There might be a few people that are willing to fight about this, but Jason Voorhees is a movie monster, not exactly a high point of pop culture. He’s popular, he’s an icon, and without any doubt his fame is well-known. But he’s also a slasher villain, meaning that his movies are basically an excuse to give rise to another story showing how much blood, gore, and violence can be squeezed into a movie until it becomes marketable without going over the line. The premise for every single movie has been ridiculous, the effects have been provocative on purpose, and when all is said and done, Jason is kind of a ridiculous character. It’s not meant as an offense against this prince of horror, but a way to remind people that Jason X, arguably one of the more ridiculous storylines in the eyes of many fans, wasn’t the worst among them. In fact, it’s actually one of the more interesting stories that came from the franchise but executed in a way that is absolute B-quality, just as this villain has been meant to be for so long.
The beginning of the movie is about what a person should expect, that Jason has somehow been captured isn’t even a big deal, it’s the fact that the people who have him think that they’re going to be able to keep the notorious slasher in chains. Then comes the moment when Rowan, the woman who was adamant that Jason be put into cryostasis immediately, isn’t listened to, and Jason kills the small contingent of soldiers that are sent to escort him from the premises to a testing facility. In other words, the military never learns and picks the most dangerous weapons to mess with, and generally gets their comeuppance in a very meaningful way. It would appear that even further into the future that people aren’t that bright, especially after having seen just what Jason can do.
So Jason chases Rowan around the facility, which appears to be more like an abandoned factory or storage facility until Rowan tricks him as he steps into the cryostasis chamber that was intended for him to begin with. Even as she gets close and stares him in the eye through the window that’s so conveniently set where Jason can see out, the killer stabs her by thrusting his rusty old machete through steel, penetrating Rowan’s body. As the alarms sound, the room is sealed off, effectively freezing both Jason and Rowan. The next time the door is opened, centuries have passed, and the earth has become uninhabitable as we’re treated to the view of a barren, blasted landscape across which several heavily suited individuals can be seen walking. At this point, one has to laugh since the state of the earth is enough to make a lot of people say “I told you so”. But what’s really amusing is that when the group makes their way into the same facility where Jason and Rowan are still frozen, they open the room without much effort, and enter to find two perfectly frozen specimens. When one of the characters identifies Jason’s face covering as a hockey mask, another asks ‘what’s a hockey mask?’ only to reveal that apparently in this new time, hockey has been outlawed, and things are very, very different.
The sensible thing to do with a frozen monstrosity wielding a blade would be to leave it alone, right? Yeah, well, that doesn’t happen, and people were going to expect this as the movie sees the students and their professor transport Jason and Rowan to their ship, as this is a field trip of sorts to educate the youngsters. But when Jason is taken back to the ship and thawed, with the belief that he’s quite dead, while Rowan gets the rejuvenation treatment that brings her back to life, things get bad pretty quickly. The funny thing is that the ship does have a contingent of soldiers, but they’re not much better than the students when it comes to taking on a reanimated Jason, who goes on a tear almost immediately as he shoves his first victim’s face into a sink filled with liquid nitrogen, freezing the front half of her face before he breaks it like a ripe watermelon before moving on.
This movie was a lot better than people think since it leaned so heavily into the idea of what made Jason such a holy terror for so long. It even went so far as to give the guy an upgrade when he was blown to pieces. So yes, his new form was definitely ridiculous, but it was still funny as hell since it was the type of movie that was meant to be kind of scary, but also downright hilarious. Out of all the movies, this one appeared to take itself the least seriously, and it was kind of fun, to be honest.
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