Jason X (2002)

[slayrrr666]

As this has long been one of my favorite films, I thought I'll post my own review of it:

"Jason X" is actually one of the better movies in the series, and at least deserves a look by genre fans.

**SPOILERS**

Jason has been captured and confined to Crystal Lake Research Center. The person in charge of him, Rowan (Lexa Doig) wants him to be destroyed, resulting in a brief confrontation between her and her boss, Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg). Jason escapes and kills the guard troupe and Dr. Wimmer, while Rowan manages to lock him in a deep freeze container, which also results her being wounded and trapped with Jason for 450 years, when a student field trip to Earth manages a find them both frozen. They remove both and bring them onto their space ship. Jason is considered dead, but Rowan has a chance to survive and is successfully revived. So is Jason, who begins killing the members of the students. Finally, the soldiers assigned to protect them are brought in, but they all get slaughtered within minutes. Jason turns his attention back to the students, stalking them mercilessly. He causes the damage of a nearby space station, which damages the core of their ship. In a last ditch effort, the android (Lisa Ryder) of one of the remaining students (Chuck Campbell) challenges Jason, and manages to fully kill him with future weaponry. They find the leader of the soldiers and revive him, just in time to see Jason return from the dead with half of his body heavily mechanized. The android is decapitated, and they manage to stall Jason long enough so Rowan and Campbell can escape, while the soldier keeps Jason at bay by sending him back to Earth.

The Good News: This is a movie die-hard gore fans want to see. It's one of the goriest in the series, with two people being cut in half, several being stabbed, and many others being cut up. I also have to say that for the first time in a while, Jason uses a ton of creativity to his kills. This movie is the one with the infamous "face first into ice, then shattered on a countertop." That was a brilliant, original death scene, and is my personal favorite in the series. Also, for the first time also, Jason is not 100% responsible for a kill, which is a new idea. He punches a hole into a wall that sucks one person through it. The humor is here, and several jokes really stand out. That same person who flew through the wall remarks "This sucks on so many levels." The whole "Oops" part was pretty funny, and you have to laugh at the two soldiers playing a virtual reality game and don't know Jason isn't part of the game, then they allow Jason to kill them quite easily. There are more, but those immediately come to mind. The action is non-stop, and there are many impressive scenes. The gunfight in the corridor by Ryder on Jason is a standout, and Jason's continual sit-ups after being hit by the shotgun has to be my favorite scene, sense it follows the age-old maxim in horror movies, "You can't kill a popular killer." Hodder is almost deserving of a horror Academy Award for his portrayal of Jason and Uber-Jason. He is absolutely menacing and scary in the role and looks like he's having too much fun as Jason. The shift to outer space never bothered me, as it was a refreshing change of pace and a source of much needed originality.

The Bad News: Watching this movie has made several of my friends say they were dumber after seeing it. I don't agree, but I know what they are getting at. "Jason X" does contain numerous scenes that will make your head spin over the apparent lack of logic. Jason is fooled by a holographic representation of Crystal Lake? He takes time to destroy holographs of two women who look like they belonged in the first movie and allow the good guys to escape? That idiotic professor who only wants to profit from Jason and his continuous assurance that Jason will get taken care of? Jason gets ridden like a surfboard as he's falling back to Earth? There are many, many more, but none so significant that they will harm your viewing experience of this masterpiece. (Not sarcasm in any respect.)

The Final Verdict: "Jason X" has many things going for it, and many things going against it. It by no means is the best in the series, but it is nowhere near the worst. It's just a great movie that people bash because it contains obvious cheese scenes.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, and a short sex scene.

[Quorthon]

Now that is interesting. To each his own. I realized that my own review of Jason X isn't on here, so, ego in tow, I yanked it from my website to cram it in here. It's one of my first movie reviews, and therefore, not one of my best. For instance, I wasn't doing a simple "Breakdown" of the film at the time I wrote this:


Jason X
2002
Color
Warner (Home Video)
R

This is a movie that just screams Jason Goes to Hell? That didn’t happen!!!” Indeed, it does seem to completely ignore the last Friday the 13th film that was made, where in the end Jason Voorhees actually got pulled down into Hell and Freddy Krueger’s razor-enhanced gloved hand shot from the ground and pulled his mask down to Hell. Originally I believe this was meant to hint at the eventual, and often barely existent, Freddy Vs. Jason film that was planned years ago. The original story was supposed to revolve around Freddy and Jason fighting in Hell, but it sounds like that changed… Anyway this movie is not so good, remember, it completely ignores the last sequel from way back in 1993 (showcasing exactly how damn long it took for the Freddy Vs. Jason movie to actually go from drawing board to reality. I actually discovered that there are people that like, even love Jason X for some reason. I thought it was pretty standard slasher fare with the exception that it wasn’t all that good. It’s an opinion of mine that when a “killer/slasher/murderer/creepfest/gory” film of this type starts running out of ideas, some idiot thinks that taking it into space is a “super-good” idea destined to make a boatload of cash.. Look, it doesn’t work, here’s an example of a movie that failed miserably in space: Leprechaun 4. And here’s another: Hellraiser: Bloodline, which was better than Leprechaun 4—slightly. Want one that works (sort of)? Critters 4 was an alright movie for a series hauled off into the sequel hell that eventually leads into outer space for some reason. Why did it work? Because the Critters originally came from space!!! Jason, Pinhead, and that dumb-ass Leprechaun did not come from space! I’m so far very happy (and damn lucky it would seem) that the Nightmare on Elm Street and Child’s Play movies haven’t ventured painfully into that arena! Here’s the rundown:

This movie opens in our time when Jason Voorhees has been captured and to put him on ice permanently, the plan is too… put him on ice… permanently. As in a cryogenic chamber, but something goes wrong and a woman is accidentally frozen with him. Then in the far future after the Armageddon it would seem, a ship comes to Earth and discovers this woman and some big huge mysterious dude still frozen. They’re gathered up, thawed out, and then the fun begins. Jason wanders around a space ship killing people. So, anyone out there not see that coming? Only the comatose? Ahh, good. Eventually Jason is killed and, lucky for us, comes back all super-badass and half cyborg. I’ll leave the mystery of that happening up to you, dear reader, to find out for yourself because it’s just that damn fun. Sure, the new improved "Jason X" looks pretty cool, but eh, the movie is as uninspired as placemat. The only real highlight is Jason killing holographic naked teenage girls while in the, er, holograph recreation chamber.

So what’s good about this movie? Well, for Friday the 13th fans, its yet another film for them to get all excited about. For horror/slasher fans, it’s something new to watch. But for everyone else in the world, it’s rental store shelf clogging crap. Jason looks really cool in it, I’ll give yah that—he kicks ass. Unfortunately the movie’s plot and story are about as weak as every other Friday movie and is generally pretty humdrum. The acting is passable and the breast shots are pretty cheap, although not unwelcome—they are practically a staple of Jason films. The special effects are pretty good, but not great, simply put, they’re nothing to get exited over. The killings are as creative as you’d expect and are always a high point. The story, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, is pretty stupid revolving around a now tired and clichéd story of “taking the old killer into space” hoopla, which is guaranteed to be somewhat crappy. This doesn’t work at all as a science fiction film as its all fiction but with almost no science. Space was merely the backdrop for a high-tech Jason to do some more killings and the SF idea was apparently just to make some cool stuff for Jason to kill people on and an excuse to remake him in his admittedly cool new appearance. This film isn’t scary at all.


Acting: 6/10
Violence/Gore: 8/10
Nudity/Sexuality: 3/10
Story: 4/10
Atmosphere: 4/10
Special Effects/Make-up: 7/10
Cinematography: 4/10
Music: 4/10
Direction: 5/10

Cheesiness: 6/10
Crappiness: 3/10

Overall: 5/10

For slasher/horror and “Friday 13th” fans—everyone else stay away!!



--> So, clearly, while I got a fair amount of enjoyment out of the film, I found little to no quality in it. Mind you, I have a "technically illegal" copy of the film. I have a promotional copy that's supposed to be sent only to video rental-type places for promotion. The bottom of the screen has information routinely scroll across stating that I'm to turn in whoever gave me the damn thing! Did I mention that in my review? I didn't reread it when I pasted it over here...

[spacer]

Full agreement with what Quorth said about Jason X and also about Friday 13. I saw resently both of them and I think they're pretty dumb and not scary at all. Jason X was also scarcely realistic. I hate scenes when the killer is on full spree inside a top-of-the-art space ship and until almost half of the crew is slashed noone is informed and noone is paying attention to the peril.

[Bartwald]

Holy hell: spacer saw Friday The 13th!!! ;D

I can only agree that a) Jason X is not scary at all, b) Jason's venture into space makes no sense at all and probably pissed many fans of the franchise, c) uber-Jason looks pretty cool.

One of my least favourite Friday films.

[Quorthon]

My favorite mulitple-sequel horror franchise "in-space" movie is Critters 4. But it makes more sense than the others--the Critters came from space. The Leprachaun and Jason didn't!!

But Critters 2 is the best film in that series.

[Bartwald]

Critters 2 is my favourite, too, but Critters 4 I didn't like at all - whether space makes sense for the furry creatures or not.

[Quorthon]

I also have only seen Critters 4 once--and that was when it came out. Been meaning to get all four of 'em at some point but never have the money. Or I see something else I want immensly badly...

So it's safe to say that my memory of Critters 4 is quite hazy--and a lot can happen to a film's quality in a decade....

[spacer]

admin said:

Holy hell: spacer saw Friday The 13th!!! ;D

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
I just practice most efficient ways of wasting ousted ringleaders.

admin said:

I can only agree that a) Jason X is not scary at all, b) Jason's venture into space makes no sense at all and probably pissed many fans of the franchise, c) uber-Jason looks pretty cool.

You agreed completely with me ;D
Uber-Jason indeed looked cool but still was not scary.
The only enjoyable thing in this was the actress that plays the role of the ship computer in Andromeda series.