The JOE-DOWN Reviews ‘Jason X’

Welcome to the JOE-DOWN, a back-and-forth movie review blog by two snarky newspapermen named Joe from Minnesota, Joe Froemming and Joe Brown. We will take turns selecting a movie — any movie we want — and review it here. For this installment, Froemming picked “Jason X.”

The info:

The Movie: “Jason X”

Starring: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Jeff Geddis

Director: James Isaac

Plot Summary: (From IMDB) In the Year 2010, Jason Vorhees is cryogenically frozen in a Government Facility in Camp Crystal Lake, along with scientist Rowan. Many centuries later, in the year 2455, Earth is uninhabitable, and humans have moved to another planet known as Earth II. However, a team of students awakens both him and Rowan on a spaceship known as the Grendel. Jason begins killing the students and crew of the ship. Along the way, he is upgraded to Uber Jason. It’s now up to Rowan and the surviving students to stop Jason, this time on a spaceship.

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 19 percent

Our take:

Froemming: Last week, we ventured into that fantastical world of Jim Henson and a David Bowie one would ban from a Chuck-E-Cheese with “Labyrinth.” This week, I wanted to head back to the meat-and-potatoes of mindless violence that always soothes the lizard brains of Brown and I.

After searching, I realized there had been a franchise suspiciously missing from our reviews, despite having everything the JOE-DOWN loves:

Bad 1980s franchise
Baffling plots
Lots of violence
Gratuitous nudity

Yes, we have — until today — avoided the “Friday the 13th” franchise, a series whose continuity is just as baffling as “Halloween’s.” And like “Halloween,” this one started with a game changing first movie and rotted from there to the point where our favorite hockey mask slaying monster takes Manhattan and melts in a sewer back into his younger self before he drowned and causes all this trouble to begin with.

But I did not pick any of the ones where Jason kills at Camp Crystal Lake. No, I picked the best one of the series, where our undead antagonist goes to *checks synopsis* SPACE!

Oh boy. We are in for a treat. Uber Jason, Robot Bewbs, Crazy Kills and all.

Now Brown, before we let the bodies hit the floor, why don’t you give us your first thoughts?

Brown: This movie is a colossal failure because they never found a time to put in the song “X Gon Give It To Ya.” Hell, “Rick and Morty” found a way to do it. I would have even given this movie a bronze medal if they had Xzibit. But noooo….

So I had seen most, if not all, of this movie previously. But it was the SyFy Channel’s version so, you know, all the cool stuff was taken out. Which as it turns out wasn’t even that cool.

The first movie from the “Friday the 13th” franchise did creep me out since it was a pretty dark and gritty movie. Then Jason went to Manhattan and fought Freddy Kruger and now he’s in space. I will say this; “Jason X” knows it won’t be good.

So while I sharpen my machete to cut all the mid drifts off my shirts, I’ll let you get us underway, Froemming.

Froemming: Full disclosure: I love this movie. I got it as a gag gift for Christmas in 2002 and found it to be (REDACTED) hilarious. It’s a movie that knows it is bad going in, so the cast and crew just have fun with it. Plus, it has two of the best kills I have seen in any horror movie.

Brown: I couldn’t find this available for streaming anywhere so I bought it on YouTube for $9.99. I want this charged to the JOE-DOWN credit card.

Froemming: It is on Netflix, you dummy.

Brown: Not when I checked on Saturday, which is weird because this seems like a perfect 4/20 movie.

Froemming: I watched it after work this morning and parts of it yesterday before work. It was on there.

Anyway, let’s get away from Brown’s inability to navigate his Netflix app and get into this movie.

It is 2010, Jason Voorhees has been captured by the government and they are keeping him in chains in some maximum security lab, where a woman named Rowan is figuring out how to kill this monster. I guess in Obama’s America, people didn’t have a right to trial.

Well, some shadowy other government agency is there to take Jason and I dunno, weaponize him somehow. This movie is pretty hazy when it comes to any of this. All we know is they have tried to kill this poor child who drowned due to hanky panky-inspired negligence by some dumbass camp counselors in the 1970s, and he just won’t stay dead.

Well, since this is a “Friday the 13th” movie, things go awry pretty quickly as Jason escapes (he killed the security guard, which is depressing because you know that guy was making minimum wage and didn’t need this (REDACTED) to begin with).

Because of government idiocy, Jason is now on the loose again.

Thanks a lot, Obama.

Brown: I’m sure it was Bush-era regulations that Obama couldn’t get changed due to obstruction or something.

Anyways, the scientists want Jason alive because of his ability to regenerate soft tissue, which makes sense considering we’re now 10 movies in and this (REDACTED) won’t stay down for more than, what, a week?

Rowan hates this idea and just wants Jason exterminated. How, I haven’t a clue.

The whole start to this movie is like in “South Park” where the future is run by atheist otters that yell “Science damn you” when something goes awry.

I also want science to figure out Jason’s ability for instant teleportation because he a. Kills the minimum wage guard and swaps spots with him. And b. Kills a room full of guards and Scorpions the head scientist with a chain. He may as well have said “GET OVER HERE!”

Froemming: I know in the game (which I love by the way) when you play as Jason, you can teleport all over the camp. I mean, how else is a dude whose body is one giant rotting corpse supposed to catch these teenagers engaging in sex and marijuana cigarettes?

Brown: Here’s a couple more questions.

How is Jason more stealthy than Navy SEALs? Dude is a lumbering monster wearing chains that’ll rattle like bells and he’s as silent as Andy sneaking up on Dwight with his Prius.
How bad must Jason smell? Rotting flesh, always damp, caked in blood. That man is walking E. Coli.

Froemming: I will answer these questions the same way Michael Bay answered Ben Affleck’s questions about “Armageddon:” Shut the (REDACTED) up.

Also, he lives at a lake. Lakes smell bad, like rotten fish and urine from all the kids peeing in it all the time.

Now, before we go further, there was an Easter Egg (yeah, it’s Easter today, there you go) in the movie previous to this one. In “Jason Goes To Hell,” the dumbass protagonist visits the Voorheese’s family house and stumbles upon the Necronomicon from the “Evil Dead” series, implying Jason is a Deadite.

Also, I watched that on Wednesday last week and you know what Netflix suggested I watched after? “Jason X” which was definitely on there all (REDACTED) week.

Now, Rowan gets Jason into a cryogenic pod by shooting him and shoving him with a cart. The doors shut, the thing hisses and we see Jason about to freeze for centuries like Fry from “Futurama!” Unfortunately for Rowan, Jason’s machete is made of Adamantium like Wolverine’s bones because he stabs her through 12 inches of steel!

Brown: That’s kind of what Rowan gets for admiring her handiwork and standing within stabbin’ distance of Jason. That’s just sloppy, girl.

Because of the hole Jason put in the cryo chamber, cryogenic fluid fills the room and the emergency lock is set, freezing both Jason and Rowan.

All the way… TO THE YEAR 2000!

Wait, nevermind. The year 2455. A year where human beings have colonized space after leaving the bonds of Earth. A year where nanobots can heal virtually any wound. And a year where women’s shirts never, ever cover one’s belly button.

Froemming: I’m guessing this was a law passed by world leaders Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Brown: I swear, this future is a continuation of the future from “Demolition Man” where the No. 1 song in the country is the Armour Hot Dogs commercial and people go to the bathroom with three seashells.

And what happens when Jason is taken out of his cryo pod? Why, his body falls and his machete cuts off a stoner kid’s arm! To be honest, I would have been shocked if something like that DIDN’T happen.

Froemming: I hated the stoner kid, so I had a mild chuckle here. It was not as hilarious as the time I saw a hippie fight at a Phish concert, but it was good.

Now, because white people can’t leave the past in the past (hence the countless reboots of films), they find Jason and Rowan, but because Jason looks like Krang from Ninja Turtles before he lost his limbs, they are betting on bringing Rowan back to life, which excites the perverted pilot because of course it does.

And Bring Rowan back they do. She wakes up and sees fashion has not changed one bit since the late 1990s when goth reigned supreme and belly buttons were exposed for all to see. It is a nightmare that would cause me to cry in my sleep if such a thing happened to me. The Coal Chamber look was a dark, dark time in America.

Now, we have a professor here who wants to make a little scratch on the side, and finds out he can make a lot of money bidding off the body of Jason Voorheese. Why? Why would anyone remember a serial killer from 400 years in the past who terrorized the East Coast? The hockey mask? I dunno, but now the professor has a reason to keep this homicidal maniac alive.

Brown: I get it. Society has a weird infatuation with serial killers. Most of us don’t remember Charlie Manson for his music career.

Froemming: Manson wasn’t a serial killer. Get your facts straight, Brown. He conspired mass murder.

Brown: Yeah, I’m sticking with my statement.

Froemming: Your statement is wrong.

Brown: Anyways…

So yeah, this is a ship full of students. And you know what that means!

Hormones! Making out at all times! Boobs!

Froemming: ROBOT BOOBS!!!!

Brown: Robot boobs without nipples, which was kind of terrifying to see for the first time.

Because we’re in the world of tomorrow, there is a robot helper/sex robot that they named Kay-Em 14 instead of Fister Roboto from “Archer.”

And somehow, Kay-Em 14 is not part of the most bizarre sex scene in this movie. This goes to when Janessa goes to the professor to improve her grade.

This is NSFW, mostly because it’s more embarrassing than sexy.

Froemming: What, you didn’t pop on some lingerie and try to seduce our college advisor for a better grade?

Brown: … I didn’t bring salad tongs with me.

Froemming: So, we see all this premarital sex going on, which wakes Jason up like an alarm clock of sin.

Brown: This is Jason the moment he bolts up from his icy slumber.

Froemming: See, Adrienne (a doctor who also shuns the conventions of covering belly buttons) is dissecting Jason while everyone is bumping uglies. And Jason partakes in the first of two kills I love in this movie: He shoves her head into liquid nitrogen and shatters her skull like she was the T-1000 from “Terminator 2.”

This movie is stupid. Stupid fun, which is something I cannot say for the rest of the franchise.

Now Jason is on the loose, and these horny teens are in big big trouble.

Brown: Jason is the most aggressive Christian youth minister of all time.

Froemming: Oh, I am sure Trump would nominate him as Religious Council to the President.

Brown: He’s still less evil than Stephen Miller.

So Jason kills Adrienne, whom I thought would be the last survivor since she scoffed at Stoney and Kinsa going off to bump uglies.

But never fear, because Jason just so happens to find a surgical knife that just so happens to be the size of a machete and lodges it into Stoney’s chest.

Then Jason happens upon a guy named Dallas who is playing a video game with Azrael and his newly-attached arm (he was the guy who met Jason’s machete at the cryo chamber). And… Azrael meets his end via a pro-wrestling backbreaker (which I popped for) and Dallas gets his head bashed into a wall. Not a sexy kill, but it gets the job done.

Froemming: Yeah, they are playing a video game on what looks like a holodeck from “Star Trek.” Which reminded me of “Star Trek,” a show I really hate.

Jason is lumbering around, picking people off which is awesome. The professor, not reading the room, still wants Jason alive so he sends SPACE FORCE out to capture an entity who cannot be stopped. I mean, he has taken out a good portion of the crew and Rowan keeps saying he can’t be killed, but evidence and logic has never stopped a white man from bad decisions before. Just look at Operation Iraqi Freedom.

So we get some soldiers out to hunt Jason, which doesn’t end well for anyone involved.

Brown: We’re over 400 years into the future. How has gun technology, namely to fix accuracy, not been improved? This SPACE FORCE (or grunts, as the movie calls them) have the accuracy of Nazis in “Indiana Jones” movies. It was to the point where I thought the guns were merely spark machines. At least give me a (REACTED) laser gun.

Because no mere machine gun can take down this colossus man child, each Grunt is taken out with almost surgical precision.

I just realized something: It could be because my computer speakers aren’t great, but I don’t think I heard one “cha-cha-cha ka-ka-ka” while Jason was traipsing around and killing an entire ship of people.

Froemming: It was played in this movie, but you’re right, I don’t remember it played when he is on the hunt. The “cha-cha-cha ka-ka-ka” works best in the other films because Jason is stealthy and sneaks up on people, and that music amplifies the suspense. Hard to do in a spaceship. He sticks out like a sore thumb that has gangrene.

What are our poor students to do? Well, take the escape pod or ship to freedom! And to do that, what the hell, why not split up and give Jason the advantage here. This happens after a pretty decent jump-scare when they think Jason is outside the door and he plows right through a (REDACTED) window! Why a spaceship has windows like that? I have no idea. But he ends up killing the horny professor, which I mean, kinda had it coming.

Brown: I mean, the professor is trying to bargain with Jason to make him famous. Dude is already famous. Four hundred years into the future and people still remember that Jason has killed 200 people.

While all this chaos is going off in the crew’s quarters, the pilot is trying to fly this spaceship to the space station Solaris. As they are approaching, Jason magically transports to the cockpit and butchers the pilot, leading to Jason’s most efficient kill of all time.

With no pilot, the shuttle rams Solaris and blows the (REDACTED) station up.

Surely hundreds, if not thousands, are dead.

Froemming:

Brown: Worst yet for the crew, they’re still mercifully alive and Jason will continue to pick them apart one by one.

Froemming: Now, for the rest of our plucky, doomed crew to survive, they need to blow the walkways between the two halves of the ship. I am sure they explain why, but I didn’t pay much attention because at this point I was wondering where the hell is the Jason X skins are for the “Friday the 13th” game.

Now, they need to get to the escape pod, but Jason is just killing them off and making this all a pain in the ass. And so, the woman in the pod freaks out, tries to fly away, but is still stuck with the fuel lines, trapping her and causing the pod to explode, a plot point I think “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” stole from this.

Now to plan B: Blowing up the other half of the ship to save themselves.

So they split up again to place detonators while trying to avoid detection, a plot point that I think “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ripped off from this movie.

I think Star Wars owes this movie a writing credit.

Brown: Yeah, but doesn’t this movie owe “Alien” a writing credit for trying to evacuate the ship to escape the monster?

Look, all good ideas have been taken.

Froemming:

At some point, Kay-Em 14 is upgraded and she goes all “The Matrix” on Jason, blowing him away, knocking out an arm and a leg, and finally his skull. Which, I mean, a robot should be able to stop a monster since she doesn’t have any feelings. Except for the creepy feeling of love she has for her master, who made her robot boobs earlier in the movie. Which goes against everything in the Bible.

It is here I realized the easiest way to stop Jason would be to chop off his legs. Can’t really stalk you if he can’t walk.

Unfortunately, the nano technology brings Jason BACK TO LIFE AGAIN, this time making him Super Shredder from “TMNT 2: The Secret of the Ooze.”

Brown: Kay-Em 14 is more terrifying than Jason in this movie. And, I question how good of a robot she is when she says their chances of survival are 12 percent, then makes out with her creator, Tsunaron, and then says their survival rate is 54 percent. Lady boners don’t improve survival odds! I don’t care if you survived the Microsoft Conflict!

Froemming: If only Han Solo slipped C-3PO a little tongue, their odds would have been better in “Empire Strikes Back.”

And yes! I love how they drop these weird factoids of the future. The Microsoft Conflict, hockey being outlawed, we destroyed the Earth by ignoring scientists’ warnings. All amazingly fictional scenarios we should never think will come true!

So, a little aside: Earth was destroyed by man’s greed and idiocy. So they are heading to Earth 2, where this will in no way happen again. Also, Earth 1 looks like Mars from “Total Recall.”

Now a rescue ship has arrived and they are almost to safety, they just need to get the escape door to open. Problem is: Uber Jason is here and he literally punches Kay-EM 14’s head off with his (REDACTED) fist, so how does one stop such a being?

Blow his ass out to space!

Brown: The laws of space don’t apply to this movie. There’s fire in space, a place with no oxygen.

Froemming:

Brown: After another ship picks up the distress beacon, the group has their rescue. But they need to separate themselves from The Grendel (the ship) and do so by blowing up the bridge and having their own part of the ship. Waylander blows up the bridge and it seems like we’ll have about four survivors.

But… Jason survives the vacuum of space and punches a hole into the shuttle, killing Janessa like a cheese grater that they show nothing of.

Movie, you’re already making yourself a (REDACTED) mess. Go all the way instead of just showing a small pile of goo on a grate.

Froemming: Well, Jason is back on the ship and they have more problems. Their escape hatch door won’t open and Jason is punching down doors like they are nothing. Even worse, they have to send out Brodski to fix the doodad on the whatchamacallit (technical terms) outside the ship. So he is doing that, Jason is advancing closer, so what do they do?

They turn on the holodeck so Jason thinks it is 1980s Crystal Lake, which leads us to the other awesome kill scene of the move:

Brown: This was by far my favorite part of the movie because of how insane it was.

Froemming: This part makes the whole movie worth it alone. I still laugh my ass off as he is swinging that sleeping bag like a bat.

But alas, despite Jason being a bit dim, he sees Tsunaron through the hologram and advances toward the (I guess) hero of the movie. Kinda weird the hero is a man who made a sex robot, but here we are.

Brown:

Plus, I won’t say Tsunaron is the hero of the movie. Yeah, he starts the holodeck. But, when he leaves Kay-Em 14 on the ship, it’s Rowan that runs back to rescue her. Then, when the rescue ship detaches and Jason is flying in space towards them, it’s Brodski, the leader of the Grunts, that saves them with an even more impractical tackle that leaves he and Jason hurdling into the atmosphere of another planet.

For once, a black man gets the upper hand and scores the noble kill in a slasher film.

Froemming: That is true. I love this movie so much.

Well, not just any other planet Jason falls to. Jason lands on Earth 2. In a lake, by a camp, where I imagine his reign of terror would begin anew, except there is no sequel to this one, because “Freddy vs. Jason” came after this, and then the series was rebooted by a crappy film in 2010.

I want “Jason X 2” damnit.

Brown: Do we know if “Freddy vs. Jason” took place on Earth or Earth 2?