My Definitive Ranking of the Friday Franchise
or: Jason Takes Moon-Hattan
Kane Hodder's last stab is a decidedly mixed bag, being entertaining for mostly the wrong reasons. It's improbable that this was the best script pitched in the eight years since The Final Friday, but it wouldn't interfere with the timeline of Freddy vs Jason so it got made.
• I love Cronenberg the actor.
• We're officially one year from hockey being outlawed...
• Todd Farmer clearly combined the scripts for Alien & Aliens then did a find/replace for "Xenomorph" and inserted "Jason."
• A surgical machete?
• He was already the undisputed slasher king. The destruction of Solaris is just overkill.
• Ten years prior, T2's ad campaign gave a major spoiler by announcing, "This time he's back, FOR GOOD." Likewise, Jason X trailers heralded "evil gets an upgrade," and images of Uber Jason were everywhere. It could have been a satisfying reveal if kept under wraps.
• This needed more Crystal Lake holodeck and less "this sucks on so many levels."
Slasher Survey
Killer: The makeup is underwhelming, like Hodder got out of the chair early. Uber Jason is silly but memorable. He looks like an armored platypus!
Final Girl: Breaks formula by setting up Rowan as the final girl but having Kay-Em fight Jason. Neither is particularly great.
Victims: Space marines, obnoxious space teens in skimpy knitwear, and the return of the opportunistic academic.
Prophet of Doom: Rowan kind of fills this role by virtue of being the keep of the exposition dump.
Best Kill: Liquid nitrogen noggin knocker.