horrorfan_1986

The Story

One eerie night, a woman comes into Crystal Lake to stay at a cabin. All alone, she decides to take a shower when the lights go out. Jason is home. Fleeing from Jason, she runs into the woods wearing only a towel. In a clearing, Jason chases her right into a trap. Out of every direction, FBI officers jumps out shooting round after round at Jason. Two grenades are thrown over to Jason. Hit after his destroys Jason's bodies and leaves them in several pieces. The mangled, burned and hacked up body of Jason is all that's left. Jason is finally killed for good.

We're then taken to the autopsy of Jason Voorhees. Conducted by an unnamed coroner (Played by TV's Richard Gant), it's all routine until Jason's heart begins to beat again. The heart begins to put the coroner (For fuck's sake, couldn't you have named him for IMDb's sake?) in a hypnotic state culiminating in him eating Jason's heart. Cue the special effects and it appears as if Jason's soul/spirit/whatever is in the new body. Jason lives! Two security guards (One of which is played by Kane Hodder, who ironically plays Jason) and another coroner's death later, Jason is free and on his way back to Crystal Lake.

Meanwhile, we're introduced to tabloid TV host, Robert Campbell. Campbell's guest, Creighton Duke, is a bounty hunter who claims to be the only person who knows what Jason wants and how to kill him. But he won't do it for free. Campbell agrees to a five hundred thousand dollar bounty is Duke can find evidence that Jason is alive and finally kill him once and for all...for real. Back in Crystal Lake, Duke heads into a little mom and pop diner (Perhaps the diner from part 1 that Steve Christy went to?) With Jason Voorhees all over the news, the diner is trying to cash in on the extra fame their little town has received by catering their menu to Jason. Jason burgers, Jason's fingers and many other things are up on the menu. Yum. The real reason Duke is there isn't for a taste Jason burger, but to talk with Diana Kimble. Diana isn't just anyone though, she's really Jason's long lost sister. After all of these years of killing, Duke believes that both he and Diana knows that Jason's coming home to kill her and the rest of her family (Her 20's something daughter and infant granddaughter). However, before Duke can divulge any more information, he's angers the sheriff and is taking into jail. Fearing what she just heard, Diana asks Steven (The former boyfriend of her daughter and father of her granddaughter) to come to her house tonight so she can tell him the truth about Jessica (Her daughter). Before that happens, Jason (Still as the coroner) attacks another cop and brings him to the Voorhees home. Strapped to a table naked, the cop gets a nice fresh shave from Jason (WTF?) before Jason spits a demon like tongue down his throat. With that, Jason lives on through a new body.

In his fresh new body, the cop heads to Diana's house. Diana, talking to Jessica, finds out that her daughter has a new boyfriend - Robert Campbell. Before she can talk any further, the cop attacks her. Just then, Steven comes in and tries to save the day. Diana ends up being stabbed while the cop gets away. As Diana dies off, her sheriff boyfriend comes in to find Steven standing over her with her blood on his hands. Steven is brought into Jason with the suspicion of killing Diana. Steven ends up being thrown into a cell next to Duke. Duke takes this moment to once again go on about how he's the only one to know the secret to kill Jason. Apparently, he also knows that Steven is the father of Jason's great niece. In order for Duke to tell Steven any details, he forces Steven to allow him to break some of his fingers. It seems as if the Duke gets off on the pain of others. With the idea of through a Voorhees can Jason be born and only through a Voorhees can Jason die, Steven knows that only Jessica can kill her uncle. For now, Steven has to head over to the Voorhees home to find out more information. After escaping, Steven is forced to hide in the closet at the Voorhees home when he hears a noise. As it turns out, it's Robert Campbell. He apparently stole Diane's body from the hospital and planted it in the closet. Later tonight, his TV show will come to the house for a special edition of his show. Rating ratings ratings~! Before ending the call, the cop busts through and attacks Campbell as Steven watches on. Much like the cop, Campbell has the demonic tongue like object spit into his mouth. Thus, another Jason body switch.

Both Steven and Jason in Campbell's body ends up at Jessica's house. While Steven is able to rescue her, she kicks him out of the car and drives away. Now there's appreciation. Back at the station, Campbell Jason attacks and kills several cops. Steven once again comes to Jessica's rescue. Heading over to the diner to pick up their daughter, who was in the care of a friend, Jessica finds a note stating the Duke kidnapped her and is at the Voorhees home. Before they can leave, Campbell Jason hits the diner and kills everyone in sight save for Jessica and Steven. As the cops arrive, we find that one unseen officer is attacked by Campbell Jason and the tongue is passed on. Over at the Voorhees home, Duke gives Jessica a brief lesson in how to kill Jason. In fact, he even has a special dagger for her to use. Woohoo. In comes Diana's sheriff boyfriend along with a younger cop. One of these appears to be Jason, but Jessica isn't sure which to kill. As it turns out, she makes the wrong choice and younger cop (aka Jason) grabs the baby intending to permanently pass on through the child since it's only through a Voorhees that Jason can live. All of these other bodies are temporary vessels. Steven comes in and is able to break it up in time to save the child. The young cop Jason is killed and an evil midget demonic figure crawls out. The evil midget demonic figure of Jason crawls to the basement where he finds the dead body of Diana. Crawling in between her legs, Jason is reborn. Busting through the floorboard, Jason appearing just as he did at the start of the movie looks to kill everyone. A fight continues outside of the home with Jessica in super slo-mo (very reminiscent of the first Friday ending) stabbing Jason with the magic dagger. From the ground comes several monster arms trying to pull Jason down to hell. One even grabs Steven. In a truly hysterical moment, it takes Jessica several moments to decide whether to help Steven or not. Clearly, Steven pissed her off big time prior to the events of this movie.
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In the end though, Steven is saved by Jessica and they even walk off into the sunset.

As daybreak begins, the wind uncovers Jason's mask. As the camera stays on it for a few moments, out from the earth comes Freddy Kruger's gloves pulling the mask down to hell with him. One Freddy laugh later and the credits roll. Jason is finally dead for good...for real...maybe.

The Characters

Steven - Geeky unlikely hero who ends up showing he's at least fearless in trying to protect his love, Jessica.

Jessica Kimble - As the unknown niece of Jason, she's one of the three people that Jason can be reborn through. While she formerly had a relationship with Steven, it appears as if Steven left her while she was pregnant. Currently dating Robert Campbell.

Robert Campbell - Sleazy sensationalistic TV host. Offers to pay Duke to go after and kill Jason. His dating Jessica seems to be more of a way to get closer to the Jason mythology than really dating her.

Creighton Duke - Bounty hunter by day, Duke somehow knows all of the secrets of Jason and comes to Crystal Lake to find him. Has an odd sense of enjoyment.

Diana Kimble - The sister of Jason that no one ever knew existed. The mother of Jessica, Diana seemingly was meant to be important, but youth won over closer relationships.

Jason Voorhees - Blown up early on in the film, Jason is forced to jump into bodies to stay alive. His main goal throughout the movie is to find a female relative so he can be reborn again.

The Verdict

With yet another disappointment with Jason Takes Manhattan, Paramount was finally fed up with the series enough that they were willing to sell Jason Voorhees to New Line Cinema. The two studios had been in negotiation for several years about putting on a Jason Voorhees vs Freddy Kruger (Since New Line was behind the A Nightmare on Elm Street series) movie, but with both series wanting the other studio to sign off for that one movie. Basically, New Line wanted Paramount to give them Jason for one movie while Paramount wanted Freddy for one movie. I can only imagine New Line saved a good amount of cash buying the series once the revenue declined. With Jason in their back pocket, New Line waited four full years before putting on their first Friday. This would be the first time that audiences would have to wait longer than a year for a new film. Undoubtedly, the reasoning behind that was to have fans dying (Pun intended) to see a new film. Secondly, the film would serve as a set-up film for Freddy vs Jason.

While waiting to watch this movie again, I began debating how to judge this movie. Do I judge it as a normal Friday and criticize it over and over for changing the rules, back story and general premise of Friday? Or rather, do I review it as it's own movie? Originally, I wanted to be as upbeat as possible due to the severe levels of negativity I have been giving for the past two reviews. However, I found it hard to treat it as it's own film when it isn't it's own film. I suppose one way to classify the movie is to call it a re-imagination sequel. In other words, it's a sequel, but one that acts as a remake (Of a do-over proximity) for the series. Thinking about this some, I come to the realization that you can't do this for a horror movie. When you're looking at a horror or sci-fi series, you're looking at a very core group of die hard fanatics. While the casual viewer may not be bugged by the events in this film, the main viewers will. It's these die hard fanatics that will go see the movie in the theater multiple times, buy every home video release and any other crappy marketing exploit. So what's a better way to thank a viewer for sticking with a series through some horrible movies? Let's just say 'Fuck you' to the entire series and start "Over" while still acting as if this is a sequel.

I touched on this in an earlier review about how Friday the 13th didn't really deserve the accusation of being a Halloween rip off. However, having Jason return to Crystal Lake to kill his family members is just that - a rip off. The general premise of all of the Halloween movies (With the exception of Halloween 3) was Michael Myers attempting to kill his family. What makes this even worse than being just a rip off is the fact that it doesn't make ANY sense in a couple of ways. First off, Jason doesn't have a sister or even a sibling. One of Mrs. Voorhees lines early on was how Jason was her only child. How, after now 8 movies can you suddenly act as if there was another child? But, just for the sake of argument, not much is known about Jason's father other than he left his wife and Jason early on. Perhaps Mr. Voorhees hooked up with another woman and out popped Diana. It's probably a stretch, but there's some chance it could be legit. The thing that doesn't even have any ideas to be stretched by is the fear that Jason is going to kill his family members. If there's one single person I would want to be in a Friday film, it's being a Voorhees. After all, Jason started to kill to avenge his mother's death, which she only killed to avenge Jason's drowning. You would think that being a Voorhees means Jason wouldn't kill you. Yet, Duke and Diana believes that not only will Jason kill her and her family, but also that is the sole reason why he's coming back. I can get that he needs a woman's body to be reborn, but he has no reason to want to kill anyone else. Considering we didn't even see what happened after the evil midget demonic figure of Jason crawls inside of Diana, we have no idea if the body becomes his or is the body is still intact. By all means, a Voorhees may still live after giving back the life of Jason.

The whole rebirth is another WTF moment. I can see that he's reborn, but why would he be reborn exactly as he was in the beginning of the movie? He has the old hockey mask stuck into his face and his clothes are all ripped up. Wouldn't the more realistic thing to have Jason be a maskless naked form? Think of the Terminator. After coming to earth, they were always naked. Diana must of had one hell of a womb to have Jason be reborn with clothes.

Apparently, someone forgot to tell writer/director, Adam Marcus, what was the reason behind the decline of the Friday the 13th series. The aspect that caused fans to leave in numbers was having a Jason-less Friday for the 5th installment. So what does Marcus do? He has Jason, but in every form except for the form that fans want to see him in. Who really wants to see Jason as a balding police officer? We want to see the hockey mask wearing maniac. With the exception of the beginning and end, the only times we do see that is whenever Jason walks past a mirror. Somehow, only mirrors shows the truth. Marcus is one gutsy individual to give Friday films the exact thing they hated the most.

The single biggest problem of the film is that it doesn't feel like a Friday the 13th. Magic daggers, souls passing from body to body, demonic tongues, evil midget demonic figures and monsters from hell isn't Friday. As bad and unusual as part 5 felt, for the most part, it still was a Friday in feel. It's almost as if this wasn't originally a Friday. Instead, with New Line trying to figure out how to bring Jason and Freddy together, they pulled off a script that was collecting dust on their shelves and had a writer change a few names to Jason and presto - a new Friday film.

If there was one great thing about the movie, it's the very end. No matter how bad this film was, seeing Freddy's glove come out of the ground and grab Jason's mask was a horror fan's wet dream. Instantly, so many ideas went through the heads of the fans that they couldn't wait to see the eventual versus flick. Being forced to sit through this movie would be okay since it would lead into the most epic horror movie of all time. Yes, Jason Goes to Hell would be excusable since Freddy vs Jason would be right around the corner and that would be awesome.

Apparently, New Line had other things in mind.

The Extras

Death Count: 24
(The number is unofficial since there was said to be Jason-style killings leading to Crystal Lake.)

Boob Count: 3
(With the exception of one, they're all quick as well.)

Best Kill: Deborah


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Grade: 3
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The Brain

My only gripe about Jason Goes to Hell is that it was committed to film. What a stinker. I can remember waiting to see this movie wondering, "Damn, Jason was a naked little boy at the end of the last one. I wonder how they'll bring him back."

They didn't even bother. I was pissed.

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horrorfan_1986

I guess there's a line of comics that came out around this time that explains how Jason came back to be and why the FBI were after him.

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Daddy

I hate to correct your awesomeness, but you might want to change that to Freddy's glove.
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I've loved your reviews though.

horrorfan_1986

Well technically if was Kane Hodder's arm that had Freddy's glove.
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Daddy

touche
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horrorfan_1986

The Story

The year is 2008 (Technically, the future at the time of this film release) and Jason Voorhees is in custody at Crystal Lake in some government ran building. We meet Rowan, a young sorta scientist who wishes to freeze Jason until the time comes in which we finally find out how to kill him for good. I suppose that means the Duke was wrong. However, her boss, Dr. Wimmer (Played by movie god David Cronenberg) has decided to transfer him to another center. Their argument becomes moot when Wimmer and his men finds the guard watching Jason dead. Jason slaughters everyone and goes after Rowan. Running for her safety, Rowan, unlike most of the girls Jason chases has an idea. Rowan heads towards the freezing chamber with the idea of trapping Jason inside and freezing him. Things go well up until Jason stabs Rowan through the door. The computer is alerted of the breech and closes/locks the door of the room that the chamber is in. Rowan accomplishes her goal of freezing Jason, but at the price of being frozen herself.

Now, in the year of 2455, earth is now inhabitable. Earth 2 is found and colonized while man continues to go search in space. This brings a team of students to the original Earth to see what they can find. Once on the planet, they find the old Crystal Lake military building where Rowan and Jason are kept. Upon finding the bodies, they become excited and hurries to bring the bodies back to their ship to be thawed out. Before a thawed out Rowan can stop the crew, Jason is alive again and is doing his killing like it's 1985 again. With only a few members left, Kay-Em 14, the resident cyborg of the group, is transformed into an ultra Matrix-ish killing machine. After a long fight sequence, Jason is blown to pieces and has most certainly been killed once and for all.

With the crew waiting to be picked up by a rescue ship, no one realizes that Jason fell dead right on a machine that repairs bodies to how they originally were. (Earlier in the movie, a guy with a chopped off arm uses it to be repaired). With Jason's body in total disarray, the machine must use some other materials to rebuild him. What is left is the birth of Über-Jason.


With only a few minutes until the rescue ship arrives, the survivors must figure out how to continue to survive and safely make it to the new ship. This is where the fun begins as Tsunaron (Caretaker of sorts for the Kay-Em cyborg) rigs up a virtual reality for Jason to keep him busy. We're suddenly taken back to 80's Crystal Lake. To top it off, Jason encounters a pair of women who proclaims that they want to drink, get high and they love premarital sex. If Jason had wet dreams, this is what he would dream about. Jason quickly kills the two girls in a homage to Part 8's sleeping bag kill. The rescue ship arrives, but Jason is there to stop them. Sgt. Brodski, the bad ass black military leader, grabs Jason and they go flying into outer space and burn up into the atmosphere of Earth 2. Rowan, Tsunaron and Kay-Em survives and all seems good. On Earth 2, a teenage couple sees a meteorite like object falling down to earth. They wish to go check it out. Could this be the beginning of a new planet for Jason to begin killing off?

The Characters

Rowan - The heroine of the movie. From the year 2008, she's the only one who really knows what Jason is about.

Sgt. Brodski - The closest thing the ship had to a competent leader. With a military training, Brodski proves to be one of the few that can handle Jason to some degree.

Kay-Em 14 - Female cyborg who is close to Tsunaron and proves to be one of the few that could kill Jason.

Tsunaron - Student on the ship who possibly created Kay-Em. A computer geek by nature who appears to be in love with Kay-Em.

Janessa - The leading lady from the future. Has plenty of memorable lines, but comes off as incredibly annoying. Please die.

Jason - Frozen for years, Jason comes back to kill again. He appears more human than his recent zombie turn in part 6.

Über-Jason - Jason's even more dangerous self. With armor on his chest and as a mask, he seems unlikely to be killed. The most stylish Jason has ever looked.

The Verdict

As it turned out, New Line didn't see any real improvement compared to how the series was doing with Paramount. However, as I said, the movie could be looked upon as just a way to kill time until Freddy vs Jason came out. So as horror fans, we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Sean Cunningham (Creator/owner of the series), decided just to put together another film to keep Jason fresh on the minds of people until New Line finally got their act together for the major versus film. The question was, what to do? They obviously didn't want to do anything that could mess up the eventual Freddy vs Jason, so they resorted to sending Jason in space in the future.

While extremely cheesy and generally a horrible idea for a horror movie (Just look at when Pinhead or the Leprechaun went into space), however; this was kind of a smart idea. For one, you could have a totally new movie with the addition futuristic elements. Secondly and perhaps more important is since it's taking place in the future, it still leaves room to go back and tell the tale of when Jason met Freddy. It does create a potential problem since you're not limiting when events can happen. Assuming the events of Jason Goes to Hell took place around 2002, it would only give Jason six years before being captured and eventually frozen. If the Friday crew wanted to create many more movies, they may be forced to go from Earth 2.

Normally, I hate when a series chooses to ignore a past movie. However, much like with Part 6, it helped the film out to ignore it's previous entry in the series. This is the Jason fans remember the most. Not some body hopper who can only be killed by another family member. On top of that, we get a much more human Jason than Kane Hodder was used to playing. It seems very possible that Jason can be killed. Sure, it will take a lot like it did in parts 2-4, but it's still possible. One of the mistakes the film did make was killing Jason. Über-Jason is a character who sounds like he'd be incredible, but I just hate the look of him. This is Jason after all, why does he need armor? Isn't he enough of a bad ass not to need it? The actual look of him comes off as too...fancy? The head especially just looks fake. If it wasn't for the DVD features, I would of assumed it was all CGI. I like seeing Jason look all grungy and dirty. To have him anything other is just wrong.

Speaking of CGI, there's a lot in this movie. One of my biggest criticisms of CGI is how it looks fake. For it's time (2001), the CGI comes off worse than what we were used to seeing at the time. At times, the movie appears somewhat cartoonish in it's look. I can understand why they wanted to use a lot of CGI, but the filmmakers were forgetting what made Friday the 13th stand out so much. Simple, yet great looking makeup kills (Such as Kevin Bacon from the first movie) were so impressive. With every shot having some CGI in it, it becomes an eye sore.

With the rise of slasher films in the mid 80's, so did the rise of the clever lines. Freddy Kruger was full of them. In fact, it helped make the Nightmare sequels fun even when the films itself were horrible. The problem though, is when your clever lines are neither clever nor funny. Sadly, this movie is full of them. It's not believable to be mere moments away from death and yell out, "This sucks on sooo many levels!" The film would benefit greatly if the lines would of been looked over a few more times. Even the more sub par writer could see how the lines weren't funny, right?

The truth is, while this is far from good, I found it entertaining. It wasn't meant to be anything great, but more of just a fun, carefree placeholder until Freddy could come into play. If this film accomplished nothing else, it was show that the audience wanted Freddy vs Jason. The Friday series was dead and gone with Jason X only making a couple million dollars profit. With no options left, we were finally going to get the movie we wanted for years.

The Extras

Death Count: 25
(This doesn't include accidental deaths of two, virtual reality deaths, the death of Jason or finally the entire space station of Solaris. If included, Jason X could easily have a death count in the hundreds if not thousands.)

Boob Count: 2
(And yet we don't see any nudity in the sex scene. It's all virtual reality nudity. That is unless you count Kay-Em's nipples that...fall off.)

Best Kill: Adrienne
(Finally the series has a movie with several possible choices. However, this has to be one of the best in the entire series.)

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Grade: 5
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Bigpapa42

I've always really liked Jason X, even knowing that it was pretty bad. I think you summed up why pretty well. And the Adrienne kill is my favorite in the entire series.

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Brandon

I hated Jason X. I just don't like it when Jason is removed from his element. I'm kind of contradicting myself when I say I did like Jason Goes to Hell, but at least that still stuck to a lot of things I was used to seeing in the series and I really liked how everything played out with Duke and what not.. I thought it was a perfect end to Jason.. but as we found out later on, the evil of Jason will live on no matter what body or timeline its consuming..

I didn't get the whole idea behind X. Why was Jason still running around when the last time we saw him he was sent to hell? Well.. that's sorta explained when Freddy brings him back to life, but now it ruins any further films in the series because he can never be killed off and have it be taken seriously because he was alive in the 2400's!

horrorfan_1986

Jason has been killed "For good" at the end of how many movies though? Had they continued with the same time line (As opposed to doing the remake) would you really ever believe he was killed anywhere in 2001-2007? Had Jason X been a success (The single worst return for a Friday film with just over 2 million for profit) there would of been sequels to Jason X. There's actually a book series titled Jason X. The first one is pretty much exactly what the movie was, but for every future installment, it was another sequel of sorts with Über-Jason dealing with being in the future.

Besides, this is Friday the 13th we're talking about. From Part 6 on, they didn't even try to have continuity from film to film.

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