Adrift & Miffed

I'm going to jump ahead a little in my continuing analysis of "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". Suffice it to say that after most of the characters are killed on the boat, Jason makes himself known to all and the ship catches fire. The survivors pile into a lifeboat, which is the next really interesting thing to me. This is the scene that makes it tough to say how much time the film occupies, for one thing. How long are they in that boat? It's entirely unclear to me except that it surely must be no more than days.

It's a lengthy sequence. I would have advised one good shot of them in the boat and a fade out/fade in to them being within sight of New York. Instead, we get numerous shots with dialogue that stress what a tough spot they're in. That just doesn't seem smart to me, since it's really hard for "stranded on a non-cross Atlantic vogage" to compete with "stalked by a murderous maniac aboard a relatively small ship". Being stuck on this boat in what seems like pretty reasonable temperatures is heaven by comparison.

I wondered where they shot this. Fog strikes at just this time, which seems like a great way to not have to actually be on the water anywhere like where the scene is supposed to be taking place. It doesn't seem foggy when they get to the city. I guess fog can roll in and disippate, and it can be localized, but it just seems funny to me. The scene looks pretty phony to me because of the fog, I'll say that much. Maybe that's just what it looks like.

Finally, the lifeboat reaches New York (with a lot of strained navigating by Sean), and Julius is especially enthused. I still find myself wondering how long it's been, to say nothing of why the gang thinks they're home free at this point. Indeed, Jason appears on land moments after they do. How did he make the trip? Was he somehow clinging to the bottom of their boat? Was he swimming underwater? I'd love to have seen that. Was he just walking along the seabed? That would be fun too. There's just no knowing. Too bad.