our heroine forcefully gets shot up by some New York junkies with heroin.  (And then the rest of the crew lets her drive, oddly enough.)  So basically you watch the film for two nude scenes of girls that aren't really that attractive and to watch people shoot up.  

   Well, what about New York?  That has to be cool right?  Well yeah, the one and a half minute they actually shot in New York (Times Square to be exact) is okay.  And Jason doesn't kill anyone in that scene either.  He just kicks a boombox and shows his face to some punks.  Most of the film was shot on sets to look like a boat interior.  The New York scenes besides the one mentioned before were shot in Vancouver, Canada.  Now, Vancouver looks nothing like New York.  It looks about as much like NYC as LA looked like The Bronx in Rumble in The Bronx.  (Remember the desert-looking mountains in the background in that one?)  Now they got the feel of 1980s New York right in some ways though.  The place was nasty and a hellhole.  But I don't believe the sewers and alleyways had barrels or millions of gallons of toxic waste in them as the film concludes.  (That's how Jason's killed here.  Toxic waste... And he reverts back to his child form in death, apparently, which even the director doesn't understand anymore.)  

   The film got the worst critical reviews in the series (never that great to begin with) at the time.  It also got the lowest box office returns for the series at that time.  (Releasing the film in late July probably wasn't a good idea, either, as 1989 was a huge year for summer blockbusters.  It opened the same week as Turner & Hooch, the week after UHF, and the week before Parenthood in the same summer as Last Crucade, Batman, Star Trek V, Ghostbusters II, Lethal Weapon II, The Abyss, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Licence to Kill, When Harry Met Sally, etc.  Huge summer.)  Paramount decided that it was time to stop the Friday films and sold the franchise rights to New Line, who already had the, now more popular than Jason, Nightmare on Elm Street films.  (Those would quickly go away too, soon.)  And it would be another four years before Jason came back to the big screen... sort of.

Jason Goes to Hell:  The Final Friday (1993)

   So, this film splits fans of the series.  It's so different from any film in the series.  Jason isn't actually physically in this one other than for a few minutes.  For the second time in a row the film isn't set at Camp Crystal Lake either.  It's got a lower IMDB score than even Jason Takes Manhattan does.  In a way, it's the Halloween VI: Curse of Michael Myers of the series.  It brings in this whole new mythology that a lot of fans absolutely hate.  There's this new idea that Jason is a supernatural force that can take over peoples bodies if they eat his heart, and the heart basically compels them to do so.  Sounds kind of stupid, and I guess it is, but I unlike the bulk of diehard Friday fans, I actually really like this film.  It's got pretty good production values, it's genuinely funny in parts but takes itself seriously, the acting is a lot better, and I like that they moved the film in a different direction.  

   The film was supposed to be the last film, yet again...  They should know by now that doesn't work.  Although I guess this was a different production company so maybe they didn't know.  (They had just killed off Freddy as well in Freddy's Dead.)  They even brought back Sean Cunningham (creator of the franchise and director of the first film) back as director.  You may also notice that Friday the 13th isn't in the title of this film.  Paramount kept the rights to the title.  New Line had brought the rights to Jason Vorhees.  That's why until the 2009 remake, Friday the 13th was not used.  And Sean Cunningham hated the hockey mask brought in during Friday Part III.  He was not a huge fan of the sequels and wanted something different.  Remember, the first film wasn't about Jason at all.  He didn't do the killings.  The story here has Jason being killed in the first five minutes.  He's literally exploded apart.  But his heart is eaten in a moment of weakness by the coroner and the coroner possessed by Jason and now Jason has to find a new-born relative to get into, as it's a rule that he can only be reborn that way.  The bodies he gets regurgitated into (literally) tend to decay and get shot up, etc as he tries to get to his niece's daughter to possess it.  (Yeah, this means Jason had a sister that was never mentioned until now.  Go figure!)    Pretty crazy, pretty out there.  But at this point, if you're looking for a clear plot that makes sense out of this series, you're out of your mind.

     Now, this movie was released in theaters with a lot cut to be an R rating.  However, most copies available from the day it came out on VHS and laserdisc back in 1993/1994 have the unrated cut.  And this is the only version I've seen.  They went into the film knowing a unrated version would be released, so they filmed all the gore they wanted.  And boy in this one you get it too.  It's the goriest film up to this point in the series.  It's quite violent.  It's great fun.  Broken bones coming through the skin, a guy's head shoved in a fry vat, people coughing up blood when they die, lots of nice gooey brainsplattering, and probably the most graphic sex scene outside of porn ending in one of the most graphic deaths in the series.  And look what happens to the people that Jason possesses after he leaves their bodies....

    Think of it as Hellraiser as a Jason film.    And it's over the top too.  There's this redneck family that owns the town diner in the film.  The mother is a loudmouth bad-tempered cursing-every-word chunky woman, and hilarious.  The father is a really short guy who is controlled by his wife.  The son is actually quite sweet-natured and a perfect mix of the other two.  They all of course die, and it's amusing seeing it happen.  During the premier of the film, the woman's death got a loud cheer from the audience partially for the way she died (she gets her jaw bashed in) and the message it sent that she finally shut up.  Also, it seems everyone in this film has a gun.  There's a ginormous amount of shooting in this film.  I guess squibs were inexpensive, so that was the way to go since there were also so many creature effects (Jason transfers as a creature between peoples mouths) and some early digital effects. 

   One of the best aspects of the film is the fact that Steven Williams is a main character in it.  He was the black cop in The Blues Brothers, he was Mr. X in The X-Files, he was Captain Fuller in the TV show 21 Jump Street.  He was Rufus in Supernatural, and he's always amusing.  This film is no exception.  Besides Jason, he makes this movie.  He's funny, he's cool, he breaks the hero's fingers just for fun... (And he's also a good guy, surprisingly.)  He plays a guy that's been hunting Jason for many years (though where he was when Jason was continuously in Crystal Lake, who knows...) and is here to finish him off.  The movie also has Erin Gray, who's known for playing Colonel Deering in Buck Rogers in the early 1980s.  One shot of the Jason-worm entering her body through her vagina after she dies in the film was shot after her shooting days were over and no one told her about it.  She found out seeing the film in theaters and thought it was distasteful and found it violating.  I kind of have to agree with her.  They should have asked first.  It's kind of like the tree rape scene in The Evil Dead.  (which Sam Raimi regrets)  

   Now, the film made more money than Part VIII did.  It made back five times its budget.  With four years since the last film, people weren't as burnt out on the franchise.  The MPAA was back to allowing more gore in films.  (They were more focused on nudity and drug use now, and there's no drug use in the film really.)  There were also very few horror films coming out at the time.  The slasher film effectively died back in the late 80s.  This isn't a slasher film, but more of a creature feature.  There's little stabbing here.  There's a lot of other types of death though, and I like that aspect of the film.  In fact, there's very little to this film that I don't like.  It's one of my favorites in the series because unlike VII and VIII, it's not a chore to watch.  It's great fun, which is what the first six films were.  And the fun quota won't go away with the next installment, another one hated by a lot of Friday fans.  It's not the film everyone wanted that came next.  Everyone wanted what was teased at the end of this film.

They wouldn't get that film for another 10 years due to rights issues.  What they got was another 9 years of no more Jason films and a whole lot of unfounded rumors and development hell.  Stay tuned...

The Genius of Walt Disney part 3

The Genius of Walt Disney - part 3

      So we've gotten through Disney's death now.  His death was mourned throughout the world, his movies and TV shows being popular all over the civilized world.  And no one really saw it coming.  Imagine working at the Disney animation studios or developing stuff for Disneyland or the new Florida project, and all of a sudden the guy you took orders from, the guy that gave the go-ahead, the guy who's name was attached all of this... was suddenly gone.  Jungle Book wasn't finished yet.  Groundwork had not yet begun on the Florida project.  Heck, even the primarily finished new attraction at Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't ready to open yet!  Thankfully, Walt worked on a far in the horizon fashion.  In other words, he planned things years in advance.  This meant that Disney could keep working on ideas that Walt had had for another ten years or so.  With this plan, the Disney company would develop things for the two theme parks that Walt had talked about wanting to do for the next many years.  Things like Space Mountain, which opened in Disney World first in 1975, and later in Disneyland in 1977, were planned by Walt in the early 60s, but put off due to new ideas or being too busy.  Same with the Haunted Mansion, which ended up opening in 1969 in Disneyland, 1971 in Disney World.  (The Disneyland facade was actually finished in 1963, 3 years before Walt died, and 6 before the attraction opened!)  It wasn't only Disney's death that postponed these attractions though.  For two years, 1964-1965, Walt had been heavily involved in the 1964 New York World's Fair.  It was here that he and his Imagineers perfected "audio animatronics".  It's A Small World was originally built for the New York World's Fair.  (The original is now housed at Disneyland.)  The Carousel of Progress debuted here and was then moved to Disneyland, and is now at Walt Disney World.  Also the animatronic show Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln debuted, and is still at Disneyland.  (It was basically an animatronic Lincoln doing a speech, and even standing up from a sitting position!)  

     The same considerations were made in regards to film-making.  When Disney had problems with P. L. Travers allowing him to make Mary Poppins, he bought the rights to the lesser known Bed-Knob and Broomstick, which was written by Mary Norton, author of The Borrowers book series.  Well, Mary Poppins happened, and did very well despite P. L. Travers hating it.  After Walt died, the same production crew and one of the main actors from that film got back together to have another go at a magical musical with animated parts to it.  The film did okay, but it's never been considered on the same level as Mary Poppins by most.  (I truly love Bedknobs and Broomsticks.)  The Aristocats, which premiered in 1971, was the last animated film to be approved to be made by Disney himself.  It's not held in such high regard today, and I think that's due to the animation on it.  They tried a new style that was just so garish and ugly...  The film's plotline is okay, even if it is just Lady and the Tramp meets The Jungle Book.  Sadly, Disney's animated films would go downhill from The Jungle Book and wouldn't get their stature back until 1989's The Little Mermaid, though if you ask me, The Rescuers (1977) is one of the best animated films they ever did.  That's right folks, Robin Hood (1973), Oliver & Co. (1988), The Fox and The Hound (1981),  and The Great Mouse Detective (1986) are not considered classics by critics.  Heck, 1985's The Black Cauldron was even disavowed by the company itself from 1985 until 2000!  It took that long for it to be even put on video or even discussed by anyone at Disney, as they considered it their worst mistake.  (It's not that bad, just their first PG rated cartoon.)  In fact, the Disney animation studios almost closed in the 1980s.  They weren't making much money anymore and were doing better with live action films, which were cheaper.  The theme parks were the big money makers during the 1980s, especially with the opening of Tokyo Disneyland in 1983 and EPCOT in Florida in 1982.  The theme park division brought in 70% of the company's profits at that time.  It didn't help the animation department when, in 1979, Don Bluth, one of their big animators, took half the staff with him to form another studio; a studio that would compete with Disney (and win) for much of the 1980s.  Disney almost died in the 1980s.  It's hard to think of, but they did.  If Michael Eisner hadn't have come in in 1984 and busted heads trying to get people to stop thinking "What would Walt have done?", Disney most likely wouldn't be a film company anymore.

    I guess the main thing to think about here is what would Walt think of today's Disney Company?  Well, I think there are things he'd love, and things he'd hate.  This brings me to Walt's shortcomings.  Let's face it.  Walt Disney, despite being a great innovator and seeing the inherent goodness in humanity, was a very socially conservative guy.  Men with long hair or beards couldn't get into Disneyland until the late 60s after Disney himself had died.  And oddly enough, once the ban was relaxed, the "Yippie Invasion of October 6" happened.  Basically a bunch of miscreants decided to go claim Tom Sawyer's Island in Frontierland as their own country and have a smoke-in.  Everyone knew they were coming though, and Disneyland had thousands of police ready if things got out of hand... which they did.   Here's a good article if you'd like to know more.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-hill/yippies-disneyland_b_919271.html

   Anywho, yes, Disney thought Disneyland was for a traditional Norman Rockwell family crowd.  Even the workers at Disneyland back then could have no facial hair and men had to have short hair.  (It was only a few years ago when they began to allow workers to have neatly trimmed mustaches.)  Walt was also big on anti-communism as I stated in the last installment, naming people he had grudges with to get them out of the business.  He was involved in the right wing MPAPAI, which was antisemitic as well.  (Most agree that Disney only found this out later, and that's when he left the group.)   Two early cartoons, the 3 Little Pigs and The Opry House include characters dressing and acting as Jewish pedlars and Hasidic Jews.  Mickey Mouse did blackface in one of his early cartoons as well.  Still, while these are racially insensitive, they were normal back in the 1930s.  Ever seen the natives in King Kong?  Ever seen 1927's The Jazz Singer?!   The hero of the story makes his living doing shows in blackface, and it was one of the most successful movies ever! 

     Okay, so maybe that wasn't one kids would see...  Okay, let's compare Disney's animated output with the ever popular Warner Bros. cartoons.  The worst Disney got?  A few blackface caricatures and mild Jewish jokes.  That's not great, but America was heavily anti-semitic before and even during WWII.  Let me show you some of the stuff Warner Bros (who no one really boycotts, unlike Disney) got into.  How about All This And Rabbit Stew from 1941?  If this isn't overbearingly racist, then what is?  And unlike Disney, which holds or redoes its mess-ups from those bygone days, WB let this fall in the public domain, which means back in the early days of video cassettes, you could get this cartoon and other embarrassing things on cheapo cartoon collections.

    Disney did have some bad relationships with some Jewish people, it's true.  However, even people like Art Babbitt who was fired by Disney during the Animators' Strike, sued Disney and won, and was forcefully rehired then quite, didn't consider Disney a racist.  There are some out there who will take a person's minority status and give that as a reason someone is disliked.  However, that's not always the case.  Some say Disney hated blacks.  There's no evidence of that.  He did use the "n word" on some occasions back in the 30s and 40s, this is true.  However, sadly, that word was widespread back then, especially among people that came from places in the south (Disney lived in Asheville, NC for a while) and the rural midwest (he lived in rural Missouri too.).  In fact, Disney campaigned very hard to get the man who played Uncle Remus in Song of the South, James Baskett, a Honorary Academy Award.  This is the movie the Disney Company refuses to release in America due to threats from the NAACP to publicize the fact that the movie is about happy slaves.  (The film is set, as is the book actually after the Civil War, but few people have seen the film or actually read the Uncle Remus stories to know that, but just want publicity.)  

    The thing about Walt that saddens me the most though is how he treated his young actors.  Bobby Driscoll (that's his picture just above) is the saddest one.  He played the main kid in Song of the South, So Dear To My Heart, and Treasure Island.  He also did the voice of Peter Pan.  His likeness was used as the visage of Peter Pan.  Sadly, after that film, Disney dumped him.  He'd gotten acne and Disney thought he looked more like an actor to play the part of a bully now.  Other studios wouldn't give him a chance as he was seen as "Disney's kid" and not a serious actor.  His parents were forced to remove him from a school just for actors and put him in public school where he was teased for being in Disney films.  His grades plummeted and he started using drugs, mostly heroin, which he could afford from back in his Disney days.  He got a few TV appearances, but that was all.  He moved to New York in the 1960s, still on drugs, and started to do artwork with Andy Warhol.  He disappeared in New York, and almost a year later, his mother contacted Disney to help find him.  Well, two young boys had found his dead body about 9 months ago.  No one knew who the body was until fingerprint matches were found by the NYPD.  The public didn't learn about his death until 1971 and Driscoll's body is still in a pauper's grave on Hart Island.  Then there's Tommy Kirk.  He played the older brother in Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, etc.  Another one of Disney's favorite child stars.  Thankfully, he still lives to tell his tale.  And Disney may have had good cause to fire him when he did.  See, Tommy Kirk is gay.  That in and of itself in the 1960s was enough to get you fired on the spot.  However, this relationship he started when he was 23 was with a 15 year old.  And the mother found out and told Disney himself.  I can see how that could get one fired even today.  Back then the age difference wasn't a big deal like it is today, so it was probably just the gay thing and Disney wanting to keep the wholesome image of his company.  And to a Disney apologetic, he did keep it private.  He gave him one more movie part too, as The Misadventures of Merlin Jones was a huge hit.  And Tommy Kirk found success at American International Pictures doing beach party movies with Annette Funicello.  Around 1964, he too began using drugs.  So much so he doesn't really remember much of the 1960s.  And to be truthful, Kirk blames mainly himself for his career downfall.  "I don't blame anybody but myself and my drug abuse for my career going haywire. I'm not ashamed of being gay, never have been, and never will be. For that I make no apologies. I have no animosity toward anybody because the truth is, I wrecked my own career."

    So is Disney a bad guy?  No.  Not in the least.  I think he had some racially insensitive humor at times, as do I and many other people.  He treated child actors like all studios do.  Like cattle.  And it's a shame.  He had some dubious connections at times, but got out of them fairly quickly.  No, I think he's disliked by some these days just for being successful, for the path his company has taken since his death (all the litigation and stuff), etc.  No, in my opinion, Disney was one of the many great personalities we lost during the 1960s.   I think he'd love today's Pixar films...  They embody all that he strived for in his early animated films with great characters and storylines that the whole family can enjoy.  As an innovator, he'd have loved computer animation as well.  I'm not sure he'd like the modern day Disney Channel.  (Who does?)  I'm also sure he'd hate that Disney owns Marvel comics, as he probably would have thought them too violent and mean-spirited.  And besides, he didn't create them.  I'm sure he was rolling in his grave when Disney released the horrible animated films they did from 1997-2006 too.  We'll never know, I guess.