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Jason X puts celluloid psycho Jason Voorhees into outer space.
by Sean Plummer
The machete feels good in my hand. Jason X prop master Chris
Pellegrini grins as I raise the weapon above my head. Eyes wide, I mimic
the homicidal pose celluloid serial killer Jason Voorhees has struck
in nine Friday The 13th films.
But I’m only a tourist. The real Jason —
actor Kane Hodder, returning for his fourth stint behind the infamous
hockey mask — is ready. Walking on set, Hodder is seriously scary.
His contact lenses — blood red discs with yellow irises —
are genuinely evil. As he passes, the 6’ 3” stuntman-turned-actor
stares me down. It’s a struggle to retain bowel control.
“We’re hot!” a production assistant
cries as cast and crew prepare to shoot Kane’s entrance. “Smoke
up!” another shouts as dry ice saturates the set. At the end of
the corridor, a biomechanically enhanced Jason lumbers into sight. Right
now, Kane Hodder is Jason Voorhees, his chest heaving with homicidal
menace. Sparks fly, and the camera slowly pans up Jason’s, I mean
Kane’s, body, stopping at those demonic eyes for a close-up. I
comfort myself with the knowledge that his machete is only rubber.
Welcome to the set of Jason X, actually a converted
aircraft hangar in northern Toronto. It is mid-March 2000, and production
on the first Jason movie since 1993’s Jason Goes To Hell
is well under way. Director Jim Isaac is under the gun to deliver this
movie on schedule — and on budget — for its proposed Friday,
October 13, 2000 opening. (Little does Isaac know that that date will
get bumped back to April 26, 2002.)
Expectations for Jason X are high, both among
fans and New Line execs. The films, originally put out by Paramount
until New Line purchased the franchise to make Hell, have been
cheap to produce, and fans have flocked to each, making the Friday
The 13th series one of the most popular and profitable in movie
history. A long-rumoured confrontation between Jason and New Line villain
Freddy Krueger, known as Freddy Vs. Jason, has been in development
for the better part of a decade, with the likes of make-up wiz Rob Bottin
(The Thing, RoboCop) and Blade director Stephen
Norrington attached to direct.
But 37 screenplays later, New Line was no closer to
having a viable script. Even Bottin’s vision amounted to little
more than a 90-minute effects reel. That’s when original Friday
director Sean Cunningham, his son Noel and director Isaac went to New
Line president Michael DeLuca with novice screenwriter Todd Farmer’s
script. Farmer’s idea? Put Jason in outer space. DeLuca’s
reaction? “His words were ‘It rocks!’” recalls smiling
producer Noel Cunningham.
So with no Freddy Vs. Jason script imminent,
DeLuca greenlit Jason X in the fall of ‘99. No one will
confirm it on record but estimates peg Jason X’s budget
at $11 million, a galactic leap ahead of the original’s $500,000
price tag but a pittance compared to a typical Hollywood production.
Not that filming a hockey-masked psycho stalking unknown young actors
is an overly expensive process, but everyone involved with Jason
X acknowledges that the old formula of T & A & blood needed
to be tweaked for today’s post-Scream audience.
“There have been a number of Jason-stalking-campers-in-the-woods
[movies], and that’s fine. Those are fun movies,” says Noel.
“But, you know, those movies worked 15 years ago, and I think for
today’s marketplace and today’s audience, people want more.
So we’re trying to give them more.”
Lavish production values have never been a hallmark
of the Friday The 13th films. Instead, casual nudity, bloody
“kills” and wooden acting have substituted for suspense and
horror. Coming off as low-rent versions of Halloween and Psycho,
the series attracted a devoted following through the ‘80s with
its simple formula: horny young Crystal Lake campers die gruesomely
at the point of the hockey-masked Jason Voorhees’ machete/knife/spear.
But by the time Jason died (again) in Jason Goes To Hell, it
became obvious that a change was needed to breathe some life back into
the franchise. So to speak.
Enter Jason X, the tenth Jason film and the
first to abandon the Friday The 13th moniker. Crystal Lake is
now a government research facility, and Jason is a prisoner being studied
by a group of scientists (among them, David Cronenberg in a cameo).
Of course, the maniac escapes and wreaks havoc, only to be trapped when
a nubile research assistant lures him into a cryogenic chamber, freezing
them both. Four hundred years later, a research team exploring the now
long-abandoned Earth discovers their frozen bodies. The team takes the
bodies back to their spaceship, Jason thaws, and all hell breaks loose
when he returns to his murderous ways — in space.
“We knew from the beginning this was going to
be a risk,” admits Farmer of the decision to move the franchise
into outer space. He admires post-modern horror films like Scream
but promises that fans will be able to recognize their ‘hero’.
“I don’t want every horror movie to be like Scream.
I want to see somebody take a digital camera out in the forest and scare
a bunch of kids. I want to see Freddy jump into people’s dreams.
I want to see Jason crawl up out of the earth again and start hacking
up young virgins!”
For his part, Noel Cunningham is intent on giving
the fans what they want. “We’ve gone back to a lot more of
the core Jason stuff. He’s in the movie a bunch, he’s got
a bad look to him, and he’s a badass. He just keeps taking all
this punishment and keeps coming at ya.”
Despite the time and money crunch, Cunningham has
had a great time making Jason X. “It’s a blast. It’s
so much fun, so many effects, gunshots, blowing stuff up, killing people
left and right. It’s every boy’s dream.”
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