My intention was to set up the ending throughout the movie. That was the inspiration for Rennie's visions of the young Jason—tapping back into the first Friday the 13th, and the myth that Jason had drowned as a young boy and has come back to haunt and kill everybody. Rather than have a movie where people just die and there's no plot, it would all be explained in the flashback scene where Rennie is receiving a swimming lesson from her uncle. He's a mean guy and shoves her overboard to teach her to swim. And they are both aware of this whole myth of Jason still being down there. Plus, Rennie has a fear of the water. She literally was dragged down by Jason—it's freaked her out ever since, and now he's come back. She's having visions of him again on the ship. And it trails her all the way to the end of the movie.
Ultimately, the ending remains a controversial one. I don't know if I succeeded or failed. I'm not going to sit here and defend it and say, "My ending was total brilliance." It wasn't a simple ending. It had a little bit of thought put into it, for better or worse. But I was trying to do something different, something that would make people stop and think for a second. Yes, I took liberties with the backstory, obviously, but then so did everybody else who made these movies.
Gallery: Jason goes for a ride.
PETER MARK RICHMAN:
That flashback scene with the young Rennie, where I push her into the water—I thought that scene had nice potential. I just am not sure that I was so terrific in it when I see it. It was shot in a tank, and I think the conditions were a problem because the kid was in the water, and I was harried because of that reason. I don't think I pulled it off properly.
ROB HEDDEN:
I had seen Peter in like five million things, so I knew who he was and what he could do. And when I met him, I said, "Oh, you'll bring so much to this movie! You're great." And he was so good in the movie—you really hate him. He's such an ass. When he shoves that little girl out of the boat, you just want to kill him right there. What a jerk! That's what Peter brought to the movie.
I also don't think the McCullough character took anything away from Jason. I think Jason is still a legend, I think Jason still kills with no remorse. McCullough didn't kill anybody. He was just a bad guy. And if nothing but good kids get killed, it can start to turn the audience off. There's nothing like that satisfaction that comes with seeing somebody get their comeuppance.
DAVID FISCHER:
We shot the climax in a set of tunnels that run from Vancouver's main post office to the railway station about a kilometer-and-a-half away. Oddly enough, they were built to take the mail from the train station to the post office, and vice versa. But the moment the tunnel was completed, airmail became popular, so they really only use it for movies these days.
The flood of toxic waste required a special set be built in the gymnasium of a local abandoned junior high school. We needed special dump tanks. Each one could hold about 5,000 gallons of water, and with a flick of a switch could dump all 5,000 gallons at once. To this day, I'm still trying to figure out where all that water went…
RANDOLPH CHEVELDAVE:
There were really were no studios in Vancouver, so you had to find something that would work for you. As it turned out, this school was scheduled for demolition and it had two big gymnasiums. When I approached the school board about renting the school as a production facility, the first words out of one of the representative's mouth to me was, "Well, so long as you're not doing something like a Friday the 13th." I just laughed and went, "Well, as a matter of fact, I am." So he had to go back to his superiors and sell it to them. But you know, hey, as Jesus said about taxing the prostitutes, "It smells not." So they took the money. And the school ended up allowing us two big studios and office space for a mile, and even an excellent special effects shop in the school's old metalworking shop. All the sets we built there, other than the mock-up of the exterior of the ship, that was built in a tank.
JENSEN DAGGETT:
Shooting in the sewers of Vancouver was awful. Even though I knew the location had originally been the underground post office tunnels, it creeped me out. It was dressed to look like the sewers of Manhattan and it certainly could have fooled me. It was a little claustrophobic down there, and there was all this green slime being pumped in to double for toxic waste. And what I find so interesting and ironic about this is that now I build environmental homes for living, and I kill Jason with toxic waste. Needless to say, I was happy when that week was over.
SCOTT REEVES:
I remember the diner scene, when Kane came busting through the doors of the diner and Jensen and I run out the back and go down the manhole. As I was going down the manhole I was a little too anxious, and I bashed my head. They had to put a bandage on my eyebrow. I still have a scar from that.
KANE HODDER:
The whole thing—going back to a little kid—I just never cared for it. There was even a scripted line for Jason, right before all that water comes down the sewer: "Mommy, please don't let me die."
ROB HEDDEN:
Kane is a sweetheart. Then I read an interview he had done for a Web site a few years back, and I thought, "That doesn't sound like Kane." Because he was criticizing the ending, which he had never told me he was dissatisfied with. And he read the script. He read the ending. I discussed it with him, and he never said a word. That's what threw me. Why didn't he tell me he didn't like it? Kane is a very, very cooperative actor. Perhaps cooperative to the point that he doesn't like the ending and doesn't bother to tell me. Which now I'm mad at him for. He should have voiced his opinion, because then maybe something better may have come out of it. And there was no mystery. It was right there on the page. The studio signed off on it, Frank signed off on it, Barbara signed off on it. Everybody.
Although audience pleasing, comedic gags like Jason's interaction with a Times Square street gang didn't sit well with all members of Part VIII's cast and crew. "Those things seemed funny at the time, but I thought they were just too much," laments Kane Hodder. "Jason shouldn't be played for laughs."
KANE HODDER:
It's probably unfair to Rob that I protested after-the-fact. I wasn't happy with it at the time, but I didn't feel secure enough in the role to say anything. I wanted to keep doing it, and I didn't want to piss anybody off. And what probably happened was that once I saw it, I disliked it more. I wasn't as unhappy with it as much while we were shooting it. It is often only after years pass that you think, "I really hated that." Jason is not nearly as scary when the mask comes off. Even if his face is hideously deformed, the ominous presence of that mask is what really makes the character.
ROB HEDDEN:
I think another reason why the ending may not have been as well received as it could have been was because, when you do a set-up like that, you better have a pretty good payoff. The reveal of Jason's face was the scariest thing I had to do, because I'm thinking, "It took eight movies to get to this point, and we've seen his face in other movies." I had a lot to live up to. That's when I thought, "Toxic waste! Let's melt his face and it will be great!" You wouldn't have time to get a good solid look at him—the idea was to camouflage the fact that he is wearing rubber and prosthetics with all this slime on it. We thought it would work.
WILLIAM TEREZAKIS, Effects Assistant:
Part VIII was the very first movie I worked on. I was a huge fan of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. After I found out I landed the gig, I'm driving home like crazy—just shaking and screaming and honking the horn. And I so couldn't contain myself that I went right off the road, down a hill and into a ditch! But I didn't care. I was working on a Jason movie!
I think the whole experience was what's called "paying your dues." My two bosses, Jamie Brown and Tibor Farkas, ran the show. I was pretty much kept in the dark during that whole movie. I wasn't allowed to go to the set. It was pretty fucked up. I didn't get an opportunity to really express myself through my art on Part VIII. It was just basically told, "We'll bring you the sculptures and you mold th
em." But at least I was working.
So I stayed in this room the whole time like a fucking hunchback. Then I see the sculpture of Jason's face. I was like, "Aw, fuck. No. No!" Because I was such a fan of the series. I knew all the previous films and all the looks of Jason. I supplied those sons of bitches with so much information on the character, and then they didn't follow it. I really liked John Buechler's design in Part VII, especially that he respected what had gone before. But here comes Jamie Brown, "Mr. No-Continuity," and totally takes it off track. I refer to Jason's mug in that movie as "the jack-o'-lantern"—he kind of looks like Goofy. I was definitely not happy. So the whole time I was molding it, I was playing a funeral song.
BRYAN ENGLAND:
No one was happy with it. I remember trying really hard to light it dark, to keep it in the shadows as much as possible. That's the main reason why, during that scene, the overhead lights in the sewer tunnel are swaying back and forth. It created a kind of strobe effect. We did that on purpose just to help cover up the makeup.
ROB HEDDEN:
I didn't want people to laugh when the mask came off. I didn't want it to be a big letdown. But at the same time, CGI hadn't been invented. We weren't going to have animated worms coming out of his face—we had to figure out how to do it. I had this idea of his face being melted by chemistry, so we put an acetone material on it, so it would bubble and melt to make it scarier than it was. And do it in a way where the lighting was kind of scary, and have him shake around a lot so you never got too good of a look at it.
In retrospect, if they would have let me, I never would have shown his face at all. I think imagination is stronger than the visual anyway. I would have gone with the approach of a Blair Witch: don't let them see anything. But we did everything we could, and the best we could. And we actually cut it in ways to try and accentuate the positive. At one point, we didn't show it. Then, we showed it for half as much. Then, I got a note from the studio: "No, they're going to want to see it for longer. This is what they've waited to see." So I added back another 36 frames. But none of these were cavalier decisions.
RANDOLPH CHEVELDAVE:
I don't know if we ever got it right. But, really, what can you put under that mask so that when it finally does come off it will truly satisfy the audience? To this day, I can't think of what should have been there.
Replicating a New York diner in Vancouver. Shooting this scene would be a family affair for helmer Rob Hedden. The diner's wisecracking "New Yawk" waitress (bottom right) is played by the director's sister, Peggy Hedden.
Whatever trials, tribulations, disasters and disappointments the makers of Jason Takes Manhattan may have endured during the film's strenuous shoot, there was one moment that would make it all worthwhile: a day that, for all those involved, ranks not only as the highlight of the whole experience of making the film, but the most memorable of their entire careers.
Welcome to Times Square.
ROB HEDDEN:
We ended up shooting one week in New York City, including the harbor scene. Even that I had to fight for. I knew that at the end of the day we had to bring this movie in for a price. But I put my foot down and said, "I'm not going to do this movie if we can't go to New York and at least get an authentic Times Square and New York Harbor." For me, out of everything, that was the make-or-break moment of the entire film.
RANDOLPH CHEVELDAVE:
We didn't get a lot of money to shoot in New York. Originally, when we finally said, "OK we're adding Times Square," Frank generously allowed the budget to increase by $25,000. Well, excuse me, you want Times Square on a Friday night? I think it was forty PA's. We had police, which had to be reinforced. And by about 9:30 p.m., there was a crowd of close to 15,000 people. Time seemed to stand still.
The best reaction I saw was this woman in her mid-30s, dressed in a business suit and briefcase—a real executive type. And there she is, on her knees, running her stockings on the sidewalk, tears streaming down her face, holding her hands forward, going, "Jason! Jason! I love you!" It was one of those moments I'll never forget.
KANE HODDER:
In Part VII, we were either in the woods or a studio, so I didn't have any interaction with fans when I had the costume on. Now, here we are in the middle of Times Square at midnight. I had to come out and do the moment where I'm standing on the traffic island. And they had to have barriers on either side to hold people back, because this is Jason standing out there, and they're going to stop and watch. My dressing room was actually where the MTV TRL studio is now. And I came down, got in the van, and put the mask on. Then, in the middle of Times Square, I stepped out. Hundreds of people, cheering! I felt like one of the Beatles. I just stood there, watching. I'd look over and they just went nuts. It was so much fun. It was probably the most exciting moment I ever had playing Jason.
SCOTT REEVES:
I remember we stayed in the St. Moritz hotel right in Time Square. That was my first time in New York City. I had never been to the Statue of Liberty or Battery Park, and Jensen and I took the subway at like one o'clock in the morning down to where we were shooting. And how many people were standing around watching us while we filmed, it was unbelievable.
ROB HEDDEN:
Because the subway station to Times Square isn't actually in Times Square, we had to build a little fake subway station, with a ramp that looked like it went down into the pavement but didn't. Jensen and Scott had to squat down and pretend that they were coming upstairs. If you watch the movie, you probably can't tell because they did a good job as munchkins, getting taller and taller coming up the fake stairs!
BRYAN ENGLAND:
I'll never forget that night. We were shooting in May, and the schools were having their proms. It was 3 a.m. and Jason would be out there and we'd be waiting to shoot, and there would be these kids sticking their heads out of limousines screaming, "Jason, we love you!"
JENSEN DAGGETT:
I really felt like I was dreaming. To be 18 years old and starring in a film, and we're shooting practically on Broadway—that was something I knew I should cherish regardless of what my future held. I have done a lot of jobs since then, a lot of great locations with a lot of wonderful actors, and that is still one of the most incredible memories of my life. It was a real "King of the World!" moment.
Gallery: Jason gets ready for his closeup.
ROB HEDDEN:
Closing off Times Square to shoot a 40 foot crane shot, coming up out of the subway, then having the camera do a complete 360-degree spin—that was priceless. This low-budget Friday the 13th movie shooting in Times Square! I was like, "Pinch me!" It was unbelievable. It's still unbelievable. I've done movies since then—mostly TV movies—but also Clockstoppers, which was a $35 million movie with big CGI and Matrix-like effects, and nothing compares to that moment. I'm still trying to recapture it.
Rob Hedden's dream of a fresher, more audience-friendly Friday continued throughout post-production. Already anticipating a harsh reaction from the Motion Picture Association of America, Hedden had designed most of Part VIII's graphic kill sequences—which, at nearly two dozen, set a then-record high for the franchise—to be shot and edited in a multitude of ways as a pre-emptive plan to avoid the long, drawn-out battles with the ratings board that had plagued the previous installments. Working with editor Steve Mirkovich, Hedden also continued to take creative risks with the film's style and pacing, often employing radical jump cuts in time and space along with inventive sound effects trickery.
STEVE MIRKOVICH:
We received an X rating on our first try, and had to go back probably two or three times. It was not crazy. I don't think it was nearly as intense a situation as it had been on past Fridays, at least from what I had heard. But the MPAA hates the franchise. They just do.
ROB HEDDEN:
When Frank saw my first cut of the movie, he said, "Can you beef up the blood a little more?" I said, "Yeah, I've got more." I had already anticipated the MPAA, so I first turned in a cut to F
rank that I thought could get past the ratings board. But Frank said, "Screw the ratings. Give me a movie that the fans want to see." The joke was that the MPAA made me cut everything back out anyway. It was a very different political and cultural atmosphere back then. You look at Jason Takes Manhattan and it's tame compared to any R-rated movie today.
We had to lose a great deal. The very first kill in the movie, when Jim and Suzy are on the ship—in my first cut, the spear gun goes all the way into his body, and Jason yanks it back out and there is blood and guts all over it. That had to go. Or when Tamara gets killed in the theatrical release, she just screams and we cut to the horn on the ship going, Burrrmmmm! Which is a trick I learned from Hitchcock—cut right from the moment of impact to some blaring noise. But originally I had an additional shot of the aftermath, where you see Tamara lying naked on the floor with about two dozen glass shards stabbed all over her and blood everywhere. Even with Kelly Hu we had to trim. There is no blood when she gets strangled, but when she lands on the dance room floor, we had inserted a much louder hit, a ball-crush hit. And the MPAA just said, "Take out that sound effect if you want to keep that scene."
RANDOLPH CHEVELDAVE:
In the original cut, the boxer, the one who was fighting Julius, is killed by Jason shoving darts in his eyes. But after we saw the finished film, we just thought the kill was too disappointing for the diehard Friday the 13th audience.
ROB HEDDEN:
I wrote a new scene to replace it. Now, the boxer goes into a sauna, and Jason comes and takes a hot rock and burns it through his chest. The funny thing is, though, Kane Hodder was no longer available to play Jason, so we had to get a different stuntman. We even took Polaroids of Kane to better match his replacement. I think that's the only scene in the whole film that Kane's not in.
V.C. DUPREE:
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 63