Horror series are always a mixed bag. Horror films are treated like shit by studios. They’re cheap to make as you don’t really need name actors and most of your money is going to be spent on cheap effects. The good thing is that they almost always turn a good profit. Therefore, when a horror flick does well, studios will crank out a quick sequel in order to take advantage of its popularity while the property is still hot. As the series goes on… the “quick buck” approach starts taking its toll on the films, and the quality goes down. Then the financial returns go down leaving studios pretty much throwing shit against the wall and seeing if it sticks. Jason X is a great example of this.
Let’s face it… the Friday the 13th films were never really terribly well-done. They get by on the fact that they are entertainingly stupid. You’ve got a bunch of partying kids getting stalked and slaughtered by a prudish, retarded hillbilly zombie. That’s not exactly high concept. Before you take offense of my explanation of Jason Voorhees, let me clarify. Jason’s own mother admitted that her son was “special” in the first installment. He grew up living alone in the woods wearing a flannel shirt, cover-all’s, and burlap sack on his head. He’s also technically a zombie as he died in Part IV and was accidentally resurrected by genre veteran Thom Matthews and the guy that played Horschack in Welcome Back, Kotter in Part VI. Mr. Voorhees is definitely the most prudish of all horror icons as well. He punishes all deviant behavior that takes place in his vicinity. Jason is basically a machete-carrying member of the Christian right.
You smoke cigarettes at Crystal Lake… you’re screwed.
You smoke a joint at Crystal Lake… you’re fucked.
You drink alcohol at Crystal Lake… you’re toast.
You have sex at Crystal Lake… you’re dead meat.
You masturbate to porn at Crystal Lake… you’re a human shish-ka-bob.
You use a curse word at Crystal Lake… you’re six feet under.
You even think about doing any of that… you're up shit creek.
Now drop all that into a futuristic space movie, and you’ve got Jason X.
Jason X starts out with a bang with a cameo by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg gets impaled by a spike. It fits. It only goes downhill from there. Jason is cryogenically frozen and is found 450 years later by a group of students on a field trip to the now uninhabitable Earth. Long story short… they take him back on board. Bad idea! I would comment further on the plot, but really who gives a shit about plot with a Jason movie!?! There are some interesting kills, an attempt at self-parodying comedy, and Jason fights a female combat-upgraded sex-bot… and loses to her. Fortunately for him, he falls into the nanotech upgrade machine and is reborn as Uber-Jason. It’s a lot of stupid (incredibly stupid) fun, and you’ll spend more time laughing at how bad it is than actually enjoying the film. It’s almost impossible to not laugh at the film. It’s got bad Canadian actors from syndicated sci-fi shows, a script that rips off every sci-fi horror film of the last twenty years, and the special effects look like they came from a Sci-Fi original. Yet… somehow it’s entertaining.
If you have low standards… give it a go. It’s fun.
