So the makers of this movie had one good idea: That the persistent rebirth of Jason, and his repeated killing sprees, was getting to be too much to hang onto the relatively thin tale of childhood trauma that the original films gave us. Jason had long since quit being a basically-human character, and was now fully supernatural, so he needs a supernatural backstory.

But then they proceeded to have a bunch of really terrible ideas, like:

  1. “How about if we never actually explain this supernatural backstory?” Because seriously, if in the ninth movie of a franchise, you’re going to do a big retcon, you need to sell us. You need to start us off in colonial times with a witch trial or some shit, or show Hans Voorhees in the Crusades stealing some holy relic. Whatever! If you’re going to give some bigger meaning to jasons, you need to explain it to us and bring us along for the ride.

    But they didn’t. Instead, they just have a dude come out of nowhere to dump (with no explanation about how he knows any of this) a wacky prophecy about how only a Voorhees can kill jasons, and how jasons can become reborn with the blood of a Voorhees or whatever. Who the fuck is making prophecies about this random family whose mom is a camp nurse in 1970? And then to compound the absurdity, the dude introduces a magic dagger out of nowhere, like “oh yeah, this is the magic dagger that a Voorhees can use to kill jasons.” If you’re going to introduce a magic dagger in the ninth installment of a franchise that is resolutely non-magic-dagger in tone, you really need to explain yourself.

  2. “How about if we have our main hero be a total asshole that the viewer hates?” Seriously, this fucking guy is the worst. Everyone, including people who grew up with him and have known him all their lives, is willing to believe that he’s a stone-cold killer at the drop of a hat. Even having watched this movie and knowing that jasons actually did all the real killing, I still 40% believe that this doof would kill someone for fun. (Actually, come to it, I guess he did just flat out kill a good guy at one point, as a mistake. He never seemed particularly bothered by it.)

  3. “No, you know what, not just the main character, let’s make everyone in this movie deeply unpleasant.” There’s a reality TV show host, there’s a shitty cop, there’s the prophecy-monger who will only spill his prophecy for the price of… being allowed to break someone’s fingers? For no apparent benefit to himself other than the pure sadism of it? Even the heroine that needs to be protected mostly spends her time fighting the hero (though again, see last point, hard to blame her) and also thought the reality TV show host would be a good guy to date, so it’s not like she’s super-sympathetic either. Long story short, it’s hard not to cheer for the jasons.

  4. “Oh, and Jason is actually a worm creature that possesses bodies, and he’s fiendishly clever and can engage in Skrull-like deception.” WHAT NO, none of this makes any sense at all. Jason’s true form is that of a jason, and he’s not clever and cannot engage in deception. None of this fits at all, this is like somebody got jasons mixed up with The Thing, and no, filmmakers, putting a crate in the Voorhees basement with “Antarctic Expedition” and “Carpenter” on it is not enough of a lampshade to prevent me from making this criticism.

  5. “Okay, the raddest possible ending will be if, after they kill Jason, his mask is sitting there… AND THEN FREDDY’S CLAWS COME OUT AND GRAB IT, YES.” I guess in its defense, it’s surprising, but it’s also stupid. And while there is a Jason v. Freddy movie, it wasn’t the next one they made, so it’s not like this is even setting up that sequel.

  6. “People miss the nudity of the ’70s movies, so how about if we make an unrated version that has an extended softcore sex sequence?” Okay, look, from a time machine perspective, I get it. 1993 is getting out of the Moral Majority era into the very beginning of the edgelord era (this is the year Doom came out, for instance), and this fits right in with that. But from a “get back to the roots” perspective, it’s just a comprehensive misunderstanding of what those roots were. It’s like a little kid who just learned swears, except for sexploitation.

This is really super not a good movie. My wife thinks it’s better than the Manhattan one because “at least it’s not boring,” and I guess I can see that, but I think the Manhattan one is stupid in a more interesting way, and this one is just stupid in an overwrought Sci-Fi Channel crossed with late night Cinemax way, except somehow worse than that sounds. This is not a good movie. Avoid.

(PS the title is a lie.)