When I saw Jason X and I told people afterwards that I thought it sucked on ice, people usually say back, "Geez, what did you expect?" Well, like I said above I expected it to be good.
There is a school of thought in horror fan circles that the Friday the 13th series is all crap; Horror of the lowest common demoniator. That's probably true, but there are fun moments to be had here in there over the course of the series's run. Parts 1-3 make a good little trilogy. With Parts 6, 8, and 9 all having their moments.
Frankly, I was looking forward to seeing Jason X since it was the first of the series since the Scream movies made all things with slashers ironic. This could have been a good chance to make a straightforward, bloody, trashy film; A kind of celebration for a franchise that has lasted ten chapters.
Instead, the movie just kind of limps along with not much to do. I will be probably the only person the world who won't fault the movie for it's admittidly stupid space concept (Anyone remember Hellraiser: Bloodline? Well, I liked that one). And I even thought the way they managed to get Jason into the future was ok. But once he got up and started walking around, the movie just didn't go for me. I think it had something to do with the AWFUL set designs which reminded me of the MST3K classic "Space Mutiny," where the railing and walkway filled sets made it impossible to tell where any character was in relationship to any of the others. Here, endless time is spend while victims stumbled around in search of things to point their guns or breasts at. And that throwaway joke at the end about the holographic campers made me chuckle at the time, but now seems kind of like a cheap shot.
What did I like? Kane Hodder is menacing as Jason; The part where the girl gets her face shattered is a corker; The "screwed" moment is OK; The "enhanced" Jason was a nice try; And I liked the gun-toting android woman (She's the only actress here who seems to get the point).
But the rest of Jason X is just thrown together slop that doesn't do enough to suck up to people like me, who have stood up for this series in it's lamest moments.
There is a school of thought in horror fan circles that the Friday the 13th series is all crap; Horror of the lowest common demoniator. That's probably true, but there are fun moments to be had here in there over the course of the series's run. Parts 1-3 make a good little trilogy. With Parts 6, 8, and 9 all having their moments.
Frankly, I was looking forward to seeing Jason X since it was the first of the series since the Scream movies made all things with slashers ironic. This could have been a good chance to make a straightforward, bloody, trashy film; A kind of celebration for a franchise that has lasted ten chapters.
Instead, the movie just kind of limps along with not much to do. I will be probably the only person the world who won't fault the movie for it's admittidly stupid space concept (Anyone remember Hellraiser: Bloodline? Well, I liked that one). And I even thought the way they managed to get Jason into the future was ok. But once he got up and started walking around, the movie just didn't go for me. I think it had something to do with the AWFUL set designs which reminded me of the MST3K classic "Space Mutiny," where the railing and walkway filled sets made it impossible to tell where any character was in relationship to any of the others. Here, endless time is spend while victims stumbled around in search of things to point their guns or breasts at. And that throwaway joke at the end about the holographic campers made me chuckle at the time, but now seems kind of like a cheap shot.
What did I like? Kane Hodder is menacing as Jason; The part where the girl gets her face shattered is a corker; The "screwed" moment is OK; The "enhanced" Jason was a nice try; And I liked the gun-toting android woman (She's the only actress here who seems to get the point).
But the rest of Jason X is just thrown together slop that doesn't do enough to suck up to people like me, who have stood up for this series in it's lamest moments.