It’s been my earworm for four days straight. It remains my favorite non-scored piece of music from the entire Friday the 13th legacy, and I’m damned partial to Lion’s “Love is a Lie” from Friday the 13th Part IV: The (not-so) Final Chapter and Pseudo Echo’s “His Eyes” from the fifth Friday film. Alice Cooper’s “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” is a post-disco death dream come true that’s also up there for me. Even The Hives’ “Tick Tick Boom” in the banging 2009 Friday the 13th remake, though I’d already long been on Team Hives then.

The laughable dreck that is Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan didn’t deserve the graces of its finest Jason actor (Kane Hodder), nor was it worthy of such a funky, jazzy hard rock number from the one-and-done Metropolis of 1989. Not to be confused with the German prog band nor the mid-Nineties hair resurrection group. All three were blips on the rock map, but it’s this Metropolis we’re concerned about here, the masterminds of bassist/vocalist Peter Fredette and drummer/guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Stan Meissner. The only Metropolis band to leave an imprint that counted, even kicking off one of the most abysmal horror sequels of all-time.

Now, because Kane Hodder is so good, so savage and at times purposefully hilarious as Jason Voorhees, that’s really the only reason drop into Friday VIII. As I stated in a film review I did back in the day on the movie for my college campus newspaper, Spectrum, it should’ve been subtitled “Jason Takes a Cruise,” since that’s the primary habitat for his ’89 murder spree. Hell, most of the city footage was filmed in Vancouver, not New York, even with accurate cityscape montages and Hodder’s hysterical rampage through Times Square.

“The Darkest Side of the Night” burns like a fire, as Fredette and Meissner claim in lyrical form. Even today, it reminds me of the pimp-swinging chimes behind long forgotten shaving cream and cologne ads from the day, but the swagger and strut of this tune is goddamn infectious. So much, I feel myself sag whenever I play the entire film’s clattery synth score by Fred Mollin, who took over full duty from his prior collab with the iconic Harry Manfredini in the seventh film. Mollin was already scoring the ill-fated, if fan popular Friday the 13th: The Series, and he does possess a sense of dank atmospherics to his work.

Yet, most people could care less. I’m not the only fan of Metropolis’ classy and elegant pumper “Darkest Side of the Night,” and I’m confident in saying those of who actually care about it feel like we’re taken back home to better (if cheesier) times. I back it up three times, maybe four, whenever I put it on. Smiling there’s an instrumental version of the cut at the rear of the soundtrack. Paramount knew what they had back then, kudos to them.

Enjoy this well-done threading of Friday VIII’s kill scenes and Hodder’s genius comedy timing set in time to the song. Show some respect and try to survive on the darkest side…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.