The Worst Jason Movie?

I tried to sit on this...I really did. Some people complain that I write too many Rant articles, but some of you love them. All I can guarantee is that I never set out to write them, they usually happen organically because I feel an overwhelming need to talk about something. It's like a journal of things that stress me out about the communities I'm a part of. And hey, big shock, I'm a member of the horror community! The guy who celebrates horror movies for an entire month every year is a horror movie fan. So shocking!

Doesn't he look super shocked?

And among horror films, there is a character and film series that is near and dear to my heart. The series is, of course, Friday the 13th and the character is Shelly from the third film....kidding, it's Jason Voorhees. Although I do love the awkward schlub Shelly too. He's one of the more genuine characters in the series. Anyway, Jason means a lot to me. Possibly because I too am a giant man who people find incredibly imposing and fear might murder them near a lake...or just in general. I don't really like lakes all that much. I can't swim. Jason should probably stay away from them too, you know? Because water seems like it has nothing good for the big man.

"Could somebody pull me up? I really don't like the water. Please?"

Another major part of my love for him is that he really is a very sympathetic character among the many slashers out there. He was tortured as a child because of his appearance, nearly drowned to death, was lost and alone for pretty much his entire childhood because everyone thought he was dead from the drowning, and then found his mom...only to see her get decapitated by a teenager. Yeah, it's not hard to see what caused the downward spiral for our buddy here. He's the poster child for negligence and is why adult supervision is important. But that's not why we're here today, the day after Friday the 13th...which actually brings to mind a different movie...

Soon. Your time will come...

No, we're here to talk about the worst Jason movie in the series, which is a topic I always find to be brought up by someone who seems to not have a lot of love for the big man. Why do I say that? Well, because they never actually name off the worst movie in the series, instead naming off the movie that they feel is the silliest. You know, Jason X. The one set IN SPAAAAAAAAAAACE! Basically, they always reach for it because it is obviously different, what with the sci-fi twist on it. But...is it different?

Outside of the obvious.

It's a movie set in space, sure, but it still is ultimately about Jason killing a group of horny teenagers. Some adults are thrown in who fight back, but that's hardly a new idea, and he still sort of ends up in a lake at the end. It's silly, full of sci-fi cliches, and has an android battling a cyborg Jason Voorhees. At no point does this movie ever really take itself all that seriously, but why is all of that bad? I mean, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives also didn't take itself seriously, yet it's one of the most beloved in the series. It featured Jason being brought back from the dead to become the undead killer we all know and love, had a lot of humour, and ignored the previous film in the series.

That one where Jason didn't even show up.

Jason X also does a lot of those same things, bringing back the clearly dead Jason in a new form, giving us a heavy dose of humour, and some great practical effects work in a time where practical effects were being phased out for cheap CGI. It also ignored it's previous film too...no, not Freddy vs. Jason. Yeah, chronologically that should be the one, but the previous film was actually the biggest pile of dogshit to fall into the laps of Jason Voorhees fans. A film that was made that tried to treat Jason Voorhees like he was a demon rather than a shambling undead guy with mommy issues. A film called Jason Goes to Hell.

Do you like moronic retcons that have no actual basis on the existing films in the series? Well, good news!

See, the problem with calling Jason X the worst movie in the series is that it's simply not a true statement. If anything, Jason X stays more true to the formula of the series that a few other films do. Jason Goes to Hell, on the other hand, has a plot about Jason not really being Jason because he's some sort of demonic fetus creature who goes from body to body to keep killing. Yeah, I'm not joking, that's literally the damn plot. His body gets blown up at the beginning of the film, and from there it's "watch other people kill strangers because a demons fetus is inside of them" and nothing else until the conclusion.

Yeah, that's exactly what Jason fans want...

The reason for all of this stupidity is because New Line bought Jason from Paramount and wanted to change Jason...for some reason. Yeah, I can't honestly say what the reasoning was here, but I can guarantee it was born from people who wanted to turn him into a really shitty knock-off of other slashers. He's like Shocker in this movie, only without his personality or good writing. Point is, this isn't Jason, it's a bullshit re-imagining of him that rightly does get completely ignored in both Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason.

Hell, they really only made a movie about him "going to Hell" to set up a crossover that wouldn't happen for years.

So, whenever you see the argument about "what the worst Friday the 13th film is" I want you to stop and think really hard. I want you to remember that there was a movie where they turned Jason into a body-hopping demon fetus. I want you to look at that and really consider what is the worst movie when it rights the title character completely out of character. Because before you go and shit on Jason X for being different, you need to look at the movie that was so different that it missed the point entirely. Will I review both of these films at some point? Hell yeah, I will. I'll even let you in on a little secret: Horrorfest is gonna be full of hockey masks this year. But that's a while down the road and we've got some animated stuff to talk about. So, I'll be back with more of that next time. Later days, bleeders.

"I guess we'll just...sit here and wait. Man, this is awkward. I get so nervous around girls."