Did I say that part 9 was scraping the toilet for ideas? Well, I stand corrected. This movie, which has Jason held cryogenically frozen in outer space, until he is released and allowed to wreak havoc, killing a space ship crew, is the one scraping shit out of the toilet and slapping it up on the screen. But wait. Back before I was a fan of the series, before I'd even seen part one, I will admit that I liked this movie (and I still don't hate it as much as I hate some of the other installments) because as terrible as this movie is, I had fun with it. If you're one of those fans whose skin crawls off and runs away at the thought of Jason tromping around on a space ship, you probably shouldn't watch this movie, but for other people, they might find something to like about this flick, even if it's just the screwball comedy of the affair.

Most of the comedy here is intentional. When the crew of the ship tries to distract Jason by putting him in a virtual world populated with stupid teens to kill, it's supposed to be funny, and it kind of it. A little too self-referential for my taste, but not bad. When one of the robot members of the crew gets attacked by Jason and reduced to nothing more than a talking head (yeah, it's THAT kind of movie) it's kind of funny One nasty death involving nitroglycerin is kind of cool and creative, and the scenes of soldiers attempting to kill Jason while he hides in the shadows of the ship aren't bad. The flick kept me entertained.

That's it though, the movie kept me entertained and it's better than I can say for some of the other entries in the series, but the movie is far from good. The whole premise is just ridiculous. If I was bitching about Jason on a cruise ship, what do I think about them shooting him into space? That they're out of ideas but desperate to milk every last bit of cash from this dying cow. I'm sure the filmmakers realize that no one is going to take this movie seriously, hence all the comedy they try to inject here, but far more often than not, the comedy falls flat. Take when Jason kills one of the soldiers by impaling him on a screw. When another soldier finds the dead guy and reports back his condition, she says (wait for it) "He's screwed." Wow, how original. Too bad we're screwed too, since we're the ones spending our time and money watching this dreck. I could go on and on, listing small scenes and things that I hated about this movie, but the truth is, the reason I really dislike it now that I have become a fan of the entire series is bigger than that. As I mentioned before, the scene with Jason in a virtual world killing virtual teens is kind of funny, but it's also sad. Why?

That premise was cool, and it raked in lots of cash, and no matter how stupid and overused the premise may seem now, there are those of us who really like slasher flicks and will continue to see them. It's possible, even in today's society, to make a stalk-and-kill flick in the woods that's good and worth seeing. What Jason X does, and the reason why I think so many fans of the series hate it, is it makes fun of that premise. Like we don't already see that it's kind of funny and kind of stupid. Just because the movies we love are kind of stupid if you really examine them, that doesn't mean we're stupid for liking them, and the fact is that any of those previous entries in the series that Jason X mocks so badly can stand up today and be ten times better than this dreck. A lot of fans still shell out cash to see these movies, even though we know they'll probably be bad, because at one time they were good and we loved them and that affection has endured even over years and years of terrible sequels. That kind of power is huge, and to sit back and make fun of that when you're not even capable of constructing a good fright scene in your own movie, feels pretty weak to me. At first I didn't see why fans of the series said Jason X was insulting, but now that I like and appreciate the rest of the series, I understand. I know it's not supposed to be scary, that it's supposed to be just for fun, but it's not scary OR fun, and when you remove the scary and the fun from a movie like this, the end result sucks.

I admit it, I have a bias against movies that make fun of other movies when they're not capable of being a good movie on their own. If you ignore all that, this movie can be fun if you shut your brain off, but I can't do that anymore. When I see this movie, all I see is a slew of other, better movies, shaking their heads in shame. For me, that means it's not worth watching this mockery of everything that used to make horror worth seeing. If you're not a fan of the series, you might give this two, two and a half, maybe even three stars. But if you're like me and if you're a fan of slashers in general and the series in particular, this movie gets zero stars (and a kick in the face).