The 157th Review!
Tomorrow is a big days for local news, so I encourage to watch your 13abc Action News, luckily for me though, I have tomorrow off! Unluckily for me, I'm going back to the morning show until we get our producer schedule figured out, so there's that. When I went to Family Video yesterday I realized the majority of my movies were very recent. I like having some variety in my choices, so imagine my delight when I stumbled upon...
Jason X (2001)
This movie... If you're reading this, then I can assume you know horror movies, and you know a horror franchise reaches its peak when it goes to outer space: Jason, Hellraiser, Leprechaun and Critters. You might be asking yourself how this movie came to be. Well, Freddy vs Jason was in developmental hell, so Sean S. Cunningham wanted to make a movie to keep Jason fresh on everyone's mind while they waited for the green light. So after trying to figure out what to do, they thought about sending him to space. They went to the studio, and literally all they said was, "Jason in space," before the studios agreed. Now there is precedent for sending Jason to space, Mad TV did that skit before "Apollo the 13th: Jason Takes NASA" to much comedic effect.
This movie knows what it is and doesn't for one second take itself seriously. It doesn't quite go as far as Leprechaun In Space, there are no light sabers or phaser guns, but there are plenty of stupid characters. The characters and the setting are just vehicles to show off Jason's kills, and while this movie is incredibly stupid, one thing it does very well are Jason's kills. Some of the deaths are great, very inventive and unique, you can tell the writers were having fun when they put this movie together. One of the kills, the liquid nitrogen one, got so much interest, the Mythbusters gang actually tried it out... turns out, it's probably not possible.
This movie would serve as the last time Kane Hodder put on the hockey mask, which is a damn shame. No Jason comes close to Kane. He's played the monster more times than anyone (4), and even was interviewed on the "Arsenio Hall Show" without speaking a word, that's damn impressive. The actor that plays him is always a stunt man, and if you watch a Friday the 13th, you know he gets put through a lot. Some of those stunts, it's ridiculous the beating the actors take. But Kane loved the role, cherished it and protected it. In Jason Takes Manhattan, there was supposed to be a scene where Jason kicks a dog, Kane refused saying, "Jason wouldn't do that," and that was that. There's just something about the way he moves in those movies, everything is so full and rage and violence, I much prefer that than what we got in Freddy vs. Jason.
I haven't said much about the movie, plot wise, because it doesn't matter. Every character is there to be machete fodder, and that's fine, no one cares about these people, they just want to see Jason mow them down, and mow them down he does. In this one, he kills 28 people (the most in the series), and is indirectly the cause of potentially tens of thousands of deaths in one scene.
I mean, it's an incredibly stupid movie. I watched it when I was younger and hated it. I've always loved the character (my favorite movie monster), but I didn't understand what the movie was doing. I didn't quite grasp the movie wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and it's more enjoyable that way. It's mindless, goofy, gory fun. It's not quite how I'd want Kane Hodder's career as Jason to end, but if you've seen this movie, I can assure you, it's better than you remember.