Jason X

Jason Voorhees was the slightly less convincing competitor of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers in the slasher movie war, which raged throughout the eighties. The previous films starring Jason generally concentrated on slaughtering as many irritating American teenagers as possible, which, if in the right mood, is my idea of entertainment. The only real creative skill employed was to think up new gut wrenching ways of Jason killing folk. He tends to favour a machete but has used knives, a pitchfork and even a party hooter to dispense with his prey. When I saw ads for Jason X I remembered watching the films in my youth and resolved to see it.

This film is completely brain-dead, a bunch of corporate hacks squeezing the remaining life out of a dried up franchise. Now, many of the Friday the 13th films were pretty terrible, they were just cheap scares, usually a flash of some nubile teenage skinny-dipper and a succession of ridiculous murders, but that is still a form of entertainment. This however, is a foul travesty, a steaming pile of hideous greed.

First off they decide to cryogenically freeze Jason, because he can't be killed. I'm not sure if they tried an acid bath, or even a good incinerator but I'm sure either of those would have been a better idea. There is a ridiculous opening to the film, which results in him, and some woman who is trying to kill him, getting frozen. Cut to 2455, earth is now abandoned except for this one spaceship which comes back (I don't know why). Naturally they take Jason and the woman onboard and unfreeze them. The woman I can believe, the huge scary looking zombie thing I have a bit more difficulty with. Finally we reach the familiar part of the film; Jason stalks and kills annoying American teenagers.

Do I even need to tell you that the acting is awful, the script ridiculous and the action predictable as ever? Probably not. Jason is played by Kane Hodder, reprising the role for a fourth and final time. A couple of his opponents are Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder, supported by a big cast of second rate canon fodder. Jim Isaac directs. It conformed to the usual horror convention and lasted about an hour and a half.

The whole film can be imagined quite easily as a conversation in some Hollywood office. Resurrect Jason, totally change him, pack in loads of over the top special effects, cram the script with science fiction gibberish and have him hunt people round a spaceship. It'll be just like Alien. Except it isn't. The gadgets they have in the future are ludicrous, little nanomachines that can rebuild you in a few seconds. I'm sure you can instantly imagine why they included those, that's right so they can do the killer is dead, oh no he isn't routine again, except this time he is improved with stupid metal accessories. The victims are so devoid of intelligence it seems unlikely they could fly the space ship much less escape a crazed killer. They run around like idiots waiting for deaths to occur before thinking of trying really obvious things which you would have tried straight away if faced by a maniac intent on killing you.

The final straw for me was the idiot android woman, she caused me to hold back the bile, wipe away my tears and put my foot right through the television screen. Anyone unlucky enough to see this will know what I mean, it was just farcical. Considering how admittedly bad the earlier films were I wouldn't have thought it possible for them to make something that is this much worse. Don't pay to see this, don't encourage these people.

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