Director: Rob Hedden
Year: 1989
Country: US/Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Taking a class field-trip to New York, a group of students find their trip crashed by Jason Voorhees who chases them through the ship and eventually forces them to escape the boat and seek shelter in Manhattan from the deranged killer.
Review:
While there are some problems here with this one, it's still a reasonably enjoyable entry. One of the biggest pluses here is that there's plenty of fun slasher moments throughout here which gives this one some absolutely fun scenes here. The repeated nature of the kills here gives this one an incredibly frantic pace here that this one basically runs so constantly that there's plenty of action here, from the opening assault on the couples' boat and the stalking through the ship here that piles up a lot of great kills here spread all throughout the ship in getting in plenty of fun here in the finale where there's the rather fun encounters within the city here which gives this some really fun moments here where this one fully delivers as a slasher film. The chases in the ship here are truly a lot of fun as the frequent confrontations along the way provide the kind of enjoyable kills here in requiring this one with plenty of exciting action down in the boiler room, throughout the cabins and different start rooms and then finally out on to the deck of the ship here as the survivors attempt to flee the damaged, sinking ship with plenty of fun deaths in these confrontations.
Even more impressive here is the scenes of them being chased through the city which are incredibly fun as well as the early chases through the dockyard with the junkies, into a crowded diner and through the subway are just some of the fun here that takes place within here. There's even more fun with the chases through the streets in the police car, the absolutely brilliant boxing match taking place on-top of the building where it ends on one of the series' best kills and finishes up down in the sewers for some tense stalking in this section which makes for an overall fun time. This section of the film is quite fun, fast-moving and really adds a cheesy charm to the film with the wholesale ability to follow-up the knowledge of Jason's appearance on the boat taking place in the streets. It even adds in some fine comedy in this section alongside the few suspenseful elements featured in the scene which adds to the overall fun of the segment. Along with the great Jason look here, these make this quite enjoyable to hold off the few flaws here.
The biggest issue here is the film's really tame and near-bloodless kills here that are about as far removed from what should've been seen here as this one cuts out nearly everything to the point of barely containing anything. There really should've been some more to this one's kills where they've really become edited-down badly. Another minor issue is the rather weird inclusion here of the mini-Jason tormenting her whenever she's near water which isn't really that integral to the story since it doesn't give her anything to use against Jason or give him motivation to track her down, as instead it's more of a plot-thread about her guardian so this makes no sense other than stretching out the running time. The only other problematic part here is the single lamest kill here in the whole series of a single strangulation where it could've gone through several other attempts instead of what actually happened.
Likewise, some of the acting is incredibly troubling. Jensen Daggett is a horrid final girl as Rennie Wickham, who resorts to absolutely nothing during her time here. Rather than fighting off Jason at all, she stays off to the sidelines and never gets into any kind of confrontation so that's a real disappointment, and her real goody-goody status leaves her with a dull, laughable final girl performance. Even worse is Scott Reeves as Sean Robertson who is quite a bland presence here. Being unwilling to follow in his fathers' footsteps is all we get of him in here, and actually being smaller than his girlfriend means he as well never gets involved in brawling with Jason so he remains quite a disappointing main couple. Peter Mark Richman does the best as Charles McCulloch the principal as his swarmy, stuffed-shirt type of personality in the ship which is nicely realized as we don't really care for him due to this. A nice additional piece given to us for his backstory seals the deal, and he comes off the best. The rest of the cast, outside of Hodder as Jason once again, is quite disappointing and somewhat dull overall. These here are the film's only real flaws.
Overview: ***/5
There are some major flaws here that hold this one back, but it does have a few other positives which do have some manner of lifting it up somewhat here. It's still one of the weaker franchise entries so it's mainly only for those who enjoy the remaining entries in the franchise or the most undiscriminating slasher fanatic, while those who have had problems with the franchise beforehand should heed caution here.
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