Friday, October 14, 2011

JASON X: AIN'T TECHNOLOGY A BITCH!

I guess when you run out of ideas for your slasher series you send them into space. Just ask Pinhead and the Leprechaun. But that doesn't mean that JASON X sucks.  You call it a dumb slasher movie in space but think about it.   ITS A DUMB SLASHER MOVIE IN SPACE!  How cool is that? And it features the most badass slasher of them all Jason 'Will You Die Already' Vorhees.  This is a fun, badass, highly creative monster flick and it needs to be acknowledged as so.  We see Jason fight soldiers, horny teens, a nerdy robot with boobs, space marines, one astronaut, and David Cronenberg!  Think about that too.  David Cronenberg is in a FRIDAY THE 13TH film!

I am just going to assume that they took a rejected script for a FRIDAY THE 13TH film and changed the word "camp" to "space ship".  Jason kills people on a space ship instead of Camp Crystal Lake is the story.  But there is more of a creative mind put to the making of this film.  JASON X makes fun of itself yet still embraces it's the cliches from the past.  The film is more self aware kind of like SCREAM making references to the usual horror movie staples like peeking your head out to check to see if the coast is clear (which always means you die) or at the end two teens see a "falling star" and say "Lets go check it out" which is the usual excuse characters in horror movies use to find themselves with major impalement issues.  While you are watching a FRIDAY THE 13TH film, JASON X is made more like a science fiction film than a slasher flick.  Take notice of the words on the screen at the beginning of the film filling us in on the setting of our story.  The lettering is all computer text typing itself on the screen like a running program.  That is something you would see in ALIEN.  Pretty neat, huh?  Oh, yea and there are space ships and outer space stuff also emphasising that this is a science fiction movie.

There are times when a character is about to die and then suddenly the troops show up and save the day.  That is a little unusual for a FRIDAY film, don't ya think?  You can see how the film plays with the "beats" of the slasher film.  Certain times someone is suppose to die then suddenly they don't.  I like that a lot.  I like the part when a space marine guns Ol' Hockey Face down and impales him onto a hook then lifts him into the air and just for good measure shoots him in his undead legs.  A character is behaving in a smart fashion and still gets killed because he doesn't understand what he is dealing with.  That makes me think.  What exactly is Jason?  Is he a zombie or just just a really pissed off 500 year old virgin.  I guess I would be pissed off too if the only way I could have sex with the ladies is to stab them in the face repeatedly with a large machete.  Sucks to that!

My only real gripe about JASON X is the casting of the space marines.  Instead of badass hard as nails men we get pretty young actors that try to act tough but come off as nothing more than horny teens with guns that look too big for them to handle.  Seriously a couple of them look like freakin underwear models with attitude.  Not very badass.  But that isn't too much of a complaint.  There is kind of a Jar-Jar Binks comedic relief character but honestly I found him to be pretty funny and they kill him off fairly soon as to not allow him to get annoying.

Its the high level of imagination that sets JASON X above all the rest of the FRIDAY films.  It has a sense of instant classic.  It is a colorful sharp looking film yet has a slight dingy low budget feel to it.  It reminds me of Roger Corman movies like GALAXY OF TERROR or FORBIDDEN WORLD especially when Uber Cyborg Jason makes his appearance at the end.  Just when you think the film couldn't get anymore badass he goes and gets an up grade.  What a bastard.  I do like seeing Jason get blasted to pieces by that nerdy girl android in the Matrix get up.  Thanks JASON X.  You just discovered a new fetish.  Classic Monsters getting the crap kicked out of them by hot chicks.  If I start a porn website that is what it is going to be about.  What do you think?

Oh, and the best thing about JASON X is KANE HODDER IS PLAYING JASON!  There is no one that can play him better and that's all I have to say about that.


Jason (X)

1 comment:

  1. now i loved this, cause it was a general direction with other films to put them into space... but it was very fun and when he uber'd up i was like dang that is frickin' cool. not that i had sweet spot for the lead actress.

    jeremy

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