Harefooted Halloween: Jason X

What I Liked: They used a blend of practical and CG effects and it looks alright.  Half the CG isn’t terrible which is a relief but the other half is about as awful as it gets for the early 2000’s.

I’m stretching a bit on this but the most famous kill of freezing a woman’s face in liquid nitrogen (or whatever super cold liquid it’s supposed to be) and then smashing it on the counter causing it to shatter into a billion pieces is genuinely kind of disturbing.  Like it made me squirm.  There’ something about the harshness of absolutely obliterating a person’s face like that in an instant and only leaving behind a portion of the neck and back of the head.  Usually I know what types of kills get to me and this is a new one that I didn’t know I would react so strongly to.  So good job on making me feel icky movie?

What I Didn’t Like: All the sci-fi stuff is really generic.  I don’t think there’s anything original about the spaceships, technology or aesthetics.  You can get away with that if the story and characters are more robust but not in this case.

Wow, I do not dig the Uber Jason design.  Does anyone else think the metal chunks just look like shitty molded plastic?  He looked better as regular Jason which, to the film’s credit, the form he’s in for most of the running time.

Overall Impressions: I can understand wanting to break out of the rut of Jason in the woods killing teens but spaceships and androids and miraculous medical nanotechnology isn’t the best direction for the series in my opinion.  They were exploring some fairly interesting territory with Jason Goes to Hell where the spirit of Jason can pass from person to person through a huge worm-like creature.  Couple that with the Evil Dead theory that they’re actually part of a shared universe and you had something to go on.

Look, I feel a little bad being so dismissive of this entry because a lot people worked hard on it and weren’t trying to make a dreadful picture.  But it’s pretty boring and just feels so cheap.  Maybe Jason in space could legitimately work somehow.  I dunno.  I don’t have the patience for sci-fi schlock though.