YNTE Horror Night Holiday Edition: Valentine

Welcome to a special Valentine's Day edition of YNTE Horror Night! I've decided that for as many major holidays as possible this year, I'll be reviewing the slasher film equivalent. For Valentine's Day, this left me with a choice: 2001's "Valentine" or 1981's "My Bloody Valentine". This time "Valentine" won out because the plot seemed a bit more holiday specific, and a lot more ridiculous. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!

The movie starts off with a bunch of middle-schoolers at a Valentine's day dance. A nerdy kid named Jeremy Melton asks all the pretty girls to dance with him. They all reject him cruelly. He then asks a chubby girl to dance with him and they start making out under the bleachers. When some bullies catch them smoochin', the chubby girl claims he attacked her, everyone starts calling him "pervert", and they make fun of him so hard he gets a nosebleed. The bullies then drag him out to the middle of the dance floor and kick his ass. Apparently chaperons weren't invented yet.

Flash forward 13 years. Katherine Heigl, who you may know from Grey's Anatomy, is stretching her acting legs here by playing a Med School student. After going on a bad date with a man named Jason Marquette, she returns to the morgue to practice surgery-ing on some corpses.

She gets a Valentine's card that says something along the lines of "Happy Valentine's Day, I'm going to stab you", and while the writing of the card leaves something to be desired, this guy should seriously get into the greeting card business because the construction of the card was immaculate. It was like a pop-up card with multiple layers and moving parts. Impressive stuff! The card is signed "JM".

Well, surprise, surprise, a psychotic murderer in a Cupid Mask shows up and kills Katherine Heigl's character, and then has a nosebleed out the mask. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about this movie. It is (at least on the surface) a movie about a nerd who girls were mean to who decides years later to kill them.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a downward turn here, as of the 5 girls, Katherine Heigl's character is the only likeable one. Luckily, most of them wind up dead. One of them gets shot by the killer with a hunting bow. You know, the whole "getting shot by Cupid's arrow" thing. Only instead of falling in love after getting shot, she falls off a balcony. Into a dumpster. But the symbolism's still there.

They come to the conclusion that Jeremy Melton got plastic surgery so he'd look less dorky and is secretly dating one of the girls. This leads to a lot of bitchy fingerpointing. At one point, Fatty McGoo admits that Jeremy didn't really attack her, she just didn't want to get made fun of for being fat. At this point she's thin and pretty and ALSO a cast member on Grey's Anatomy.

Cue the big finale where there's a big party and some people get killed. Denise Richards gets killed in a hot tub by a power drill. (On a side note, I don't understand how she became as popular as she did, she's a pretty terrible actress, then again, I think the only movies I've seen her in are this and Starship Troopers.)

It becomes very apparent at one point (and it has been from the beginning for anyone with half a brain) that the main female's boyfriend Adam (played by David Boreanaz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Angel') is Jeremy. He very creepily asks her to dance again. She gets creeped out and runs away. There's a chase scene, and the killer in the Cupid mask tackles her. Adam pops out and shoots Cupid with a gun he happened to find.

They pull off Cupid's mask to reveal Fatty McGoo, who apparently went on a killing spree because her friends treated her poorly as a fat kid. Adam hugs the main character lady, despite her not liking him as a nerdy kid or an alcoholic adult, and his nose starts to bleed, showing that he's Jeremy Melton after all.

First of all, as both a nerd who girls disliked in junior high, and as a bit of a fatty myself, I can tell you, these are not motivations to kill. I have never murdered anyone, and according to this movie, I'd be a double threat!

Secondly, the ending sucks. It's too muddy to be satisfying. It just kind of lays out some events without giving them context. There's at least three possibilities this ending could mean:

1. Adam isn't Jeremy Melton, and the chubby girl was the killer all along
2. The chubby girl is still the killer, but Adam is Jeremy Melton who got all the face surgery so he could trick the girl into dating him, but nothing more sinister
3. Adam IS Jeremy Melton, and the killer, dressed the chubby girl(who is innocent) up in the costume and shot her to cover up his identity

Any one of those endings would have been much better, but by not articulating it, the end just felt lazy.

Anyway, all in all, not as bad of a movie as I expected.

But remember, on this Valentine's Day, the moral of this movie: Nerds and fatties need lovin' too

Catch up on past installments:
Jason X
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

YNTE Horror Night: Jason X

Welcome to YNTE Horror Night, a spinoff series of YNTE Movie Night! This month we'll be analyzing "Jason X", the tenth movie in the Friday the 13th series. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!

Before we get into the plot of this movie, a bit of background on the nine movies that came before: Jason Vorhees drowned as a child at summer camp; now as a an adult he murders promiscuous teens around the site of his death. Last film left him, through a series of crossovers, banished to Hell with no chance of escape. It ended with a tease for the film "Freddy vs. Jason", leading many to believe that would be the next Friday the 13th film made. It wasn't.

At this point, everyone wanted to make Freddy vs. Jason, but for one reason or another, it just wasn't happening. So while waiting to make the film they all wanted to, they put together and crapped out another movie to tide people over.

Couple that with the fact that it's set in the future, in space, so as to not be saddled with all that pesky "continuity", you've got the formula for greatness right there.

Jason starts this movie in government captivity, where scientists are running tests on him to try and discover how he is seemingly invincible. It's interesting to note that they've ALREADY retconned the mystical reasoning introduced last film. He's chained up in a device that looks like one of Houdini's straightjackets. And like Houdini, he escapes from it. Unlike Houdini, instead of taking a bow, he starts with the murderin'.

He kills everyone in the facility except the one cleverest lady scientist who manages to lure him into a cryrogenic chamber. Unfortunately before he can be frozen completely, he stabs her through the door, causing them both to be cryrogenically frozen.

Many years later, the room is discovered by a team of scavengers. They assume Jason is too far gone to save, but think they can bring the lady scientist back to life. So they bag up both bodies and return to their spaceship, which flies them out to an orbital space station where they plan to perform the medical procedures.

At this point the movie looks like a low budget, Stargate rip-off, SyFy Channel original movie. If I walked into a room where someone was watching this, asked them what it was, and they said "A Friday the 13th film" I would not believe them.

They must be spiking the water with horny juice on the spaceship, because nobody on board can go 5 minutes without having sex. One couple starts making out on top of the operating table Jason is still on. One guy puts on a woman's nightgown and has a female crew member tweak his nipples with oversized tongs. One person tries to add nipples to a robot so he can fuck that robot. Seriously.

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone that Jason comes back to life to kill these oversexed spacemen. His first victim is the lady that was doing the autopsy on him, and after killing her he picks up an incredibly impractical surgical tool that happens to look exactly like a machete, but a future machete. FOR SCIENCE.

Jason then proceeds to take out a whole squad of heavily-armed soldiers, one by one, guerrilla-style. The dark, enclosed areas of the spaceship really do a good job of upping the suspense. Or rather, they would, if the film took itself seriously, which it does not. At one point Jason throws a body onto a corkscrew drill, and the body spins around its impale wound. When a soldier finds the body, she reports to her commanding officer "He's screwed."

The pilot prepares to take the ship in to dock with a space colony, knowing that there are many armed commandos on the colony who can take care of Jason. Unfortunately, once the pilot lines up the ship for dock, Jason kills him, and the ship plows through the space colony, blowing it to smithereens.

There's a really touching scene where the robot lady tells the dude crushing on her that there's only a 12% chance of survival. Then they make out. She says that the odds just improved to 53%. Then they "go for 100", which happens off camera, but I'm guessing it means sex. I don't have the calculation skills of a sexbot but I'm pretty sure fucking instead of trying to escape actually LOWERS your odds of survival.

They all have a great plan for leaving in the shuttle, but one scared idiot attempts to fly off without the rest of the group before the shuttle is detached from the ship and it crashes and blows up.

Just when it looks like everyone is doomed, the robot-lovin nerd comes back. It turns out that after the robot sex, he reprogrammed her from a sexbot into a killbot. Despite the fact that he programmed her to kill with flair, not efficiency, she still manages to kill Jason pretty completely. She even blows off a good 3/4 of his head. Everyone, even the lady from the past who KNOWS Jason is unkillable, accepts that he's dead and continue going about their day.

What nobody thought of was that they left Jason's body was left on one of their Science Healing Beds. There's not enough organic tissue left to revive him, so he is augmented with robot parts, replacing Jason Vorhees with the unstoppable cyborg "Jason X"

The group manages to blow Jason up and shoot him out into the vaccum of space, but he punches a hole in the hull, causing explosive decompression. One lady gets sucked out, but before she dies she screams "This sucks on so many levels!", which is actually a pretty accurate review of the movie.

A ship comes to rescue them, unfortunately, the hatch is jammed and they can't get to the space-bridge connecting the two ships, and the hatch controls are on the OUTSIDE of the ship. One guy puts on a space suit and goes to try and unjam the controls from the outside, which begs two questions:

1. Why the hell would you put the hatch controls on the OUTSIDE of the ship?
2. If you have space suits, why not just space suit up and float to the other ship?

To slow Jason down while he stalks them, they boot up a crystal lake hologram simulation, complete with immoral camp counselors for him to kill. This slows him down just enough for the last 2.5 survivors (The scientist lady from the past, the nerd, and his robot lover's decapitated head) to escape. The guy in the space suit propels Jason X's body down toward nearby planet "Earth 2".

The movie ends with two immoral campers by a lake seeing the "shooting star", and deciding to go check it out.

The next Friday the 13th film is finally the crossover, Freddy vs. Jason, which begs the question, which film should I do next? Freddy vs. Jason? Nightmare on Elm Street (for a primer), or should I put the Friday the 13th franchise on ice for a while and do something else, like Scream? Let me know in the comments! One way or another, I'll see you back here next month with a new review!

Catch up on past installments:
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

YNTE Horror Night: Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday

Welcome to YNTE Horror Night, a spinoff series of YNTE Movie Night following the success of my review of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. I'm going to stick with Friday the 13th for now, continuing where I left off, but expect me to go back and get those first 7 eventually, as well as branching out into other horror franchises. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!

Before we get into the plot of this movie, a bit of background on the eight movies that came before: Jason Vorhees drowned as a child at summer camp; now as a an adult he murders promiscuous teens around the site of his death.

The original Friday was intended as a one off, then it was expanded and the third film was going to be the last. Then they made a 4th movie entitled "The Final Chapter". So not only has Jason been "killed" before, he's also been "no seriously guys he's really dead forever this time killed" before and always seems to recover. So, since this was intended to be the last Friday the 13th ever (it wasn't), the filmmakers had to come up with a way to make sure he was "those other times we said he was really dead we were just kidding but not this time, this time he's super dead and can't ever not be super dead he will never be back again why don't you believe us killed".

All of this leads to a wacky, disturbing, and more than a little over the top Friday the 13th film unlike any other. It's unique not only because it changed a lot of the core tenets of the franchise, but also because all films after it knew better and changed them back.

If you recall the end of the last movie, it had Jason drowned (again!) and reverted magically back into a child in a New York sewer. This movie flat out ignores this and starts with Jason as an adult, very much alive, and back to killing nekkid ladiez at Crystal Lake.

Unfortunately for Jason, the first nekkid lady he runs into happens to be a government agent laying a trap for him. She flees to the woods, and when he chases her, a bunch of other agents jump out of the bushes and shoot him a bunch. Then they bring in some bombs and blow him to smithereens.

During the autopsy of the smithereens, Jason's black heart (not hyperbole, it's literally black and slimy) starts to beat again. The coroner, being a pro, does what any pro would do in that situation. He picks it up and starts eating it. Beams of light fly out of the corpse chunks and the coroner is possessed by Jason's soul. He then kills everyone in the hospital and cheeses it out of the building.

That's right, Jason is absent for most of the film, instead possessing various bodies with black slime, light beams, and a parasitic snake demon to do his dirty work.

We are introduced to Creighton Duke, a bounty hunter who somehow knows exactly how to kill Jason, for permanentsies! Apparently the worm demon can't survive in a single body for any period of time, so it needs to keep killing to survive. However, if it bonds with a member of the Vorhees family, Jason will be reborn back into his former body at full strength and will be unkillable. But if a Vorhees kills him, it will kill the worm demon and he will stay dead.

Thus, Jason's main goal this movie has shifted from killing random slutty teens to killing his family, characters who have not been involved in the franchise at all until this chapter. Apparently Jason has a sister (despite previously being referred to as an only child). Jason's sister (Diana) has a daughter (Jessica) who in turn had a baby with a schmuck (Steven) who inexplicably becomes the action hero main character. However, Jessica is no longer dating the schmuck and is instead dating a famous TV reporter d-bag.

Jason (via various possessed bodies) decides to kill some teens by the lake for old time's sake then proceeds to his goal - his sister. There's a big fight, and Steven the schmuck steps in at the last moment and breaks it up. Jason gets away, but not before killing Diana (though not managing to posess her corpse). Cops show up and assume Steven is the killer, so he gets hauled off to jail.

Duke is also in jail, and tells Stephen everything he needs to know, but first breaks several of Stephen's fingers for no reason. Worried that Jason will be trying to kill Jessica or the Baby next to take their body, Stephen orchestrates a jailbreak to go rescue them. But first he goes to the old Vorhees house for some reason.

While there, he sees, and I am not making this up, the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead films. I check to see if I'm watching an official Friday the 13th film or reading bad internet fanfic, but alas this is real. Also there, he finds Diana's corpse, which the TV D-Bag had brought there to do a piece on how Jason is still killing or something. He then gets killed and possessed by Jason.

Jason, in her lover's body, goes to possess Jessica. Stephen arrives in the nick of time to kidnap her against her will. He then attempts to explain the whole thing to her, which she shrugs off as idiotic and insane, because, well, it is.

A this point there's a big long action piece where a bunch of minor characters die. It really does nothing to move the plot along. Stephen gets arrested again, and escapes again. Finally, there's a big climactic showdown back at the Vorhees house.

It's important that the climax takes place here because A) the power of the Necronomicon, coupled with a Vorhees causes the magical dagger from Evil Dead to appear. This is the only thing that can kill Jason (I swear I am not making this up). And B) Evil Demon Worm Jason finds his dead sister in the basement and crawls up her hoo-hah.

Completely reborn Jason comes back, complete with a hockey mask. Luckily, predictably, he gets stabbed with the magic dagger and gets drug down to hell, leaving only his hockey mask sitting in the dirt. Then, Freddy Kreuger's clawed hand comes out from the dirt and drags that down too, setting up the inevitable crossover.

None of the mystical elements were BAD per se, but they were SO out of place in a Friday the 13th film I had a hard time enjoying it. Coupled with all the fanboy nods riddled throughout the piece made me glad that this was the Final Friday...

...except that it wasn't! And I'll review those as well! See you next month!

Catch up on past installments:
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan