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'Friday the 13th' may have been panned by critics when first released but since then it is one of the most famous and influential horror films, the franchise containing one of horror's most iconic villains. The film is popular enough to become a franchise and spawn several sequels of varying quality and generally inferior to the one that started it all off.
Due to the location and incorporating space and sci-fi, on top of all the expected 'Friday the 13th' elements then some, 'Jason X' is certainly different and a little credit is due for that. For a 'Friday the 13th' film it and 'Jason Takes Manhattan' are pretty unique as far as the series goes. 'Jason X' is an example of different not really being a good thing.
Interesting idea and understand totally what the film was trying to do, but it was messily executed. The strengths and faults are pretty much the same as with the previous entry 'Jason Goes to Hell', excepting 'Jason X' is marginally better because it tried to be different.
A couple of creative and disturbing deaths and some inventive and stylish camera work lift 'Jason X' to a better level.
One good performance too, which comes from Kane Hodder. Again creeping and chilling the socks off the viewer as Jason.
However, those are the only praises really that can be given. The music is a little appealing on the ears, but it still doesn't have the eeriness and mystery that the pre-'Jason Goes to Hell' films had so brilliantly and doesn't fit as adeptly.
That is the least bad though of the drawbacks, which are pretty much the same as those of the worst 'Friday the 13th' films but even worse than before. Again, like 'Jason Goes to Hell', while a good deal of 'Friday the 13th' films are silly, the silliness here is overkill that it becomes insultingly ridiculous. 'Jason X' is one of the most unique conceptually of the series, but it sure is one of the strangest to the point of overdone weirdness.
'Jason X' tonally feels muddled and like it was trying to do too much with too many elements screaming of kitchen-sink. If it tried to do less it would perhaps have been a better film. Hodder aside, the acting is really horrendously amateur hour, even for the 'Friday the 13th' films where acting rarely was a strength.
Likewise with the dialogue, which is even worse than 'Jason Goes to Hell', with 'Friday the 13th' at its most taking-simplicity-to-extremes, stilted, cheesiest and lacking in taste. Scariness and suspense is nil, instead going for witless comedy and gratuitous gore and nudity. The deaths go for quantity rather than quality, and generally are not particularly imaginative or creepy. The story is paper thin and confused, with too hectically paced storytelling and there is the sense that the series has gotten really stale even with a change in location.
Overall, lame. 3/10 Bethany Cox
3/10
