10 MORE Horror Movies That Actually Benefitted From Bad Acting

Where do franchises go when they have nothing left? Space, of course. And that is precisely where cult slasher villain Jason Voorhees went in 2001, joining an array of other intergalactic projects from the time (Planet of the Apes, Solaris, Ghosts of Mars) while offering up something rather different.

One of the most misunderstood horror films of this century, Jason X has been lambasted as the movie that ended the Friday the 13th franchise, and yet it is, at its heart, profoundly self-aware, operating with a keen understanding of its place in the slasher genre post-Scream. After all, when all the gaffes of the genre have been repeatedly called out on the big screen, the only thing to do is to lean into them one last time.

As such, all of the acting throughout Jason X is overstated, with the cast making basically no attempt at realism, and instead going for National Lampoon-level volume and projection. And it works. When viewed as a self-deprecating black comedy rather than anything like the gory terror that first terrified audiences in 1980, Jason X is on another level. Also, the inclusion of David Cronenberg as an experimental doctor struck down by Jason in the opening sequence is no mistake, self-consciously signposting the demise of both figures' respective genres (at least for a couple of decades).