Monday, November 21, 2016

If you've ever watched a random episode
of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape or Battlestar Galactica and thought what this
show needs is more un-killable serial killers and slasher violence, then Jason
X (2001) is the movie for you.There’s a tacit assumption on the audience’s part that people are better
in the future, somehow different, or at the very least smarter, so it's
inherently disconcerting and irritating to see 90s teens in space.I think that’s the problem everyone had
with young Wesley Crusher.And
make no mistake, although this movie was released in 2001 the costumes, art
direction and especially CGI is very late ‘90s.

Jason Voorhees has come a long way
since his first appearance rising out of Crystal Lake in a dream sequence in
Friday the 13th (1980, with Kevin Bacon), and now finds himself at
the Crystal Lake Research Facility, where much like Woody Allen in Sleeper
(1973) he gets frozen in time so the franchise can conveniently reboot as a
sci-fi horror movie.Cryogenics
are the ultimate pause button and make sense to an audience in the same crazy
way that time travel makes sense.It’s easy to suspend disbelief and once we’re on board so Jason get onto
the business of murdering teens in space.

Stuntman and horror icon Kane Hodder
returns to his most famous role, though ironically he came to the franchise
relatively late in 1988 with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.There’s also a glorious cameo from
David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer, a bureaucrat at the Crystal Lake Research
Facility who is quickly impaled by some rebar.From director James Isaac of Skinwalkers (2006), watch out for Peter Mensah Onemaus from Spartacus (Doctore!) as Sergeant Brodski,
one of those space marines, Lexa Doig from Andromeda and currently Talia al
Ghul on Arrow as Rowan LaFontaine and Lisa Ryder, Beka Valentine from Andromeda
as KM-14, a sexy robot (of course there’s a sexy robot).

I’ve always considered Jason Voorhees
to be a meaner, more violent Michael Meyers, however the
really ironic twist is that Jason X actually works; it succeeds as a sci-fi
horror comedy.The supernatural
element thrown out in the first five minutes with quick exposition when DavidCronenberg explains Jason’s “almost instantaneous healing ability”, and with
that gone the audience and the movie can commit to the sci-fi premise and move
forward.With high production
values (although that 90’s CGI is one step above traditional animation) and more
space marines (there's always space marines) the movie is a surprising mashup
of Aliens (1986), Starship Troopers (1997) and the Friday the 13th series.One thing you can always rely on, no
matter what time period he finds himself in, Jason will always have a violent
reaction to teen sexy-time, and sometimes that’s all we need in a movie.

my first novel?thanks
for asking:) it’s a the first book
in a 4-volume supernatural martial arts series chock full of killer kung-fu
witches, haunted carnivals, punk rock assassins, and a 24-hour diner with the
best pie in town…