Jason X

I finally watched Jason X.  I'd seen all of the Friday the 13ths in the '90s, but skipped Jason X when it came out.  I saw Freddy vs. Jason and the Friday reboot when they were released, but still I didn't give Jason X a chance.  Now that I have, I must say I'm glad that I did because that means I can review it and never watch it again.

While the earlier Paramount sequels were basically the same thing over and over again - Jason stalking and slashing a bunch of camp counselors - New Line's first venture, Jason Goes to Hell, which attempted to do something new, was full of fail.  In Jason X, the indestructible zombie mongoloid is cryogenically frozen for 400+ years.  He is presumed dead, but when two teenagers on a space ship start bumping uglies, Jason awakes to fulfill his duty to kill them immediately.

The futuristic setting really does not work for Jason.  This feels very much like a Sci Fi Channel (or Syfy, as it's called now for some reason) original movie, with lousy acting, effects, and story.  The body count is high, but few of the kills are interesting.  The best involves Jason shoving a girl headfirst into some liquid nitrogen, then smashing her face.  In a fun take on the "sleeping bag kill" from Part VII, Jason beats two drug/alcohol/premarital sex-loving girls to death while they're still in their sleeping bags.  Unfortunately, the rest of the 20+ kills are forgettable.

Only a fool would go into a film about Jason in space expecting it to be good, but it's not even bad in an entertaining way.  A film featuring David Cronenberg and an android whose nipples fall off should not be boring, but somehow Jason X manages to be just that.  And now I'm suddenly thinking about the possibilities had the movie featured David Cronenberg as an android whose nipples fall off...

Instead, we are subjected to watching a bunch of people we don't care about wandering around a cheesy-looking space ship set.  Jason X does get one thing right - it has a character deliver a line of dialogue which summarizes the film perfectly: "This sucks on so many levels!"