2002: Jason X
The plot: Both an unloosed Jason—not in hell, for reasons unexplained—and the scientist studying him are frozen cryogenically and thawed out in the year 2455, aboard a spaceship full of…
The victims: …horny teens. And one horny android.
Series motifs: The already superhuman beast Jason gets an upgrade, as he's rebuilt with nanobot technology into a literal killing machine. But he's still pretty easily duped. The surviving space-teens and the unfrozen scientist create a simulacrum of Crystal Lake onboard their ship, and momentarily distract Jason with the illusion of two topless girls, smoking pot and cooing, "We loooove premarital seeeeex!"
The style: Welcome to the age of CGI, Mr. Voorhees. Made seven years after the previous film (then stuck on a shelf for two years), Jason X takes full advantage of whatever filmmaking technology its low budget can afford, most notably in the scene in which Jason shoves a student's face into subzero liquid, then pounds it into a stainless steel counter, shattering it into pieces. Unsurprisingly, the reliance on computer effects over make-up makes this one of the least visceral films in the series, although it's also one of the more generally entertaining, thanks to some lean direction by David Cronenberg crony James Isaac. (Cronenberg pops up in a cameo early in the film, as a favor to his friend.) And the final sequence at Virtual Crystal Lake is strangely moving, hinting at the nostalgic direction the series was about to take.
2002 signifiers: Two dudes sit in the simulacra room and play VR video games.
2003: Freddy Vs. Jason
The plot: The long awaited pairing of New Line's two cult villains ends up being more an attempt to restart the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise than a proper return to Crystal Lake. Worried that children aren't afraid of him anymore because they don't remember him, Freddy revives Jason and has him travel to Elm Street for a little serial killin', designed to convince the authorities that Freddy is on the loose again, and thus restore his legend. But when Jason kills the kids that Freddy was saving for himself, Freddy enters Jason's dreams to try and stop him.
The victims: Ordinary teens, not necessarily horny. Also Freddy and Jason, whaling on each other.
Series motifs: The motifs are more familiar to the Nightmare universe than to the Friday universe—especially the nightmares themselves—although whenever Jason appears, snatches of the familiar "ki-ki-ki" score come with him. The movie also features a New Line-heavy Friday The 13th recap, including an entirely new scene that recalls the old Paramount series, right down to the skinny-dipping. But in a true sign of the times, the skinny-dipper has breast implants.
The style: Although director Ronnie Yu is renowned for his martial arts ghost stories, he doesn't bring much of that flash to Freddy Vs. Jason, instead turning the action sequences into fairly leaden superguy-throws-stuff-at-superguy punch-outs. As for the tone of the film, it's strictly post-Scream, with abundant pop culture references and genre-deconstructing moments, like the one where Kelly Rowland analyzes the sexual subtext of Freddy's tiny blades versus Jason's big hatchet. It's a very plotty film as well, with far more complex motivation for the killers and the victims—unnecessarily so, in both cases.
2003 signifiers: In a post-Columbine, post-9/11, post J-horror world, there's no shortage of relevant, era-specific themes and styles for Freddy Vs. Jason to explore, and yet what marks it as an early 21st-century horror movie—beyond the portrait of George W. Bush featured prominently behind one stubborn, misguided police officer—is the sense of yearning for a simpler scare. Freddy's plan is Hollywood's plan, urging the teens of today to remember the child-murderer who now kills kids in their dreams, and the neglected child who carves up campers by a placid lake. The fact that Freddy Vs. Jason made more money than any entry in either series ever proved the marketers right, but in the process, the image of the 1980s' greatest monsters diminished slightly. Once they were boogeymen. Now, they're corporate emblems.
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