WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Jason X 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.400 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.600 is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And Hey, 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.920 this is the one hundred film selection on Weird House Cinema. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.440 And we're we're marking the occasion by finally entering a 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:34.080 new century, a new millennium of film. Um, we're we're 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.760 gonna be talking about our most recent film yet, the 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:43.320 twenty two year old Jason X. Now it's Friday on 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.040 the day of this episode releases. Uh, and of course 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.159 it being our hundredth episode. I feel like these facts 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.200 were significant robbed in your suggestion of Jason X for 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.520 for today's episode, But I think it's an excellent choice. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.720 Not so much because I think it's like a great 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.200 movie or one that I've I'm going to tell people 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:02.880 they must go out and see, like I would say 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.360 about Inframan or Ship of Monsters. There's some of the 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.120 other ones we've we've looked at that are just you know, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.160 you just want to share that joy with the world. 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:12.800 It's not really in that category, but I think it 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.840 will be fantastic fun to talk about. And I also 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.039 think It's a great choice because it's a movie with 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.800 a literal three word plot summary. What's the elevator pitch 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.840 on Jason X. It's Jason in space? Right, it is 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:33.479 known character in previously unexplored setting. Very Dracula goes west. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.360 I mean it's looking back on it, it's easy to 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.959 think this was a no brainer. Of course, Jason goes 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.760 into space. But another thing about this movie is that 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.840 not only does the character known to us by by 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.360 the point this movie came out go to a new location, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.200 the character is himself changed by the journey because this 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.720 is the movie where Jason becomes a cyborg. One of 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.680 the taglines featuring on posters for Jason X was evil 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:05.520 it's an upgrade. Yeah, it's um. I mean, there's so 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.640 much fun in this movie because it is like a 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.480 character from one genre stepping into another genre, bringing all 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.360 of his own tropes with him, but then also encountering 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.760 all the tropes of the genre that he is stepping into. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.440 Uh So, it's it's there's so many idea Like you 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.760 can imagine that the writing process and the brainstorming process 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.600 for this was was pretty rich with ideas. It's a 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.600 ten car pile up of genre cliches. Now, I thought, Rob, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.960 you you found the link to Roger Ebert's half star 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.160 review of this film. It was not even a whole 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.040 star for him, uh, and I thought it might be 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.200 good bye by referencing some of the things he says 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.919 about this He begins by quoting a line of dialogue 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.640 from the film, which is this sucks on so many 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.400 levels in the movie, literally referring to a whole pressure 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.160 breach in a spaceship where characters are at the risk 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.760 of being sucked out into into the void. But Ebert 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:02.799 goes on to say, quote rare for a movie to 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.320 so frankly describe itself, Jason X sucks on the levels 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:13.240 of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness, 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:18.400 and aptness of thought. Only its title works. Now, I 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.799 think that's that's maybe a little overly harsh, but I mean, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.760 I want to recognize that my my appreciation for this 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.600 movie is an appreciation that is tempered by the context 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.160 of my relationship with the rest of these movies and 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.640 my knowledge of horror cliches. I'm not going to like 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.760 defend Jason X deeply on its own terms. Or say well, no, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:45.320 it's actually good. Yeah. Yeah, this this review actually gave 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.200 me pause when I was revisiting this film as a 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.800 potential Weirdhouse selection, because I look back and I saw, oh, gosh, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.280 half a star. I don't. As I've said before, I 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.880 don't always agree with with Ebert's reviews. Sometimes I agree 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.760 with them, you know, pretty wrongly. Sometimes we're on on 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.160 different planets. And I was suspecting it might be the 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.520 case here. But I was like, maybe there's something I'm 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.560 misremembering about this film, and I really need to go 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.320 back and view it again. Before I even suggested Joe 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.640 that we we cover it. Um. Yeah, I ended up 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.159 disagreeing with Ebert on on a lot of this, But 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:20.760 at the same time, I've got some kind of like you, 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.360 I can't say I'm not going to defend Jason X 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.000 on storytelling and character development or any of these other 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.880 categories either beyond this, you know. Ebert notes that the 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.719 movie opened on the sixteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown. Um, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.359 and then he says the movie is basically a rehash 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.440 of Alien, where I think that's quite unfair. Only about 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.440 a third of it is a rehash of Alien, and 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.839 the other parts are transporting Friday thirteen tropes into space, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:50.760 and then the last third of it is a rehash 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.359 of Aliens, the sequeled Alien. But you know this, so 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.159 the Monster stalks crew members in in dark spaceship corridors, 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.719 picks them off one by one. You can't see the 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.600 similarity except here, of course. The Monster is not an 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.800 original design like the Xeno Morph, but the by the 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.000 year two thousand one quite familiar figure of Jason Vorhe 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.240 is a big lug in a hockey mask with a 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.240 machete who just kills people for some reason. What are 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.680 the strangest things about how people reacted to this movie 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.000 when it came out? Uh? Is that I remember something. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.240 I was just in high school at the time, but 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.920 I remember some people being like Jason in Space, Okay, 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.800 they've gone too far. That's just silly, you know, like 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.480 as if there were an important core of realism and 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:43.000 seriousness that the Friday thirteenth franchise had maintained up until 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.239 this point, only to cast it aside by going going 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.760 full edwood and allowing an undead revenant to board a 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.600 rocket ship. I would say, not only is this premise untrue, 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.000 I think sending Jason into space and turning him into 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.120 a nanobot cyborg actually elevates the series in a hole, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.760 and I want to sort of explain how I mean 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.680 that in a roundabout way. But first I want to acknowledge, 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.000 as we did in our previous episode on Jason Takes Manhattan. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.800 So this is our second film in the Friday the 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.200 thirteenth franchise we've covered. Uh. Despite the fact that these 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.160 movies are for the most part, I admit, quite poorly 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.000 made by most measures, maybe apart from makeup effects in 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.560 in some installments like like the first one and so forth. Um. 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.640 And despite the fact that they were nearly universally panned 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.640 by critics, Friday was and is immensely popular up until 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.320 just recently. I think it was the highest grossing horror 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.680 franchise in history, and I think for a while, certainly 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.640 in the eighties and nineties in the United States, if 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.360 you went up to a random person on the street 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.920 and you said, think of a horror movie villain, I 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.440 suspect the answer you would be most likely to get 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.360 would not be Dracula or Frankenstein or even Pizzuo Zoo. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.880 It would be Jason Vorhees. For some time, the hockey 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.880 mask became the symbol of the horror genre, which is crazy, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:14.360 right if you're approaching this from a from a sports standpoint, right, Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.120 I mean it's it's kind of weird that such a 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.520 thing ended up in these movies to begin with. I mean, 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.840 this is just a piece of sports equipment. Yeah. So 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.960 a film critic like Roger Ebert or any number of 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.480 others might think of the Friday Thirteenth movies as uninteresting, predictable, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.720 or formulaic, kind of mindlessly violent and puerile, uh, just 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.960 generally ranking low in I don't know, artistic innovation and 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.800 stuff compared to a lot of other great spooky horror 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.360 movies that that that do much better on those accounts, 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.840 And in fact, I have no way to disagree with them. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.360 But something about these movies kept audiences coming back. And 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.040 as I think I also said in the Jason Takes 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.440 Manhattan episode, I find the Friday the Thirteenth movies and 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.680 movies like them kind of psychologically revealing, like in the 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.480 same way that it is revealing when people tell you 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.840 about their dreams. It's like you're peeling back some membrane 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:16.760 that usually kind of filters your thoughts for maturity and uh, 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.679 tastefulness before you share them with other people, and instead 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.280 you're just looking straight into the filmmaker's id. Now, when 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.400 it comes to the predictable or formulaic nature of these movies, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.480 you can try to history where the series does sort 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.840 of keep trying new things in a way, like in 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.559 parts two through four, those are all in a way 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:40.880 just pretty much the same. Jason is a mad slasher 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.800 who it attacks a house full of misbehaving eighteen to 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.920 twenty somethings. Uh. Then that that kind of gets played out, Uh, 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.719 they start switching up the formula. In part five, there 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.280 is a twist where it's not Jason at all, but 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.160 it's a copycat killer. In part six they really switch 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.080 things up by introducing the soup or natural because it's 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.240 only in part six that Jason now is a re 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.120 animated corpse with powers that seem to include super strength 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.679 in vulnerability and teleportation. In part seven they switch it 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:14.280 up again. This is the one where they have Jason 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.839 face off against a final girl with the power of telekinnsis, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:23.160 So it's kind of Jason versus Carrie that it's pretty fun. Yeah. 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.440 Part eight, which is the one we previously covered on 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.760 the show, they try to switch it up by changing 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.319 the location. So this is Jason Takes Manhattan, a movie 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.600 that is mostly about a boat. They should have called 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.559 it Jason Takes Boat. But then he has a few 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:42.160 brief scenes in Vancouver, which and there's one where they 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.320 actually shot it in Times Square. Also a lot of fun, yes, 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.960 And another piece of context outside of the uh, the 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.720 fictional movie canon, sort of the real world context is 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.760 that up until about part seven, the series was a 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.440 money printing machine. You know, you could make a movie 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.400 on the cheap for like two were three million dollars 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.000 and then make twenty million dollars in ticket sales. But 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.839 after part seven, box office returns started to become more disappointing. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.040 I think Jason Takes Manhattan had a slightly uh more 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.600 disappointing return, and that trend would continue with the next movie. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.400 So in part nine, Jason goes to Hell, things get 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.360 really weird in a bad way. There's some plot about 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.080 like there's like a little little rat snake demon that 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:30.239 lives inside Jason and can jump into other people's mouths 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.080 and possess them so they become Jason, but they just 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.640 look like whatever actor it's jumped into. Um. But like 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.920 many people, I find Jason Goes to Hell just unwatchable, 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:47.280 excruciatingly gross, unpleasant, hideous visuals, awful music, not really much 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.640 redeeming at all, except for uh, some some brief but 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.360 excellent weird vibes from the actor Steven Williams, who plays 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.480 a bounty hunter on the trail of Jason Vorhees, which 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.200 is a hilarious concept to be in with. Uh, but 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.360 I also believe that he's the character who introduces the 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:08.480 concept of a magic dagger to the series canon. That 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.760 one would be And I don't think I've ever watched 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.600 Jason Goes to Hell and full but I've just seen 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.120 like some clips that you've sent me. But like this 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.880 one seems to be a case where the title really works, 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.240 Like Jason goes to Hell. That that that sounds like 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.480 a bold new direction. That sounds like Jason is venturing 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.199 into the underworld, into the afterlife. They're gonna be demons. 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.320 Who knows what else it's gonna contain. No, it's just 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.240 another slasher movie, but like grosser and less funny than 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:39.120 than previous ones. And most of the time Jason doesn't 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.760 look like Jason. He just looks like somebody walking around 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.319 and then they look in a mirror and it's Jason's reflection. 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.560 Oh man, Like they couldn't even have the possessed individual 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.240 have this, like this compulsion to put on a hockey 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.360 mask or something not that I recall. So that one's 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:56.960 really bad. Um. But then come so here we're coming 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.240 up on the tenth film in the franchise. Uh, any 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.800 returns of started being not so good. Um not like 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.520 the series ever had like real artistic integrity. But I 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.200 think even from a critical appraisal point of view, like 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.280 the movies are getting less good. Um. So the concept 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.920 was relatively empty and vulgar to begin with, and attempts 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.720 to vary the formula have been made, and the last 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.680 movie is just this anti fun bucket of slop. So 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:25.640 what what are you going to do next? What are 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.560 you gonna do? Where can you go from here? And 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.400 I think you've got a couple of options, especially at 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:32.800 the time this was made, because they're developing this in 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.560 the late nineties. Uh, this is after Scream comes out. 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.520 So one option you have is you could sort of 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.760 do what Wes Craven did with Scream, do the movie 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.560 equivalent of the mirror self recognition test and create a 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.280 film that acknowledges or even satirizes the conventions of the 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.360 genre to which it belongs. But another option is to 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.160 just spread the wings of absurdity and take flight. And 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.000 Jason X does a little bit of the former, but 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.480 more of the latter, And in doing so, I think, 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.360 despite the fact that it's not actually a great movie, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.920 it performed a kind of retroactive benediction upon the earlier films, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:17.160 acknowledging that yes, these movies like have always been exactly 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.960 this ludicrous. Jason X made the earlier movies feel less 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.520 violently sadistic and more like overt grand gueniall in camp. 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.559 It is the space Buddies phase of the property. Uh 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.800 you know. Jason X breathes this innocence back into the 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.160 subject matter, kind of stupid innocence, and Friday Thirte becomes 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.360 what it was always meant to be. And personally, I 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.840 think they should have kept going in this direction and 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.760 made movies where Jason becomes Santa Claus like in the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.880 Tim Allen sense, he is caught by the Santa Claus 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.200 and he's forced to become St. Nicholas and deliver presence, 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:56.640 or he's drafted by the NFL according to Airbud style loopholes. 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.199 But alas that is not what we got. I have 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:03.120 to understand that the pitch meeting for for the or 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.520 maybe not the pitch meeting, but the initial brainstorming for 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.480 Jason X involved a number of different concepts. I think 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.680 that like they talked about doing like like Christal, like 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.320 what if they did Jason in winter you know, like 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.719 it's Crystal Lake camp, but it's winter time, so I 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.880 don't know, Jasons to kill people with icicles or something. Uh, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.040 sounds pretty solid, But they didn't. They didn't do that, 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.560 and they started coming up with these crazier ideas. And 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:29.560 part of the reason they ended up going with something 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.360 futuristic was that they knew that Jason versus Freddie was 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.840 more or less in the pipeline and that was going 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.480 to be coming up more or less next so they 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.720 didn't want to do anything that would get in the 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:43.640 way of that. I don't know why you need to 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.240 get too worried about that. Clearly, like logic film, the 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.880 film in the Friday the thirteenth series. Well, weirdly, I 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:56.040 would say, so far the films actually did maintain basic continuity, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.520 like they all acknowledge the ones that had come before. 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.320 Once you get Ason X, that kind of all goes 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.320 out the window. And I think that may have been intentional. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.480 It may have been like, well, this one is going 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.000 to get so absurd and go so far afield that 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.360 audiences will no longer expect the films that follow to 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.280 maintain continuity with it. Yeah, like this is this is 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.600 shooting so far ahead into the future that it doesn't 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.120 matter what the next Can Friday that thirteenth movies consist of. 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.240 But to your point, it's it seems kind of shocking 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.520 that they didn't keep going. Uh in this vein with 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.640 with Jason that we didn't get the Santa Claus of 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:37.080 the NFL concept or something equally ridiculous. It's really a 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.120 shame we we did not get that stuff. But I 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.520 should also note one last thing. Despite everything I've just 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.360 said about my own opinions, Jason X was of course 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.400 also panned by critics, not just Ebert but generally, and 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.720 also did very poorly at the box office, so it 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.440 did not save the franchise in terms of money returns. Uh. 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.120 It was also released at a very weird time. It 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.160 came out November two thousand one, which I don't know 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.200 who wanted to see a Jason movie. Then it's it's 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.160 kind of weird to figure out where people stand on 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.240 this movie, because on one hand, this is a movie 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.280 that I had a favorable opinion of, uh and still 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.080 have a favorable opinion of. I think it's a fun film. 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.160 It's a film that has been recommended to us for 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.440 Weird House before. People have written in and said you 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.160 should do Jason X. And if we said we're gonna 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:23.640 do a Friday the thirteenth, they're like, oh, is it 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.320 Jason X. So um. You know it has its followers. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.640 When I go on to letterbox dot com and I 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.960 pull up our episode list of the different films that 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.960 we've covered in Weird House, if I sort by popularity, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.520 it is the fifth most popular film that we've talked about. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.800 And yet at the same time, you go somewhere like IMDb, 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.560 and I know IMDb user ratings um and not not 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.880 the gold standard perhaps, but it only has a four 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.360 point four out of ten on there, So I guess 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:57.240 enough people think it is bad or or actively dislike it, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:58.920 But it's hard to tell how much of that too 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.080 is like it's a sort of so bad it's good 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.160 sort of view of things, and even though they're giving 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.720 it a low rating, they still have a higher opinion 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.040 of it. Well. I think it's the kind of movie 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.280 where just the concept, like just the sheer force of 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.200 the concept and the fact that this concept was followed 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.359 through on to production and release is enough to take 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.960 it like most of the way there, Like at that point, 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.399 you're not super concerned, like, uh, you know, is the 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.000 script really that clever, like or the actor is good. 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.280 It's just kind of like it's Jason in space and 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:35.280 they actually made it. That's not just a joke. And 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.840 the crazy thing about it is that it's the sort 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.879 of concept where it could easily work better as a 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.280 trailer than a movie, but because the energy, it might 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.440 be hard to keep that energy up. But I feel 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.639 like the movie does keep that energy up. They're able 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.479 to actually keep you engaged with this ludicrous concept throughout 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:56.160 the run. So, speaking of let's let's hear the trailer audio. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.000 You're gonna hear a lot of the snappier lines from 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:09.840 this film. In the trailer in the year, on a 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:16.119 routine training mission, a team of students is about to 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:22.040 discover a life form frozen in time. Wow, they're on 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.720 their back. Pay for talcum power of the lab. You 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:34.520 brought him on board. Everything's under control. Man, the hell 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.160 is going on? Jason fourties, That's what's going on. He's 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.600 an unstoppable killing machine. It's okay. He just wanted his back. 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:44.840 How do we get off the ship? I don't know. Look, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:52.120 we're gonna be all right. What are you high? He's here. 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:03.879 You have got to get them out of there. He slappy. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:10.119 I think we're finally okay. What the hell is that? 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:17.120 You've got to be kidding me? Oh wow, it's been modified. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:36.160 You guys might want to run, all right, and before 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.040 we keep moving on here, I'm just gonna go ahead. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.440 Mentioned If you want to watch Jason X, you can 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.600 watch it most places. You can buy it or stream 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.080 it digitally pretty much anywhere. You can pick it up 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:47.840 as a physical Blu ray or a d v D. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.080 Though I don't think it's received any kind of really 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:56.200 glowing um re release or anything. I don't to my knowledge, 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.000 there haven't been any really crazy special editions of this film. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.680 Maybe I'm wrong and and maybe in the future will 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.960 get something like that. Well, there's a there's a really 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:10.480 good UM full full series disc pack of Fred screen 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.280 Factory or shout Factory, whatever you call it. UM. But 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.600 but yeah, I don't know if it has a standalone 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:18.800 release of that type. Okay, yeah, I kind of forgot 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.800 about the elaborate Friday the thirteenth full series releases. Like, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.199 for example, the version of it I watched is the 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.520 disc from that pack, and it begins with an optional 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.480 introduction of Kane Hotter, the man who plays Jason. He 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.280 says to the audience. Uh, he says, please enjoy the 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:47.800 film as you watch it, or I will kill you. Well. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:49.760 Shall we get into the people involved in this film? 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.400 All right? So at the top of the list here 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:59.360 we have the director James Isaac. James Isaac lived as 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.520 a special fects guy. Isaac's work goes all the way 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.560 back to three Return of the Jedi, on which he 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.679 was a creature effects technician. He followed that up with 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.919 helping to make the Grimlins in four as part of 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:17.480 the creature crew, and subsequent special effects credits include five 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:22.760 Enemy Mine, nine seven's House to the Second Story nineteen nineties. 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:29.080 Look who's talking to Virtuosity and David Cronenberg's Existence in 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:33.560 nine Okay, here's the Cronenberg connection. We'll come back to 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:35.520 that a couple of times as we moved down the 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:40.880 cast list. But Virtuosity, isn't that the one that had oh, 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.000 what's his name? It had Australian man Russell Crowe. Russell 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.440 Crow strutting while staying alive plays on the soundtrack. Yeah, 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.600 he's like a three D printed, the blue blooded super 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.720 clone of all the serial killers ever, and Denzo Washington 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.600 has to hunt him or something. I think I watched 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.879 it on TV many years ago. Well, um, Like, like 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.520 you said, though, Isaac worked on Existence, but this wasn't 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:08.520 the only time he worked with Cronenberg. He did creature 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.200 effects on The Fly and eight six, and he was 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:16.959 project supervisor on his film Naked Lunch. Other special effects 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:21.399 credits include eighty nine Deep Star six, directed by Sean S. Cunningham, 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.199 who was the original Friday the Thirteenth director and a 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.400 producer on Jason X. That was one of those nineteen 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:31.080 eighty nine underwater peril or horror movies that we've talked 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.719 about on the show before. Uh. That is the one 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.400 that I mainly recall for a scene where Miguel Ferrare 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:40.679 uh jumps into an escape pod to get out of 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:44.160 the deep sea base and then does rapid explosive decompression. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.119 Oh yeah, yeah, I watched this one on an airplane 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.439 at one point, and I don't remember. I think I 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:51.959 was kind of out of it when I watched it. 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:53.919 But it has a big spacebug. And no it's not 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.760 a space bug. It's it's a deep deep sea bug. 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.080 But it has a big bug in it. They get attacked. 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:05.560 Is it a killer clam? I think do they? It's 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:07.960 a It's all kind of a dream to me. It 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.560 is some sort of killer mollusk from the depths. Um oh, 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:14.960 and Isaac also worked on es A Rachnophobia. I don't 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.640 want to be unkind, but it's interesting to me that 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:20.639 he did visual effects on all these movies with great 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:25.280 visual effects um and apart from like one special effect 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.040 that is very good and widely acknowledged as very good, 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:31.399 I feel like the effects in Jason X are not great, 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:35.840 and part of that maybe, I mean, there's obviously the 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:40.720 digital problem, which Hubert was very vocal about there are 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.320