Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We LOVE pre-marital sex!", 15 Aug 2003
The best Friday the 13th? Well, maybe. For starters, the Friday the 13th TITLE isn't even used here. But then, they went from Rambo: First Blood Part II to Rambo III as well... and that was a terrible film so perhaps it isn't the best example to use. You could call this Friday the 13th Part 10, but then Jason X seems so much snappier, cooler, more modern, which demonstates how the film makers are aiming to find a whole new audience here, one that didn't necessarily grow up watching the naughty boys and girls of Camp Crystal Lake getting slaughtered in their undies.
It feels less like a slasher, more like a cross between the Alien movies and that other sci-fi horror classic, Critters 4. It's Jason, and this time he's in space. The end result is a curious mixture of science fiction and horror conventions, and out-and-out spoofery. Although it's certainly all great fun, that ironic horror comedy thing is starting to get a little tired now; I dare say part of what made the early slashers such cheesy fun was how straight they were played, how the bad actors thought they were giving serious performances, and the predictable scripts acted like they were doing something new.
The other great selling points of slashers are those staples of cinema, sex and gore. And the fact is, as the 15 certificate reflects, there isn't a great deal of either here. While the overall bodycount is probably the highest of the whole series, the kills are by and large fairly tame and slapsticky in comparison to the splatterings of old. Which is not to say there aren't some classic deaths here; keep an eye out for the liquid nitrogen and the giant screw! And as for the raunchiness...well, there are one or two moments, particularly a hilarious scene towards the end that I just can't spoil (although I kind of already have...)
So - the best Friday the 13th? NO. But then, in my point of view, this ISN'T a Friday the 13th movie. It's Jason X. It's a whole different animal - and it's a great bit of B-movie entertainment.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Horror or comedy? You'll have to answer that yourself..., 6 Dec 2004
First off, I have to say I personally really enjoyed this movie. I'd seen a few of the early Friday the 13th films prior to this, and had a fairly good idea of the overall quality of the series. Which is where this particular episode is interesting, as it departs completely from what has gone before. Jason X is more or less the Friday the 13th series' "Army of Darkness". It has intermittent scares, and the odd sequence that'll make you jump, but largely it plays like a violent slapstick comedy. This is a complete polar opposite to the straight as you go, scare you silly and gross you out approach that the rest of the series adopts. Which is where people who watch this start to divide up into two separate camps. Most of the people who hate this film say something along the lines of either 'this isn't a horror film, and I paid for a horror film' or 'this horror film sucks, why isn't it more scary'. They'd be right. It isn't all that scary (though people who've never watched anything horror-tinged wouldn't necessarily be advised to start here), and it isn't a straightforward horror film. But, there's the other side of the argument which is that this is a respectful and knowing spoof of the slasher genre, made by slasher fans for slasher fans (unlike Scary Movie, which is a pointless, rude string of direct insults to the horror genre) and it's a good, fun way to spend an hour and a half. I fall on the 'this movie is good fun' side of that argument, because although I do like my horror, and I like it pretty scary and intense, I was entertained throughout this movie. The trouble with this film is that in order to totally enjoy it, you have to get the jokes (many of which are direct references to earlier Friday titles, like the recurring machete or the sequence where two girls get smashed against a tree in sleeping bags) and be on board with the horror bits which aren't gonna phase a horror fan but will probably put off the more squeamish among you (though it didn't scare me, I recently watched it with a friend who watched a lot of it with their eyes shut making vague 'arrggh...' sounds in the corner). At the end of the day, this is a good movie that stops itself being a great one by not making a firm decision about what it wants to be. It's too horror for teen-comedy kids, and it's too teen-comedy for the more pretensious of the horror hardcore. If you don't have a definite kind of movie you want to see, you'll probably love this, like me, but if you have a definite idea of what you want to see, I wouldn't bother because you'll probably be disappointed. On a final note, this movie is a very violent 15, and I have a firm suspicion that it just slid under the 18 bar. The one thing Friday fans are unlikely to be disappointed at is some of the more gory kills (the corkscrew kill in the middle of the film is pretty cool). For once, the UK release is more or less intact and uncut, including the infamous 'half a bloke crawling across the floor' sequence that got cut out of most other countries edit of the film. There are some pretty inventive SFX shots here, so that side is pretty cool. On DVD this has good special features too.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A DECENT ADDITION TO A GREAT SERIES !! !! !! !!, 4 Feb 2006
Jason X is far from bieng my favorite in the series but yet again it is far from bieng my least favorite!
Friday the 13th has always been well known for its bloody and creative death scenes but Jason X had let the series down in those standards! Jason X is a cert-15, which is the first and only cert-15 film in the series (including Freddy vs Jason), and rightly so! It may be a bit above the avarage in terms of the amount of violence but it is definetly nothing that disgusting! Thats probably one of the main reasons why i didnt like this film as much as i could!
Jason himself is acted very well (again) by Kane Hodder but Jason himself doesnt look that good. He probably looked the best in Friday the 13th part 7 or 4 but in this he looks pretty human, hes supposed to look like an unstoppable walking corpse! Not just a guy with a hockey mask on!
This film also suffers from outdated computerised special effects which has a surprisingly big affect on the film (i liked it when there were no special effects, when he was at a Crystal Lake and using garden tools and meat cleavers!).
For people who dont like films with a bad story and rubbish acting then they will be pleased to know that this has improved a bit on the acting and the story has changed from the basic story that part 1-7 had! But this sort of stuff doesnt bother me (as long as there is lots of gore and creative death scenes, i dont really mind if the story is great or the acting is going to win awards)!
Although it is a Friday the 13th film and no matter how many flaws it has its still an above avarage slasher film and should be in any fans collection!
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