The Static Age Part 4: In Space!

Space, the final frontier... or the last place left for a washed-up slasher to stalk. These are the voyages of the dying horror franchise. Its mission: to explore bad ideas. To seek out new viewers. To boldly go where other monsters have gone before (and embarrassed themselves). You may not want to admit it, but you know what I'm talking about. And if you're totally clueless, let me fill you in. You see, when a horror movie franchise's idea pool is running dry there's really only one place left for it's evil doers to go -- outer space. Let's run down a few examples to show you what I'm talking about.

Critters 4 (1991) - The first film to blast off into the unknown and the only one that would actually make sense. The Crits (or critters to all y'all country bumpkins) are actually ALFs (no, not the friendly furry kind from Melmac) so setting their fourth and final film in space brings the series full circle. Although not my favorite, it's still a pretty fun watch.

Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996) - Now let me preface this by saying I'm not a big Hellraiser fan. The special effects are nice and all but I just don't dig on it. Now as far as Bloodline, the concept is really pushing it. On a space station in the future, a relative of the inventor of the original puzzle box decides it's his duty to put an end to Pinhead and his Cenobite cronies once and for all. And how? By making a reverse puzzle box, of course. Not only is the concept ridiculous but it probably would have worked better if it wasn't in space. Pass on this one and pretty much every Hellraiser after this.

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997) - The Leprechaun movies are some of my all-time favorites but this is the only one in the series that I can't stand. They were too aware of the fact they were making a bad movie so they didn't even try to make it a good "bad" movie. There's no real reason behind having him in space other than to add wacky futuristic elements. I guess they just wanted to jump on the "in space" bandwagon. Notice how each movie so far has been the 4th in it's franchise. So I'll give them credit if they were aware of this trend and did it on purpose, but I highly doubt the masterminds behind this turd were that smart. The most important part of a Leprechaun flick is Leprechaun's silly rhymes, which are non-existent in this installment. Yes, this one sucks, but don't let that stop you from checking out Leprechaun in the Hood and Back to the Hood which are quite possibly some of the best.

Jason X (2002) - People talk a lot of yang on this flick, but I honestly love it. It successfully did what Leprechaun 4 tried to: take your main character out of his element and put him on a futuristic space station. They were aware that they were making an "in space" movie and didn't suck at it. They took everything I love about the Friday the 13th series and super-sized it with uber technology. Whether you wanna admit it or not, Jason hasn't been remotely interesting since part 7 and its other horror movie cliche: the girl with psychic powers (hopefully someday I'll cover those flicks), so I welcomed X in all it's far-fetched glory. A must-see for all true quality schlock fans.

Since then I haven't seen any franchises try to execute an "in space" flick. Why not? Fear of a flop and backlash from fans? Who cares, bring on the cheese. I could only imagine the stuff Chucky would pull on an unsuspecting space crew, Freddy could easily invade the dreams of Elm Street descendants in the future, and pretty much anyone at anytime could pull of a chainsaw massacre. So let's do it, fledging film makers. Shoot me into outer space!

Oh and by the way... if you're not busy this Friday and are into heavy music, check out my band. We're playing just a few blocks from the Planet at Otto's Shrunken Head. All the info is conviently located on this super-rad zombie flyer, that I drew by the way. See you there!

- Matt D.