Presented by Lisa Frankenstein, 1989 Week is dialing the clock back to the crossroads year for the genre with a full week of features that dig six feet under into the year. Today, Alex DiVincenzo revisits the great slasher slump of 1989.
While horror fans often look back on the ’80s with a nostalgic glow, 1989 was not what most would consider a strong year for the genre — particularly when compared to the embarrassment of riches spawned by the rest of the decade. Not even Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger were safe from the slasher slump.
Each franchise had its ups and downs across a cumulative 17 movies in the ’80s, but the decade came to a close with low points — creatively and financially — in all three sagas: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan — the eighth Friday flick in nine years — sailed into theaters on July 28th. With $14.3 million, it’s the poorest-performing film in the franchise to date. Paramount subsequently sold the rights to New Line Cinema, who went on to give the series a soft reboot with 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
While the effort to move the slashing away from Crystal Lake after seven movies with the same setting was admirable, Jason Takes Manhattan fails to live up to its premise. The titular killer doesn’t arrive in the Big Apple until the final 20 minutes. Aside from an all-too-brief glimpse of Times Square, Vancouver serves as a generic city backdrop due to budgetary restrictions.
What’s more, most of the film takes place aboard a cruise ship; that a small lake in New Jersey inexplicably connects to the Atlantic Ocean is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the film’s ill-conceived decisions go. Jason teleports, young Jason appears as an average boy with a full head of hair, unmasked Jason looks like a slimy Muppet, and the New York sewers flood with toxic waste every night at midnight.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child opened on August 11th. Although it was the most successful slasher of the year, its $22.1 million gross was a steep decline from its predecessors. Diminishing returns prompted New Line Cinema to “kill” (albeit temporarily) their golden goose with the follow-up, 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Although less insulting to fans than Jason Takes Manhattan or The Revenge of Michael Myers, The Dream Child is bogged down by superfluous backstory and uses the dream motif as a cheap excuse for illogical storytelling. It only has three kills, but they’re each fairly inspired: one character is fused to his motorcycle in a body-horror nightmare; a model is force-fed to death; and a comic book nerd is shredded in 2D by Super Freddy.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers hit the big screen on October 13th. A far cry from the original Halloween, which was one of the most financially successful independent movies ever made, its meager $11.6 million makes it the lowest-grossing entry in the series. Despite its cliffhanger ending, The Shape would lay dormant until 1995’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
There are many grievances to be had with The Revenge of Michael Myers: Michael is nursed back to health for a year by a hermit, Jamie Lloyd is a mute with a telepathic link to Michael, returning final girl Rachel is unceremoniously killed off, bumbling cops are accompanied by circus sound effects, the Myers house is drastically different, Michael sheds a tear… But its worst offense is the hasty addition of the Man in Black, a flagrant “mystery” with no intention of a resolution.
The beauty of these long-running series is that every entry is someone’s favorite, and each one has its merits. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 features beautifully stylized production design throughout; Halloween 5‘s laundry chute sequence is an undisputed highlight; and Friday the 13th Part VIII gave us Jason Voorhees’ guest appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.
Disappointing box office performance and divisive fan reception may have temporarily hobbled the horror icons, but 1989 proved that you can’t keep a good franchise down. As we know 35 years later, each misunderstood monster was reworked and reanimated to continue their reign of terror.
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