10 Horror Movies That Just Aren’t Scary

8. Jason Takes Manhattan

It chapter 2
Paramount Pictures

The eighth outing for the Friday the 13th franchise, Jason Takes Manhattan is the series at its most unrelentingly cheesy.

While the Friday the 13th franchise as a whole has so often been laced in elements of kitsch, it’s fair to say that Jason Takes Manhattan is the first time that one of these movies doesn’t have any real scares. Sailing from Camp Crystal Lake to New York City, Jason Voorhees is once again up to his usual slash ‘n’ hack antics, yet this particular horror film is hugely short on actual frights.

The franchise itself had been painfully close to fully jumping the shark in several previous offerings, but Jason Takes Manhattan is the one where the over-the-top shenanigans of Friday the 13th reached a whole other level. Whether it’s a faux rock music video being filmed on the protagonists’ boat, whether it’s the cocaine-fuelled seduction of a school principal, whether it’s Jason punching an amateur boxer’s head off his shoulders, or whether it’s just the image of Jason Voorhees stood illuminated in the glitz of Times Square, this is ultimately a horror movie that just doesn’t feel scary on any level.

After eight films, the Friday the 13th series had finally succumbed to its own excesses – even if Jason Takes Manhattan is an absolute blast of a movie, just in an enjoyable fun-ride way, rather than a terrifying way.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.