Jason X
Starring: Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell
Director: Jim Isaac
Released: 2001
Trailer
So…once again it is Friday the 13th. What better way to celebrate than reviewing one of the many Friday the 13th films?
Jason Voorhees really has gone far cinematically, hasn’t he? He started off in Crystal Lake, went to Manhattan, and went to Hell (of all places). He even fought against Freddy Krueger in his own nightmares.
But before he fought Freddy (or, continuity-wise, after), there was one place to go where no horror icon has gone before. Space!
Crap. Warwick Davis beat them to it in ’97.
Yes, I am of course talking about the tenth film in the Friday the 13th series, Jason X, or We Ran Out of Ideas, So We Jettisoned Jason Voorhees Into Space. No Refunds.
But then again, the latter title probably would not look as good on a poster.
How does Jason wind up in space? In 2008, Jason is cryogenically frozen for his crimes against horny teenagers (and also, presumably, against competent filmmaking). In the year 2455, Jason is found and studied by a group of students (on an interstellar field trip, no less). What follows is a bloodbath of laughably underwhelming proportions.
Of all the Friday the 13th films I’ve seen (excluding Part 5 because it barely qualifies as a Friday the 13th film), this is probably the weakest. The premise itself is laughable, and feels like a last-ditch effort to keep Jason relevant. When your premise seems less dignified than when Josie and the Pussycats did it, perhaps you should reconsider, studio executives.
I’m not making the Josie thing up, either… unfortunately.
Granted, there are some decent effects and kills in the film. The animations of the ship and the explosions are pretty decent for a film series like this one. Granted, by today’s standards and even those standards set by other films around that time (The Phantom Menace [1999] being the biggest one) the effects aren’t that great. In fact, they look incredibly low-grade and fake. But for a film series often made on a lower budget and in limited locations, this change of scenery and visuals is welcome and refreshing.
The kills (that we can see) are decent as well. There is a scene where Jason freezes a victim’s face with liquid nitrogen and smashes their skull to pieces in one fell swoop. It’s a lot like the ending of Demolition Man, albeit meant to be seen as terrifying rather than awesome.
Unfortunately, though, many of the kills are done off-screen or are pretty lack-luster in comparison to the many other ways Jason has dispatched people in the past. And, to make matters worse, the kills just aren’t terrifying.
Perhaps it’s partially because of the writing. While I could spend so much time nitpicking every detail of the plot (Why do the space marines split up when pursuing Jason? Why is a big ship like this one helmed by such a small crew?), the main flaw of the film is that it goes too far with the camp and over-the-top goofiness. Sure, the previous films were always a bit campy because of the time they were made, but they still had suspenseful and frightening scenes to make up for it. In this one, everything still has that level of camp, minus the scares.
The film tries to be goofy and funny, almost a self-parody. But while a film like Jason Lives is a good balance of scares and clever humor, this one is just…dumb. It’s as though the film is riffing itself in certain scenes. For example, just before a character is sucked into the vacuum of space through a hole clearly too small to fit their body (with gruesome results), the doomed character says, “This sucks on so many levels.” In an earlier scene, after one character is impaled on what looks like a giant drill bit (why it’s there, I have no clue), another character spots him and says, “He’s screwed.” Moments like these pulled me out of the film because they didn’t feel “real” to me. While the previous films in the series were by no means realistic, the reactions of the characters to horrific moments did feel real, and thus heightened the terrifying atmosphere. In Jason X’s case, unfortunately, the humor goes unrestrained, making the film far too silly to even take it seriously when more serious moments unfold, such as the hologram climax toward the end of the film.
Oh, yes… then there’s the ending of the film, which involves transforming Jason into an armor coated automaton, more machine than man.
Yes, it looks just as dumb as it sounds.
A transformation which tries to make Jason look intimidating, but only feels like a desperate attempt to make Jason relevant to a more modern generation of sci-fi/horror fans.
And that’s what Jason X ultimately is: desperate. Say what you will about the Platinum Dunes reboot from 2010, at least it tried to capture the old school style of the original films with a more modern spin and gruesome scares. Jason X just feels lazy and derivative of not only other, better science fiction films, but also of the preceding Friday the 13th films. For a dumb horror film, it’s not the worst I’ve seen (and is kind of entertaining in parts), but as a sequel to an iconic horror series, it’s a waste of time and effort on both the filmmakers’ and the audience’s parts.
Final Score: 2/10
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