Jason X Review

Another long stretch of time passed after Jason Goes to Hell. Freddy Vs. Jason was in pre-production hell. Not a single idea was coming to fruition. Sean Cunningham decided while they were still trying to get Freddy Vs. Jason off the ground that they should do another Jason movie to keep Jason in the public awareness.

As always, we begin with the trailer. The trailer is again a great way to market the film. New Line truly knows how to market a Jason film...they just don't know how to make a good product for Jason. The trailer does spoil what was meant to be a shocking ending. That was the way they marketed the film. They marketed the film as Uber Jason movie. Uber Jason was supposed to be a surprise, but that was the point they were using to sell the movie. It's weird to end the trailer with a metal song. They promoted it as a roller coaster ride as opposed to a horror movie. Which is fine considering there's NOTHING scary about Jason X. The tagline: Evil Gets an Upgrade, is truly lackluster. I really don't like the tagline at all.

As far as the film itself...it's all right. Considering this is a ninth sequel, it's actually pretty darn good. This film is by far the jokiest of the bunch. I haven't been the biggest fan of the jokey Friday. Considering this is coming after the WORST entry in the series, by comparison this movie's great! I honestly don't have too much to complain about with this film.

I don't like that it's set in space, but it's not the franchise killer that everyone always says it is. Leprechaun 4 actually did VERY well on video. I don't like all the CGI effects. The CGI looks incredibly hokey and it really has no place in a slasher movie.

Rowen, our final girl, is one of the most unique yet. She was frozen in time for over 450 years. She knows from the start of the movie how dangerous Jason is. This is unique and is the only time in the franchise's history that this has happened. The rest of the movie she's trying to convince people how dangerous Jason is. They learn pretty quickly and the rest of the film is them just trying to flee from him. This is a nice twist on the formula that I actually quite like. Rowen is also like our previous final girl quite a bit older. She's very resourceful though. She's TOUGH. There's like 0 arc for her, but that's ok. This is the 10th film after all. She is quite memorable and for me at least is the most memorable of all of the New Line final girls.

Harry Manfredini's back once again and he does another fabulous score. It's really quite different from all of his previous scores which is way cool. They were really trying to bring Jason to a new generation.

Kane Hodder...what can I say but great as always. Jason X has the distinction of being the last time Kane played Jason. He was recast unknowingly in Freddy Vs. Jason. Kane is truly by now in the franchise's history the star of the series. He brought a lot of fans over with him from the shift from Paramount to New Line. New Line's products were really rocky and not in style or tone with the rest of the series, so he made it very easy for fans to travel over to New Line with him.

I don't really like Uber Jason either. I just don't like the concept. He doesn't seem like Jason any more when he's got that suit on. They try to explain at the beginning that he's got regenerative cells, but they blow off his head later in the movie. That doesn't seem to make sense at all. Uber Jason looks pretty crappy too, but again and I can't repeat this enough: none of these things is nearly as offensive to the series as Jason Goes to Hell.

This movie really isn't in tone with the rest of the franchise, but it's no where near the wreck that Jason Goes to Hell was. This movie also features in one scene the villain in the 12th episode of The Series. He has such a distinctive voice, but each character, he also played another character in the series, is so different, it's great. I honestly don't have much to say about this movie. I feel quite indifferent about it.

Jason X premiered on April 26, 2002. On a budget of $11 million the film grossed $16,951,798 worldwide. This was a huge disappointment for the franchise. Even though it made more money than the previous two entries, this one had the biggest budget thus far. The returns made the future of the series look really grim. Would the series survive the disappointing returns of Jason X? And whatever happened to Freddy Vs. Jason...well, we'll discuss that next time...