DAY TWELVE AND THIRTEEN - FREDDY VS JASON AND JASON X #31daysofhorror
DAY TWELVE AND THIRTEEN OF 31 DAYS OF HORROR
FREDDY VS JASON - 2003
"Who cares about some fucking dream guy, okay? That psycho in the hockey mask was real. "
Freddy vs. Jason is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. I just have this soft spot in my heart for it and always have. I think a part of it is that is was the first time I got to see an R rated horror movie in the theaters. My poor Dad had to take me and my friend and he hated every minute of it but I loved it.
What exactly I love it about it, I'm not sure. I understand it's cheesey as hell, there's some really bad one-liners and everything is so over the top. But I just love it so much.
FVJ came out in 2003 and was directed by Ronny Yu here in Vancouver. The story is pretty simple, Krueger is powerless so he reanimates Jason to strike fear back into the teenagers of the world but in doing so gives not only himself power, but also Jason. The two are now battling for control and a group of teens are stuck in the middle of it. This is the last film before both franchises were rebooted.
It stars one of my favorite horror actresses, Katharine Isabelle as the sidekick, and Monica Keena and Jason Ritter in the lead. It's also got Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, Brendan Fletcher, and of course Robert Englund returning as Freddy and Ken Kirzinger who's picking up the hockey mask for the first time. It's a pretty stacked cast!
While not all the acting is great, and the script is a little rough, and the logic goes out the window, there's something ultimately charming about FVJ. It's everything you love in those original slasher films times 2. Nudity, teens dying while having sex, terrible one-liners, over the top violence and blood. It's just a really fun time.
I've probably watched FVJ 100 times, no exaggeration (in 2013 I watched it ten times throughout the year for its' anniversary), and I am still entertained every single time. I'm not saying it's the best movie in those franchises, but it's my favorite, because to me it's special.
Always 10/10
JASON X - 2001
"Kids and their goddamn field trips. Let's bring the psycho on board. Yeah, sure. I just know I'm gonna get blamed for this shit."
You know what I love the most about Jason X? That someone had to pitch this idea, and someone had to take that pitch and fund it. Just imagining the conversations alone bring me so much entertainment. "So we had Jason go to New York, we have him in 3D, so....how about space?" SOLD.
Jason X came out in 2001 and was directed by James Isaac, it's the tenth film in the franchise and Kane Hodder plays his final appearance of Jason. Todd Farmer was the one who created this insane story while FVJ was still in development battles and this would help tide the fan base over.
In the future, Jason is captured by the government and studied because of his regeneration abilities. But something goes wrong and Jason kills a bunch of people (surprise, surprise) and him and a woman end up getting cryogenically frozen. Cut to even more in the future and a group of space explorers find his body along with this woman and bring them to their spaceship. When they bring them both back to life....all hell breaks loose.
Oh boy, this movie. There's so many things wrong with it that ends up being a lot of fun. The costumes alone - what they seem to think people would wear in the future, ends up looking like a bunch of hippie nonsense, the futuristic equipment yet they all still seem to use bluetooth, the cyborg who seems to feel no pain but also has feelings? It's a hot mess. But it is really, really fun.
The kills are nothing new - lots of gore, lots of nods to the original franchise. Jason is pretty bad ass in space, and when he gets his makeover he turns into some cyborg hybrid that looks super cool. I love that he just keeps showing up no matter how hard these people work to escape.
Overall, it's a messy movie that does not hold up AT ALL but yet is still a really good time and so ridiculous and charming.
8/10
You can also check out my review of the new documentary Friday the 13th Part 3 The Memoriam over at Morbidly Beautiful.
As always - follow along with my challenge over at twitter and instagram!
