31 Flavors of Horror #31: Jason X

Oh, my darlings, it's that day. October 31st. Halloween. The last entry in my interminable daily slog through horror movies, both good (ahem) and bad for the year. For this final entry in the 31 Flavors of Horror (and yes, I'm just as done with the name for the year as you are, faithful reader), I had no choice but to wrap it up with one last call on my machete-totin' main squeeze... 

I first saw this in theaters when it came out in 2001, making this the X anniversary of number X, no less. It was a sparsely attended matinee, but I still found the movie to be a helluva lot of fun. Does it hold up? Let's find out!

31 Flavors of Horror #31:
Jason X

So here we are, with that last trip to the well before that buttinsky Freddy shows up and then you have to go and reboot with that twink from Supernatural (which, yes, I do secretly watch, obsess, and dwell over, why do you ask?). You've been with me now through nine other entries and damn if our relationship hasn't grown. I met your mother, put up with a certain prude (kaff *Part 3* kaff), put up with stand-ins, your Carrie phase, and went on a road trip with you. Now here we are, at the end of our long and lovely courtship... and you have to go and jet off somewhere new...

...like Hell. This excursion to the very dry well opens in a (now seemingly old school) Hell inside the very crust brain of Jason V. He's being shot up wit hchemicals as there's some serious science going on in this flick. Turns out Jason's quite trussed up and held captive at the "Crystal Lake Research Facility" and they're going to freeze him. It's not quite clear what they're researching, or why they'd want to freeze this psycho... or how he got from Hell at the end of the last flick to here. Also, at some point he grew a different head of hair, got a new mask and a smart look in his eye.

Of all the people to show up, the last one you'd expect is film director David Cronenberg. His Dr. Wimmer is here to yank Jason from Dr. Rowan (Lexa Doig), the obligatory hot science chick, in order to study Jason's ability to keep coming back time and again. It's sequelitis, not biology.

(Sci-Fi cliches abound ahead... and, I use the term "nipplemaster")

31 Flavors of Horror #27: Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday

 Number Nine? Nine of these things? You have got to be kidding me...


Well, here we are again. One more (exceedingly long-winded) trip to the well, and this time New Line's payin' for dinner. Since you got melted to childhood by toxic waste last time, I didn't think you'd come sniffing around again, but it's another Friday and you're back to wine and dine me.


Even worse, in this one, there's only slightly more Jason than there was in the first Friday the 13th. Like Charlton Heston in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, or Pinhead in any latter Hellraiser flick, he's more framing device than character.


Shall we?

31 Flavors of Horror #27:
Jason Goes To Hell

New Line opens this flick with some warbly music that leads into the signature musical cues as a sleek convertible drives through the sunset up to a cabin that's supposed to be near a certain lake, but has a decided lack of forest and a mountain behind it. This is not your Paramount Pictures Crystal Lake. The driver is a lone pretty lady, all alone and solo-like, arriving at a well-kept cabin in the woods. I think it's safe to assume where this is heading even if her only defining characteristics are her bee-stung lips and baseball cap. She leaves doors open behind her, ducks out of the mirror frame, and lets us watch her strip down to her thong and beyond as she gets ready to shower. Short of putting a "Come and get it, Jason" neon sign in the window, I don't know what she's hoping to accomplish. When the lights go out, our gal pal puts on a towel and heads out to investigate and, sho' nuff, Jason shows up, swinging his machete and showing off some very stringy hair. Towel-girl evades him and runs off into the woods, somehow acquiring shoes in the long shots, and... lures Jason into a grove filled with armed SWAT team members. Turns out she wasn't just a stereotype, she was a decoy.

Overkill be damned they proceed to shoot up and then blow Jason up to a pile of itty bitty pieces, including his still-beating heart. The job might be well done, but the Captain from 21 Jump Street (Stephen Williams) is lurking in the woods, trying to be his best badass in a duster and chewing a stogie, and says "I don't think so." Being that Jason's heart still seems to be beating I'd think that's a fair assessment.

(After the jump, I pick this puppy apart, and mangle the English language to create the phrase "Mer-Gremlin lookin' Ghoolie")

31 Flavors of Horror #21: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Another day, another taste of October horror reviews. As I've worked through so much of the Friday the 13th oeuvre this month I may as well start thinking now about tackling the Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, or Halloween series for next October.

Will any of them be able to stand up to my man, Jason? I doubt it... I also have too much respect for both of us to consider the Children of the Corn series, so don't worry your pretty little heads about it.

Picture me biting my knuckle and holding the back of my other hand (which is clenching a handkerchief that is sodden with tears) against my forehead while bemoaning "Oh, Jason! Why can't I quit you? You're no good for me. You don't communicate. You go off and die for years at a time. You're just not responding to my needs... and you're starting to smell a bit."

31 Flavors of Horror #21:
Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Paramount was scratching the bottom of the barrel with Part VII, which I, like many, call "Jason vs. Carrie," but by Part VIII (number eight for you non-Roman types) they'd punched thru said bottom and were clawing the earth beneath it. Personally, I think they must've taken the title from The Muppets Take Manhattan. Someone got the bright idea of the image of Jason Voorhees incongruously planted in the middle of Times Square and a movie had to be built around it.

So, one more trip to the well. One more Friday night with my main dead, deformed man-child camp-counselor-killer squeeze... and right from the start I know I'm in for a crappy Friday night. This movie opens with stock shots of New York and a voice-over from what I'd assume is supposed to be a DJ... but mostly just sounds like a delusional douchebag who thinks he's a poet. Bad Skinamax jazz, set-dressed grit, and some tastefully clad street junkies complete the "NY milieu." This is not just a long way from Crystal Lake, this is a long way from the actual franchise.

A quick dip by Liberty Island and we transition to what I assume must be Crystal Lake, where psycho douchebag DJ spews some ominous plot exposition in a dedication about the senior class of  Lakeview High taking a road trip to the big, bad city. (Lakeview High? Considering this series is populated with bussed in counselors and creepy old coots -there's even a Crazy Ralph in the form of a deckhand in this one- I find it hard to believe there's much of an educational system around Camp Blood.)

(Magnificent, towering amounts of snark follow)

31 Flavors of Horror #20: Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood

I think what I like more than my compact, rational reviews are the pieces like this... where I just watch a movie and comment on the proceedings in a generally snark-filled manner. The trashier the cinema, the more I enjoy myself when I'm doing it. And believest thou me, The Friday the 13th series is a delicious, campy (ha- see what I did there) treat. Yesterday's flavor was all boobs and blood, but this is more people who act like boobs at "Camp Blood"...but with superpowers thrown in. Just for funsies. My dates with my main-machete-man, my eye-poppin' squeeze, Jason V., are settling into a comfortable rhythm at this point. Is the romance dead? Keep reading and find out.

Bonus: I've had some trouble deciding if I should use the roman numeral conceit in the titles of these films. I hadn't yet, and really, the original movies didn't really start using them until number six, or VI. So, from here on out, I'm going to use the roman numerals. It only applies to this and the next one, but what the hey? Tradition!

31 Flavors of Horror #20:
Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood 

Oh, Paramount? Why must you shamefully whore out my sweetie so? At a seventh Friday night date I think it's fair to say we're going steady, but you work him to the bone. He brings you money and you treat him like the red-headed stepchild.

Sigh.

Seven opens with a montage and a little narration just to let us know that he's an unstoppable zombie-killer in-the-woods who'll take out anyone who shows up in his path, heavily weighted to clips from Part Six. Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma, yeah-yeah-yeah big deal. This time he's bringing the Kane Hodder-y goodness and his hussy psychic gal pal along, so it should be a memorable evening.

This is the one that got nicknamed "Jason Vs. Carrie," after all. So first off, we get the establishing shot of Jason still anchored in the lake. He's either drifted or a lot of time has passed because not only has he changed outfits and gotten wrapped up in some vines, but he's now anchored in front of a somewhat rundown house instead of the reformed "Camp Slaughterteens." It's not going to be easy to suspend disbelief here. Telekinesis I'll give you. Unstoppable zombie killers, fine. Put 'em together, I'll go with it. Simple continuity and geography errors... and, oddly,  it's a bit of a stretch.

(Spoilers, and general bitchcraft ahead)

31 Days of Horror #17: Friday the 13th: Part 6: Jason Lives

 Another night out with my main-machete-man, Jason Voorhees, and he's back to the boring, driven killer zombie and mama's boy that I first fell for, lo those many moons ago. Another helping of Friday the 13th action for you during the 31 Flavors of Horror month of October.

My little bonus anecdote is towards the bottom of the review and it regards Jennifer Cooke. Our leading lady wound up relaxing after her time in the trenches with a cup of Sleepytime, my most favorite of teas. Check it out!

31 Flavors of Horror #17:
Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives

Ok, now these dates are just getting predictable. This is our sixth "Friday night" together, and you brought your mother for the first 3...

Is the passion waning? After the "Dead Fuck" of part four and dead fish that was part five, you gotta bring your A-game if you wanna spend this Friday night with me, Jason. Are you up to it?

Well, at least this one looks better. Films three and five were pretty damn bland and ugly and four wasn't much of a winner. A newer, blonder Tommy -this time the dishy Thom Matthews of The Return of the Living Dead and Albert Pyun's muse -and Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter ditch the asylum and go dig up Jason's coffin - an act the movies always make look much easier than it'd really be. I think the editing helps. So they crowbar up the lid and reveal one gruesomely cobwebby, rotted, worm-riddled bag of bones. Well, Tommy wisely chooses to grab a big iron bar and stab the crap outta that corpse (Horshack wisely observes "oh, shit") and chucks the mask in. Then shit gets hokey. Two big lightning bolts hit that iron bar, and our decayed corpse proves to have beautifully un-decayed brown eyes.

(Lots of Spoilers follow, and if you had psychic powers like Tina, you'd know that...)

31 Flavors of Horror #13: Friday the 13th, Part 5: A New Beginning

I had no choice but to feature a Friday the 13th title for the 13th entry of 31 Flavors of Horror... unfortunately I shoulda timed things out better so it wouldn't be one of the really bad ones. This is as opposed to the others, who're just "the bad ones." This was not the best of my "dates" with Jason. It's like he wasn't even there... 

I found it best to pass the time with this one by coming up with nicknames for characters... 

...and napping.

31 Flavors of Horror #13
Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning  

Another Friday, another night in with Jason. In this, part five, things start to get a little unusual, as it's the "whodunnit" of the Friday movies. This one opens up with a bang. We're immediately stomping around in the stormy woods, in impossibly heavy rain. Corey Feldman is back, in a raincoat visiting the annoyingly well-tended grave of serial killer Jason. He arrives just ahead of a few profoundly stupid men, egging each other to dig faster into the grave in what sure seems like their sublimation of their attraction to one another.

Anyhow, int he well-lit woods, during this typhoon rain, the two dumb-asses open the casket and get killed by the worm-riddled Jason. It was probably irresponsible of whoever buried him to throw the machete in there. I mean, clearly they didn't read the script. Jason then stalks after terrified little Tommy and brings the machete smack down on him... but it was all a dream. Stupid cop-out.

Tommy wakes up as a different actor who looks nothing like him, who could be anywhere from 6 to 15 years older. Evidently he also wakes up a whack-a-doo, as he's a van labeled for the loony bin.

(Lots of spoilers ahead)

31 Flavors of Horror #11: Friday the 13th, Part 4: The Final Chapter

Number 11 in my 31 Flavors of Horror series, and it's another night out with my main-machete-man, Jason Voorhees. I fear Significant Other will start to get jealous, but then I just picture Jason getting run over with a Volvo and I know my home life will be just fine. Tomorrow, we're taking a break, but since Thursday is the 13th of the month, you can probably guess what's coming then...

31 Flavors of Horror #11:
Friday the 13th, Part IV: The Final Chapter 


Oh, my gosh, it's like I'm in some sort of masochistic relationship ("He hit me with a machete and it felt like a kiss") and I'm back for part IV, or "4" if you're not a Classical Roman.

We kick off with a zippy montage that mixes footage from the first three to get you up to speed, not that much homework is required to know what's going on. We then pick up at the scene of the last film, with police bagging axes and taking away bodies. "He got seven kids and three bikers," so, perhaps sadly, Dana Kimmell lives to bore another day.

An antsy ambulance crew takes Jason to the morgue where we meet my favorite movie type, the sloppily-eating coroner! The staff here is as randy as Haddonfield General's, and we all know that it's the proximity of mediocre sexual activity that provokes Jason. I'm not sure what channel ran soft-core aerobics, but that's what the horny coroner's watching when he gets a saw to the neck. Jason guts his sexy nurse friend, and we jump to the jiggly mom and daughter Jarvis jogging in the woods.

This is where we meet our real star, Corey Feldman, as Tommy Jarvis, the video-game and movie make-up obsessed stand-out of the series. His story kinda mirrors Jason's by the end of things. His life will be ruined by horny teens calling up the murder of his mother in the woods beside Crystal Lake (the movie came out in 1984, so I don't care about spoilers).

(Lots of spoilers ahead) 

31 Flavors of Horror #10: Friday the 13th, Part 3 in 3-D

Day 10 of the 31 Flavors of Horror - 1/3rd of the way to Halloween, and we have... yet another sequel. Well, in my defense, I was given a three pack and then, as you'll see soon, I got a bit carried away since. I happen to be a bit of a compulsive when it comes to sequels. If I see one, I feel I should see 'em all. In sequence. So, four Resident Evils last week and now we're on our third Friday the 13th... sensing a trend yet? I am. Don't worry, they won't ALL be sequels... just a fair bunch of them will.

I also like to pretend that watching the movies are like little "dates" I'm going on with my main-machete-man, Jason Voorhees. I adore him so. The strong, silent, rotty type...

Don't like it? Pick 31 for me to watch and review for next year. (Gee, I hope I don't regret saying that...) 

Bonus: I stumbled across this terrific blog from 2009 featuring 3D images from the movie. This whole blog is worth checking out.

31 Flavors of Horror #10
Friday the 13th, Part 3 in 3-D

Date number three with Friday the 13th should be the big one. Third dates are traditionally where the fireworks go off, right?

As Part 3 opens, we go straight from Ginny from number 2 to one really annoying local couple. Billowing 3D laundry isn't the most exciting way to start a horror movie, but seeing the low-rent blowsy Sandy Dennis wannabe get it for whining at hubby Harold is worth it. They're really such a cartoonish and awful couple that it's practically a delight to finally watch them die (especially after we have to join him on the john before he does). As they're locals and not related to the camp, one can only assume he kills them because they're awful people.

Then, sadly, you meet Kris, Dana Kimmell, and learn they'd be a much better pair of leads. Kris is a sex negative stiff who immediately mentions something ominous happened to her a long time ago at the lake. Plot exposition also introduces us to the obnoxious jokester Shelly ("would you be yourself, if you looked like this?") the walking fat joke, 4 sex-hungry teens, Kris, and a pair of stoners who could out-toke Cheech and Chong head off to a vacation on Crystal Lake at her family farm.

(Lots of spoilers ahead) 

31 Flavors of Horror #9: Friday the 13th, Part 2

Another day, another taste of the 31 Flavors of Horror. Most of the genre's success is owed to horror movies. In fact, most of Paramount's fortunes during the 1980's is built on the cash brought in by Jason Voorhees and his lovely mother. Both of those things mean that sequels are unavoidable in general, and this month in particular. So, settle in... over the next few weeks I'm going on several excursions with my main-machete-man, Jason.

(Significant Other isn't worried about this assignation, having self-esteem healthy enough to not be threatened by a zombie-slasher with bad social skills from the movies.)

31 Flavors of Horror #9:
Friday the 13th, Part 2


Why am I trudging through the Friday the 13th movies again? I haven't seen them since my teens, and they are at heart movies directed at teens. My teens were a while back, so it seems I'm choosing to revisit the series as a supposed grow-up out of some need to re-embrace the fun distractions of my youth. Can it really be juvenilia if you never give them up, these comic books and horror movies? I like to think my embracing them to this day means I was a prodigy with advanced interests for my youthful years.

Part II opens with Alice (Adrienne King), the "final girl" from the first film, and her ever expanding mushroom-hairdo in her fern-filled, badly decorated apartment. Seems Jason, the dead kid from the first movie is not only (retconned into being) alive, but has bothered to drag his rotting ass out of the forest and over to Alice's clutter-filled home. He even considerately brings his mother's head along with him. I kinda picture him carrying it around in a bowling bag. Alice gets one final shower, crank phone-call, and "spring-loaded cat" in before (sadly, I think) getting her loose end tied up. It may be just as well as the apartment made it look like she was turning into both a bad artist and a hoarder.

(Lots of spoilers ahead)