Happy Friday to everyone. I hope your day goes by fast and you get to enjoy a three day weekend. As for me, I will make bar-b-que and hang out with the wife on Memorial Day. I continue to get more feedback everyday on my articles, which fuels me to create more for my love for the Friday the 13th films. This article will be the fourth and last one of why "Jason is the scariest horror Icon today." This week I spoke briefly on two of the Friday the 13th films. They were Jason Takes Manhattan and Freddy Vs. Jason. I felt that both of these films were good films to take Jason out of the Camp Crystal Lake scene and put him in other places on the map and how this created his legacy. On this last article, I would like to discuss Jason X.
This is still another Jason classic that I still enjoy today. As of matter of fact, I watched it four months ago on Starz. I remember when this film came out, I want to say back in 2001, people were very disappointed in it. As for me, I was happy because it was another Jason film. People thought this was going to be the end of Friday the 13th films as we know it, but this was a way to keep the franchise going. I remember my dad found a newspaper article an on it. He gave it to me to read because he knew I was a big Friday the 13th nut. The article was a Jason review. It stated how horrible the film was. The critics gave it a 1 out of 5 stars. I didn't see it at the time the article came out, but it sure as hell didn't stop me getting my Friday fix. You have to keep in mind, the movie critics never give horror movies any good reviews. However, the critics don't understand that horror movies are one of the top entertaining movies in the United States and people keep going back to see them. This movie definitely makes Jason the scariest horror icon today. The guy is so brutal he can leave the earth's atmosphere, go into space and kill. Even the government can't keep him in control.
In Jason X, I really did enjoy the plot of the movie. Kane Hodder don the hockey mask for a fourth time in this film. I thought it was very cool how the beginning started out. Jason was captured by the U.S. government and being held at some Camp Crystal Lake Science Lab or Research Facility (pretty cool uh?). The government does their best to make attempts to kill Jason, but he can never die. Since they can't kill him, the best thing to do is to preserve him. The scientists preserve his cells and tissue by cooling it to sub zero temperatures or "cryogenic suspension" (trying to sound like I'm intelligent). The powers that be are intrigued about Jason's rapid cell regeneration so they want to conduct research on how to use it for their own personal game. Jason eventually breaks free, kills several soldiers that need to transport him to another area. Dr. Rowan, the main character who told the powers that be this would happen, gets Jason to follow her into this pod looking thingy and attempts to freeze Jason. Just when you thought Jason's terror comes to a conclusion, he stabs Dr. Rowan through the pod, spilling "cryonic fluid" in the room. Both of them are frozen. Now we move to the year 2455, which Earth is so polluted, the human race can't live on it. The human race lives on "Earth 2" planet. A professor, an android, and a group of students take a field trip to the Camp Crystal Lake lab. They find Jason and Dr. Rowan froze. The professor takes both of them back to the ship. They attempt to bring Jason back to life. After further test, they concluded Jason was indeed dead. The professor gets one of his students to cut and dissect Jason. Minutes later, he is told based on a phone call that Jason's body could be worth a lot of money. To everyone's amazement both Jason and Dr. Rowan come back to life. The difference is, Jason Voorhees continues his reign of terror while Dr. Rowan tries to think of an idea on how to stop it. So many different scenes in this film makes Jason very deadly. You have the kills, the fact that space can't even keep him contained, and most importantly, the debut of Uber Jason.
Before I talk briefly about the deaths, I think it's amazing how Jason destroys this ship from the ground up. The first five minutes of this film, Jason kills off all of these highly, trained government soldiers like they are nothing. Later on in the film, he encounters more highly, trained soldiers on the ship he was brought back to life on. I love how Kane Hodder portrays this Jason Character. He has the perfect built which makes him scary and intimidating as hell. The way he does Jason's walk, kills, mannerisms and other movements throughout the film makes him the best actor to play the part of Jason in the franchise. His Jason character in this film appears to be more of a human than a zombie. I compare this film to Rambo First Blood. In this Sylvester Stallone film, Rambo goes crazy after a sheriff makes him uncomfortable. He starts picking off the police force one by one with brutal kills. This is what I felt about Kane's Jason.
A little fun known fact on some research that I did on Friday the 13th movies. Part two through Part ten of the Friday films, there were a total of one hundred and twenty nine kills of the eight films. As I did the math, I averaged a total of 16.13 kills in each film. Pretty cool, eh? In this film there are a total of twenty one kills that Jason does. Here are the kills in order in Jason X. The first death that occurs is on Private Johnson. It is hard to tell what happens to him because it is an off camera kill. Next kills are on a group of soldiers. First soldier- blow to the head, second soldier- friendly fire, third soldier-blow to the head and fourth soldier-strangled to death. The next victim, Dr. Wimmer, met his fate by being speared to death. This next kill, Seargant Marcus, was hard to make a determination because it was off camera. Further research indicates that this could of been stabbing to death. Next victim to die is Adrienne. I felt this was the best and most creative kill of the film. She experiences liquid nitrogen in her face after her head gets dunked by Jason. Her face appears to be frozen than gets smashed in. Stony gets stabbed to death with some sort of surgical instrument. (Jason Voorhees M.D.). Arazel she gets her neck broken. Dallas gets her head smashed in. Condor is basically impaled while Gecko throat gets slashed. Gecko's death reminded me kind of a Rambo style type death when Jason sneaks behind her and cuts her throat. Briggs gets cut in half. Professor Lowe gets his head chopped off. In this film we do experience a collision between the space station and the Grendel, but we don't know how many deaths occurred. Cruth gets electrocuted to death. Kinsa dies due to a shuttle crash. Waylander blows himself up with a grenade on a failed attempt to kill Jason(Ballsy move). Space is the reason for Janessa's death. I am not sure about Sergeant Brodski's death because I feel it's debatable. The film doesn't indicate if he dies or if he survives but when I do my research on the internet, sources are saying he indeed is a victim of the hands of Jason. So therefore, I will count him as the last kill of the film. He dies by entering the atmosphere with Jason. I do apologize for not going into too much detail about the kills. The kills are the reason why I still watch the film today. I feel that Kane Hodder did an excellent job for his final film as Jason. I urge you guys to watch the movie again if you haven't done so.
In Jason X, the director went with a new look for Jason. This was the debut and only film of Uber Jason. As much as I liked the Uber Jason look, I prefer the traditional, hockey mask Jason the best. Uber Jason was so bad ass in this film they did a spin-off and made it into a comic. The comic is called Jason vs Uber Jason. I haven't read the comic myself, but I'm sure it's a good read. In the film, I do like how they created the Uber Jason. In the scene, Sergant Brodski basically gets his ass handed to Jason. Tsunaron, an android built by one of the students, shows up to aid Brodski. Tsunaron doesn't come alone. She is fully upgraded with a KM-14 and other deadly weapons to stop Jason's reign of terror. She has a new set of fighting skills making her one bad chick. She fights Jason off without a problem. She shoots Jason's right arm, left leg, rib cage, and pretty much his whole head. He falls into this high tech medical station. Jason is finally dead or we think?
Everything seems to be going as plan because the team receives a reply back from their distress call due to the fact that their ship is going down and they got rid of that nuisance with the machete. The remaining people on the ship start setting explosives up about an hour or so after the confrontation with Jason. They are doing this to separate the ship from the main sector. As they are completing their mission, we see a very detailed scene of how the damaged, medical station brings Jason's body back to life looking like a cyborg known as Uber Jason (a.k.a Jason on steroids). Now this is what makes the cyborg Jason scary. He has red evil eyes, he is full of armor making it impossible for anything to go through his body, he looks like he put 15 pounds of muscle on. His arms, legs, chest, and abs are more define. This guy looked like a body builder making him more intimidating than traditional Jason.
Uber Jason seems to be more intelligent and more tough and he proves that with the holographic simulations. The android that whipped up on him earlier is getting a whipping by Jason. He knocks her head off. Another scene to this movie is when we see Jason punch a hole through the ship. I haven't seen Jason punch through something that strong in his films. I thought I was going to get a taste of the incredible hulk show made in the 70's. At one point, I thought Jason was going to flex his muscles and growl. No matter what the survivors do they can't stop him. They tried to distract him through the holographic simulations like I mentioned, but it only takes him a second to realize they are escaping the ship while trying to beat the holograms of teenagers to death. Sergant Brodski goes to blows with Jason allowing the survivors to escape. The ship explodes, the survivors are rescued and think they are in the clear from Jason until they turn around and see Jason floating in Space(I laughed so hard on this). They can never get a break when it comes to Jason because it's almost like a dingle berry you can't shake off. Jason is making his way towards the survivors. Like Waylander, Brodski risks his own life by tackling Jason sending them both battling in space at light speed. The survivors receive their happy ending. Brodski and Jason both go into "Earth Two's" atmosphere where they both meet their deaths. The ending or cliffhanger of the movie have to deal with two teenagers. They see what appears to be a "falling star" and they want to check it out. We see Jason's mask go to the bottom of the lake indicating that he isn't really dead and the franchise will continue with more future films to come.
This is my conclusion to "why Jason is the scariest horror icon alive." In my opinion, this film gives you a sense of what Friday the 13th series would look like in a futuristic environment. This is what would happened if Jason had a cameo on Star Trek or Star wars. I could picture Jason destroying Darth Vader's army and death star or destroying the enterprise. I could actually see a light saber battle between Jason and Darth Vader. However, Jason won't have a light saber, he will have his weapon of choice, the machete. Luke Skywalker will never know who is father is because Vader's head would be decapitated. To all the Jason X haters, we can't say this movie was a disappointment because this was another prime example of what Jason can do outside of the realm of Camp Crystal Lake. Before you get on your soap box about how horrible this movie was than watch Leprechaun 4. After watching that movie, Jason X might not be so bad. I really want to say Leprechaun four copied Jason X but it came out in 1997 while Jason was released in 2001. However, I will say Leprechaun four copied off "Hellraiser Bloodline." No offense to Warwick Davis. I did like his work in Willow and Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. With that being said, his Leprechaun character could never stand a chance against Kane Hodder's Jason character.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to read my series on "Why Jason is the Scariest Horror Icon Today." I greatly appreciate all your feedback, positive or negative. Going forward, I hope you check out my future projects on my fansite.