Movie Review: Jason X (2001)

The movie stars Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, David Cronenberg, Markus Parilo and Lisa Ryder.

I'm not a big fan of the Friday the 13th movie series, mostly because I've always thought Jason Voorhees was a little overrated as a horror movie villain (and, in some cases, a little wimpy). However, when I came across this film on Netflix last night, I thought the description was intriguing and decided to give it a chance. As it turns out, I actually found myself enjoying this installment.

OK, let me start out by saying this is not the perfect horror movie by any stretch of the imagination. There is a little too much sex and gratuitous nudity (especially in the beginning) and some of the characters are annoying to the point I hoped they would be killed quickly. Plus, for a group of people from the future that have never even heard of Jason Voorhees (Hodder), they seemed awfully quick to dismiss the 21st-century scientist (Doig) that actually knew what he was capable of.

Despite this, there were quite a few things about this movie I did like. One of the big ones was, unlike some of the other movies he's been in, Jason was pretty bad ass in this film, taking on trained soldiers and eventually getting an awesome upgrade that made him even more dangerous than he was before.

Another thing I liked about this movie was, with the exception of not listening to the scientist, most of the characters made somewhat smart choices when trying to escape the killer, such as locking doors behind them in an effort to slow him down and buying time by using 25th-century technology to distract him.

I also liked how the movie managed to avoid being too serious by including some clever one-liners that managed to keep the mood light even as Jason was killing people. A lot of movies from this genre forget slasher films are supposed to be fun and it's refreshing when one remembers that.

Based on my past experiences with movies from this film series, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this movie. But, it turned out to be better than I was expecting and I would recommend it as a result.

My Grade: B