Eight movies in nine years is a lot for any series-- while Friday the 13th had been a series of diminishing returns for several movies now, by 1989 it had outlasted more prestigious and respected franchises... but maybe it shouldn't have. Imagining the fatigue audiences had by the fourth installment of franchises (Rocky and Superman come to mind), it's hard to put into context how overexposed and underwhelming Jason Voorhees felt by movie #8. Everyone knew that mask, everyone knew the name, but it lived in a horror movie without horror, a film without story-- Jason could get laughs on talk shows, but he wasn't scaring anyone anymore.