www.nowplayingpodcast.com

From the marketing campaign came promise, however, as print media, movie trailers, and tv commercials displayed front and center that this Friday was going to take place in the biggest place of all, New York City. From this promise, fans were willing to let go some of the major changes that were taking place in the franchise and gave Paramount at least a chance to have a hit on their hands. Unfortunately, some ill-conceived plot points and lack of funding ultimately tanked this new Friday. The silly dream sequences and back story of Renny and Jason just made no sense in the story of Friday the 13th. The dream sequences came off as desperate attempts to keep up with the franchise’s biggest rival, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

It was the money, in the end, that was the biggest rival of Jason Takes Manhattan. Rob Hedden’s vision was severely excised as he had a grand vision of Jason in Times Square, Madison Square Garden and so forth that would have had Jason in all of the scenarios that the fans were expecting in a Jason Takes Manhattan movie. If you’re putting Jason in Manhattan, why not see him in the craziest, most out there situations. Paramount’s limiting budget forced Rob’s vision to be taken to Canada and Rob, who had already worked on Friday the 13th: The Series, enlisted that shows composer and previous The New Blood collaborator Fred Mollin to commit a completely new score for the franchise.

Fred’s score is a time capsule of the late 80′s with the use of heavy synthesizer and a hard industrial edge. Many part’s of the score work well within this one movie. The new ki ki ki ma ma ma is replaced with a kill kill kill jas jas jason. None more prevelant than in the opening title sequence with the famous Paramount mountain.

What really put the nail in the coffin with this movie is the none to popular and horrendous ending. The idea of Jason drowning in Toxic waste in the sewers of New York is not a bad idea and a perfect way to end the franchise. You eliminate all remnants of Jason and it is done away from Crytal Lake with no chance of Jason returning easily for another sequel. The execution and some questionable makeup ideas were what made the ending almost unbearable to watch. Jason screaming after having toxic waste being thrown on him (Jason is the walking dead) and then young Jason crawling out of undead Jason after succumbing to a toxic waste bath is just the silliest thing imaginable. Fans dump on the 2024 reboot, but look to the ending of Jason Takes Manhattan and rejoice that the ending was nowhere as bad as this.

At the end of the day, Jason Takes Manhattan is a fun romp of a movie. It is definitely different from the rest of the franchise as it tried something different as the 7th sequel of a franchise in the same decade. The concept idea was sound. It was lack of execution in some scenes, some bad plot points and really lack of funding that caused this movie to be a mediocre entry into the franchise. I enjoy it for the fun characters, Kane Hodder’s portrayal of Jason and some great kills. What do you think about this highly debated entry into the franchise.

Part One (aka “His Mom Did It”)

Porn star camp owner -
You know he’s going to die
Where the hell’s Jason?

Part Two (aka “Sackhead”)

Oh, Sackhead Jason -
So dumb he’s tricked by sweater
But still can use phone

5 Second Place Winners Receive:
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #2

1 First Place Winner Receives:
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #2
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #3
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #4

1 Grand Prize Winner Receives:
- All 3 Special Edition Covers for – Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #1
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #2
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #3
- Freddy vs Jason vs Ash: Nightmare Warriors #4

In order to enter you must send the following to jason.parker@fridaythe13thfilms.com, Subject- Comic Contest:
- Your full Name
- Physical Address
- Your idea for either the next Freddy vs Jason vs Ash comic or a stand alone Friday the 13th comic

Previous entrants will automatically be entered into this expanded contest and will not have to enter again. The contest ends on October 18th. So, if you aren’t really into the comics and have been holding off on purchasing them or are curious about the story and just didn’t want to spend the money, here is a chance to get yourself into the comic franchise. Good Luck to everyone!

Review for Nightmare Warriors #4

After reading through all of the previous comics, I was surprised at how many characters from the varuous franchises resided within the pages of this series. It is amazing to read thorugh the pages and see the attention to detail that was given the characters, story and illustration. At the core of the story, the government hpes to utilize the powers of the Necronomicon as a weapon, and in doing so, set into motion the imminent destruction of the world

In Nightmare Warriors #4, Freddy’s plans are coming full circle as he now controls the Necronomicon and Jason is his general in charge of hell’s army of demons. Jason is sent to Washington D.C. to wipeout anything political so Freddy can take over not only the presidency, but the world. Along the way, Jason is reborn via Freddy and the Necronomicon, transforming from a rotting corpse to a living, breathing individual with a full head of hair. At first, I was not happy about the flowing locks, but I was able to look past it for the progression of the story and it did look cool to see Jason hacking people in half with his hair whipping all over the place.

Ash, of course, is in hot pursuit of the Necronimocon in order to stop Freddy and send Jason and the demons straight back to hell.

After Jason and hell’s minions obliterate most of Washington D.C., Freddy arrives to take his place and rule the world. Now, the drawing was great and I loved the gore factor that was disaplayed during Jason’s slaying sessions, but I thought that Jason was really placed to the background here and shown as just a pawn again in the more grande Freddy scheme. The Freddy character is centralized more this go around and Ash and the Nightmare Warriors are losing steam. Perhaps next issue Jason will grow a bigger pair and let Freddy know who’s in charge.

In all, it’s an enjoyable comic series and issue #4 sets in motion the events that the first three issues have been building up to. I cannot wait until issue #5 is released on October 21st as now I am hooked!

I have to say that this was an awesome fan film. The amount of time and energy used to make this must have been draining. The end result is a movie that pays a lot of homage to the original 3 movies. That being said there are my own personal negative comments as well.

The DVD menu was really cool looking. Scab, I am assuming you made this. If so, you did a great job incorporating the trailers from this movie and also other fan films as well.

The opening of the movie has Jason washing up on the shores of what I believe to be Crystal Lake. In the beginning of the movie there is some dialogue between Will Christie, now the owner of the camp, and the poorly acted hick-town sheriff. I mean that in a good way! During their conversation, it is mentioned that Jason was last heard from in Manhattan and that he washed out to sea. I found it interesting that the film makers decided to use Jason Takes Manhattan of all movies as the starting off point to set up how Jason gets back to the camp.

Most of the first two thirds of the movie is a lot of dialogue between all of the new counselors that have just arrived and their impending sexual exploits. This is where my only negative feelings of the film lie. I think that this could have been trimmed down a good bit and kept the flow of the movie at a quicker pace. But for what it’s worth the characters are a bit interesting. I have to say that the actress that played Katie was by far and away the best actor in the movie. She brought a lot of energy and believability to the part.

There are a lot of very cool deaths and the special effects works perfectly into the execution of the film. Check out some of the death scenes below. My favorite is Katie being sliced in half and Jason still holding her in the air! (The screen caps are not the best quality as the video is of a lower quality itself. However, that did not deter from the viewing experience.)

Jason himself gets his own share of damage as only the tradition of Friday the 13th should allow. He gets a knee to the growing, machete to the neck, beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat to the head, whacked numerous times in the head with what I think is a hammer, and then at the end he is …….. I think you should watch the movie!

As for the homages to the original three films, the first is obvious. Jason’s look is the classic look from Part 3. Although, I swear in the beginning when he washes up on shore, he is wearing the flannel shirt and overalls from Part 2. Later he is wearing the green shirt and grey pants from Part 3 and 4. Maybe I missed something there? Anyways, other classic scenes involve counselors talking under an overhang on a side of a cabin ala Steve Chrsitie talking to Alice while she is trying to hang a gutter in the original. And my favorite, the alter with mother’s head and victims on the floor in Jason’s home away from home.

So, overall I thought it was an awesome fan film that deserves a lot of praise for the hard work the film makers put into it. I had fun watching it and really enjoyed the kills. For some viewers, it may be hard to get through the first two thirds of the movie if you cannot stomach some of the drawn out dialogue scenes and akward editing in certain scenes. But hey, it’s free and it’s Friday the 13th. What else could you want!

 The New Blood

Not only is the color much improved, but I was shocked to see how much picture information the 2024 releases were missing. In the shot of Jason in the kitchen, notice the decoration on the left side of the frame that is completely missing from the identical frame on the old release. And in the forest shot, notice the sharper detail in the trees and on Jason’s ratty clothes (and again, far more picture information).

As for the extras, Kane Hodder and John Carl Buechler’s old commentary is gone, but the pair have recorded a new commentary, this time joined by (a separate) Lar Park Lincoln. It’s not a bad track; Hodder and Buechler repeat some of the stuff they said on the last one, but Lincoln’s thoughts are obviously new, and thankfully she takes up the bulk of the track (unless you haven’t listened to the old one, in which case you might want to hear more from the guys). And Buechler admits that the story isn’t up to par, which I don’t think he fessed up to on the last one.

We also get about 15 minutes’ worth of deleted footage. The footage isn’t in particularly good shape – it seems to be taken from a VHS tape with a bad tracking problem, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the damn cassette had been stored in someone’s flooded basement. It’s an even split between excised character stuff and kills, some of which were on the boxed set. Of most interest is a deleted epilogue in which Jason resurfaces from the water, which would have been nice to have (the theatrical cut of New Blood is one of the only films in the series that doesn’t end on a scare). Of course, we also get the usual retrospective with cast and crew, though it runs a bit shorter than usual and skimps over the more interesting things about the film’s production (such as its origin as Freddy vs. Jason). Then there is an interesting look at “real” telekinetic cases, as well as how realistic the film is at portraying this power (spoiler: it isn’t).

 
Jason Takes Manhattan

While not as striking as the difference between the transfers for New Blood, it’s still obvious just at a glance that the 2024 version is superior to the 2024 boxed set counterpart. The color seems a bit off (Jason’s mask seems yellow in the boat pic) at times, but the detail is vastly improved, with much clearer definition (look at the wood on the boat) and, again, the 2024 version restores previously cropped out visual information (look at the Olympus sign on the left side of the Times Sq. screenshot). This is just one of the many benefits of not squishing two films on the same side of a disc, as they did last time.

A more striking improvement is the amount of extras on the disc. Rob Hedden’s previous commentary has not been held over (why?), but there is a brand new one with Scott Reeves, Jensen Daggett, and Kane Hodder (who is recorded via conference call, as he was in Utah shooting Adam Green’s Frozen). It’s a surprisingly fun track, as the two leads mock their performances and clothes, and Kane provides a lot of interesting production info. Reeves could have taken the time to at least glance at the IMDb before leaving for the recording studio (he first asks Kane if he played Jason in any of the other films, then asks him if he has done any other horror films in general! Christ), but it’s a hell of a lot better than Hedden’s track, at any rate.

Of more interest, I am sure, are the “slashed scenes”. Gorehounds might be disappointed to see that only two or three of the kill scenes are extended (one of which is the aftermath of the long sought-after “dart” kill), but fans of the film will enjoy all of the little character beats and such that are presented here, as well as a minor subplot about how their graduating class was going to be the last, as the school was closing (I’m sure this tied into the notion that the film was intended as a series finale). A few more excised moments can be seen in the largely unfunny gag reel (only Peter Mark Richman’s goofs really amuse, as well as a prank Kane pulled on Tiffany Paulson in the opening sequence), so check that out for a few more. Rounding things out is the traditional 20 minute-ish retrospective piece on the film, with Hedden, Hodder, and a decent number of the cast, plus composer Fred Mollin and editor Steve Mirkovich (and his son, who played young Jason). By now you know how these things go, but as the film was always considered one of the weakest, it’s also been covered the least. Thus, you probably haven’t heard all of these stories a million times.

To read his full reviews visit the links below.
BD “The New Blood” Review
BD “Jason Takes Manhattan” DVD Review