Friday the 13th Part 8 may be subtitled Jason Takes Manhattan, but iconic slasher Jason Voorhees spends precious little time in New York City. For most of his cinematic existence, Jason has killed victims either at Camp Crystal Lake, or its surrounding environs. As the Friday the 13th series stretched on and on, it's not hard to figure out why producers might think a change of scenery was in order. Thus, the decision was made to send Jason to the bright lights of the city that never sleeps, a place one assumes Freddy Krueger isn't a fan of.
The marketing campaign for Jason Takes Manhattan was pretty genius, featuring Jason slashing through the iconic I Love New York Poster, and a teaser trailer with Jason staring up at the New York City skyline while an instrumental version of "New York, New York" plays. Fans back in 1989 got pretty hyped up at the idea of Jason's killing spree taking place in such a radically different setting, but unfortunately, the marketing was misleading.
Despite the Jason Takes Manhattan subtitle, fans - both at the time and in successive generations - sadly came to discover that only the sequel's final act takes place in New York City. The other two thirds of the film are set on a cruise ship carrying Crystal Lake high school grads. Here's what led to that disappointing circumstance.
Why Jason Takes Manhattan Spends So Little Time in New York City
Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan was both written and directed by Rob Hedden, who had worked on several episodes of the unrelated but affiliated Friday the 13th TV series. His performance there earned him the gig on a Jason movie, and it was Hedden's idea to send Jason to Manhattan. In fact, Hedden's original script for the film spent much more time in New York City, and featured scenes in world famous locations like Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State Building.
The problem is that after Hedden turned in his script, Paramount executives insisted that it would be cost prohibitive to do that much filming in New York City. This is why so many of the scenes ostensibly set in NYC just look like generic city locations, as they were in fact shot in Vancouver, Canada. While the Times Square scenes and certain others were clearly shot in New York for real, other sequences were quite obviously not filmed there, as anyone who's ever spent much time in the city would readily recognize. For what it's worth, Hedden very much agrees with fans that Jason Takes Manhattan should've spent more time in New York City, but he had to work within the constraints set by the studio. One wonders if simply calling the film Jason Takes a Vacation or Jason Takes a Cruise would've led to less backlash.