Final Girl

Jason X
A little story: when this movie came out a few years ago, my friend Scott bought a bootleg VHS copy on the street in Chinatown. One day, he handed the tape to me and said "You gotta see this movie!". I watched it, gave the tape back, and told him it was really really awful- why did he make me watch it? "Oh yeah," he said, "It's unwatchable. I turned it off halfway through.". Bastard.

Well, in the interest of this masochistic marathon, I had to sit through Jason X again...and it wasn't as bad as I remember. That's good. In fact, I treated it like it was sort of outside the series mythos, and in that context, it was almost kinda cheesy fun. Yeah, it's beyond ludicrous, but what's wrong with that? Acting like it's a proper sequel to any of the 9 films before it is ludicrous, too.

Following in the footsteps of Leprechaun, Jason ends up in space- 450 or so years from now, after being thawed from a cryogenic deep freeze nap. He wreaks havoc on the ship, and is only stopped when he's burned up in the Earth's atmosphere on re-entry.

What bothered me more than the silly premise I just described was that like so many other films in the franchise, Jason X ignores/doesn't explain/refutes what has happened before, even in the installment right before this one. At the end of Jason Goes to Hell, Jason...ummm...went to Hell. He was killed by a blood relative- he can only be killed by a blood relative, right? At any rate, he was pulled into the Earth and down to Hell by these giant, fake-looking demon hands. Now at the beginning of Jason X, he's at the Crystal Lake Research Facility (dear Lord), awaiting the cryo-chamber. No mention of Hell. No mention of Erin Gray. This is just the last resort, after the government has tried and failed to execute him so many times. It's stated that he's got the amazing ability to regenerate tissue, and scientists want to exploit this. Umm...he does? Yeah, he kept getting re-animated by people in Parts VI-VIII, but he didn't seem to grow any new tissue in that time. He got more and more...gooified. He was practically a walking dripping skeleton in VIII.

Eh, oh well, right? At least I had more fun with the movie than the first time I saw it. I can't believe how far removed Jason X is from Friday the 13th. It's like comparing Joan Rivers faces throughout time, or contrasting "Off the Wall" Michael Jackson to "Mug Shot" Michael Jackson. How are they the same creature? Me am baffled.

It took me a looong time to write this, as my functions are beginning to cease. One more! ONE MORE, MA! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!