Jason X Movie Review

Just like with the previous film in the series eight years earlier, I only watched this for a sense of completion. Technically I shouldn't have even included it in this October series as it's meant to be a personal journey through my childhood memories of horror films, but I also wanted to list out all the deaths in the Friday the 13th series. Also, it just seemed wrong to leave this out. My friend and I rented this ten years ago and had good fun with it.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

I’m trying to imagine how the idea for Jason X was pitched to New Line Cinema in such a way that they were willing to give it a green light. Not only that, but it actually got a theatrical release. How do you think they sold an idea for Jason Voorhees to be frozen and then thawed out 450 years in the future so that he can continue his killing spree aboard a space ship? “Get this: Jason in space,” is the only phrase you would need, I suppose. And if that’s how it was presented, it’s no wonder that what came out the other end of production was the mind-blowingly bad film I just watched – for the second time! Yes, I watched it on a lark with a friend many years ago. How could we not? But I had blocked most of it out. Readers, I assure you that this is a true stinker with one minor – very minor – saving grace that I still found hysterical.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday Movie Review

I rented this in high school not because I thought it would be any good or even because I thought it might scare me, but just out of some kind of loyalty to the series. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to see this thing through to the end. Wasn't scary in the least.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

When the torch for Friday the 13^th was passed from Paramount to New Line in the early 90s, the series had already gone from bad to worse before passing into Oh My God That’s Terrible. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday pushes past the limits of “so bad it’s good” and falls into an abyss I would like to call “so bad it has virtually no redeeming value and should never have been considered and those responsible should lower their heads in shame as they fall on their swords.” It takes the whole mythos of the franchise, lights it on fire and then pisses on the ashes. It doesn’t even have the redeeming value of being movie at whose shortcomings you can laugh.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan Movie Review

This one I used to catch quite a lot on cable. It contains my all time favorite death in a horror movie so it holds a special place in my heart for that. It also takes place (a small portion of it, anyway) in the city I love. But did it scare me as a kid? Probably a little, but the setting of New York City made it much less scary.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

Jason frightens some Times Square punks.

Where else could they take it, really? After a mother seeking vengeance for her drowned son; the same son come back seeking vengeance for his beheaded mother; the reins taken over by a third killer; the reins taken back by Jason; and Jason squaring off against a girl with telekinetic powers, what could possibly come next in the Friday the 13^th series? Well, in Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, we find out.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood Movie Review

This particular chapter didn't figure quite as strongly in my childhood as the two on either side of it. I'm not sure why that is. I know I saw it, or most of it, piecemeal on TV. But my memories of this were scattered.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

It becomes fairly obvious by the seventh film in the series that the Friday the 13^th franchise was desperately seeking new ideas. So in Friday the 13^th Part VII: The New Blood, instead of simply unleashing Jason onto an unwitting group of youths in the woods, screenwriters Daryl Haney and Manuel Fidello decided to provide him with an adversary he’d never seen before. That’s how we wind up with Tina Shepherd, a teenager blessed (or cursed depending on your perspective) with the power of telekinesis. Her abilities are introduced in a brief prologue in which she accidentally kills her father by causing the collapse of a dock at Crystal Lake.