He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
- David Bowie
We learned from Alien, that in space no one can hear you scream. That's probably true. But I betcha in space, no one can hear you yawn either. I did plenty of that while watching the last of the "original" F13s: Jason X.
The tenth installment starts out by wisely ignoring the 9th installment, but that's the only clever thing it really does. This time, the Feds have finally captured Jason. David Cronenberg (in a brief cameo) wants to keep Jason around, for nefarious purposes presumably but the idealistic Agent Rowan (Lexa Doig) balks at this. Before you can say "bad idea" Jason breaks loose, kills a slew of people and then manages to get himself cyrogenically frozen along with Rowan.
Fast forward to centuries later where a group of teens along with their teacher and a few guys who looked like they came out of an Alien movie are on a ship for a field trip to Earth II. They find Jason and Rowan, dethaw them and predictably, Jason gets to the killing.
Well....it's not as bad as Part 9. But that's really all I liked about it.
Space is boring unless you're fighting aliens or saving galaxies. There's not much one can do in the way of settings and since teens never seemed to be able to get away from Jason on present-day Earth, the 'trapped on a ship' thing means nothing. Also, we had Leprechaun in Space like, three years earlier than this so who thought THIS one would be a good idea? But the main issue is the film's identity crisis. It can't decide if it wants to be an action thriller or a genuine cheese fest and instead comes across as a giant bore that manages to be almost nothing like horror. Bad idea.
The cast is pretty bland and I couldn't quite figure out why everybody 500 years into the future would dress like they stepped out of a Britney Spears video. The only memorable characters are a female robot (Kay-Em) who is just plain obnoxious and one of the teens, Janessa (Melyssa Ade) who seems to be the only one who knows that this is supposed to be a cheesy horror movie and acts accordingly. Oh and Jason and his "upgrade." Well, Kane once again valiantly tries, and he looks great as "normal" Jason, but damn, when he gets the upgrade via nano-technology, he looks goofy. The "metal" on his face and body looks like cheap chrome-painted plastic and without his iconic hockey mask, he no longer looks that terrifying.
All is not totally lost, however. Jason X does contain one of the BEST death scenes in the series where a young scientist gets her face frozen instantly than smashed. It's awful, it's gory, I love it. Also there's a nice satirical touch when the group decides to confuse Jason with a holographic image of 1980 Crystal Lake, complete with a couple of topless lasses offering Jason beer, pot and sex. Guess they should count their lucky stars they weren't real, cause what happens next is...well..we all know what Jason hates most, right?
So it looks like the original series ends not with a bang but with a whimper (at least for now) and then we have the reboot-remake-reimagining which I hated more than life itself and which I shall probably review in the form of my series of "The Live Blogging a Crap Horror Film" as it sorely, sorely deserves it.
Favorite Moments (may contain spoilers):
- Nitroglycerin face smashing! Best kill since the sleeping bag one.
- Video game holographic Jason splitting a boy in two.
- Sgt. Brodski with his shirt off. Yeah. I'm a girl.
- Hey, you wanna beer? Or you wanna smoke some pot? Or we can have premarital sex. WE LOVE PREMARITAL SEX!
- David Cronenberg agreed to do the cameo only his character died at the hands of Jason.
- For Kay-Em's topless with no nipples scene, a plaster cast was taken of the actress's real chest.
- For the holographic scene, the original script called for Jason's mother to appear to him, but Betsy Palmer turned it down.
- Jason X contains more deaths (28!) than any other Friday the 13th.
Agree? Disagree? Or just have a random string of curse words you'd like to share? Comment!
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