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Tuesday
April 30, 2002
Funny, gory Jason
X' delivers exactly
what it intends to
'Friday' star believes
Jason rules in space
By Lyle Henretty
Daily Arts Editor
Certain movies must be judged
by different standards, as they are
trying to elicit a reaction from a
specific niche within the public,
and not create cinematic history or
even a quality film. If a comedy is
truly funny, then it is a success. If
the tenth installment of a tired hor-
ror franchise that was nothing more
than a rip-off of another tired hor-
ror franchise is enjoyable and gory,
than it is a success.
"Jason X," the latest installment
of the "Friday the 13th" series, is a
success. It wallows in its own
exploitive, low-budget, gore-as-
pornography glory, taking every
opportunity to thrust long metal
objects through the supple flesh of
whoever happens to be in the area.
It is self-conscious and obnoxious,
and it holds no pretense of being
anything but an awful movie,
which it is. But for all the right
reasons.
While the previous installment
(1993s "Jason Goes to Hell: The
Final Friday") saw villainous pro-
tagonist Jason Voorhees (Kane
Hodder) destroyed "once and for
all," it is quickly
revealed that
Jason survived
that and sev-
eral other
encoun-
ter s
with
the
reaper. The avid viewer meets upW
with the hockey-masked hero in
2000, the year the movie was fin-
ished and ready for release, and
finds him chained up in a cryo-
genic laboratory awaiting his own
government-sanctioned deep
freeze.
This is all spoiled by a creepy
doctor (cult director David Cronen-
berg in a cameo), who shows up in courtesy of New Lne Cinema
the dead of night (when most gov- Does this make sense? Does it matter?
ernment-sanctioned cryogenic
research is performed, I'm told) Ultimately, theirs a few hot chicks,
and attempts to take Jason for one of them "the sarcastic one,"
research. Long story short, Jason another a kick-ass robot. None of
kills everyone except the beautiful them were hired for their prior
Doctor Rowan (Lexa Doig), and Shakespearian experience.
the two accidentally end up freez- Once on the ship, the plot
ing one another, only to be roused becomes sub-"Alien" garbage, with
in the year 2455. the crew accidentally destroying a
That's right, like his space station, and Jay-
erstwhile fellow slash- -N bird slowly moving
ers Pinhead and The through (or pushing
Leprechaun, Jason I ** drills through) each
leaves behind his old character. The joy of
stomping ground of JASONX the movie is in the
out just how claustro- At Showcase and director James Isaac
phobic he can make a moves the film from
sp a c e s h i p New Line Cinema one spectacularly bru-
feel. tal kill to the next.
C o n v e n i e n tl y, Since Jason began slaying sala-
there are lots of cious teens in the early '80s, he has
neo-halter-top- always been the most extreme of
wearing young the "Halloween" rip-offs. He walks
space coeds and and stalks just like John Carpen-
a n o n y m o u s 1 y ter's Michael Myers, and his face-
attractive solders less mask is even less expressive
for Jason to eat than the backwards prosthesis of
through in his first Captain Kirk. Yet where the Hal-
few minutes of re- loween films (which gets another
animation. The treatment later this summer with
ships inhabitants "Halloween: Resurrection") have
are the students clung to the notion that they can
of Prof. Lowe, replicate the success of the origi-
(J o n a t h a n nal, the "Friday" folks have decid-
Potts) and the ed to embrace the bizarre.
mii i t a r y Ever since Jason got out of the
cohorts of woods and into Manhattan in the
Sergeant eighth installment, the filmmakers
Brodski, (including Sean S. Cunningham,
b u t director of the original and execu-
n o n e tive producer on this installment)
of this have understood that Jason, as a
really concept, has gone from a premiere
mat- bogeyman to camp of Liza Minelli
ters. preportions.
The reason that "Jason X" works
is not because it's a good movie but
quite the opposite, because, like an
old-fashioned exploitation movie,
it gives the audience what it wants:
Blood, gore, terrible one-liners and
attractive astronauts not afraid to
get down and dirty, even if it
Courtesy of New Lne Cinema results in decapitation.
By Lyle Henretty
Daily Arts Editor
Kane Hodder cuts to the chase. "We
set a record for kills in this one. Twen-
ty-eight, seven in the first two-and-a-
half minutes."
Actor/stuntman Hodder has played
Jason Voorhees for the past four "Fri-
day the 13th" films, more than any
other actor. About playing the '80s hor-
ror icon again in the current "Jason X"
an enthusiastic Hodder spoke with The
Daily. "This is defiantly the best one
that I've done. Even though it takes
place in space, it's the same Jason."
Hodder, who has worked on films as
diverse as "Se7en" and "A Night at the
Roxbery," claimed he originally landed
the role simply because his "size was
conducive for playing Jason." For his
latest run as the titular machete-wield-
ing baddie, director James Isaac gave
Hodder sway over his character.
"Any scene having anything to do
with Jason had to do with my input.
All of the violent scenes." Of which,
the actor promises, will be more spec-
tacularly gruesome than ever. "Yeah,
we put more into this one, more
money."
After doing stunts on more than
fifty films and appearing behind a
hockey mask for his most famous act-
ing role, Hodder is ready for a little
credit. "Ideally, I'd like to act and not
have to do stunts. It's nice to get your
face on camera."
Hodder scoffs at actors that claim to
do all of their own stunts, stating how
annoying it is when big names claim
credit for his work. "None of them do
their own stunts," Hodder gives a gruff
chuckle, "Write that in all caps, NONE
OF THEM."
Hodder said he enjoys playing Jason
and feels that the unique approach
taken by New Line Cinema, who
acquired the rights to the character two
films ago "breathes new life into the
character.
Hodder is currently working oppo-
site Ben Affleck in Mark Steven John-
son's big-screen working of blind
comic-book hero "Daredevil."
The man behind the mask.
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