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Completely ignoring the events from Jason Goes to Hell, in this one it's 2008, and after numerous attempts to execute Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) have failed, it's decided to deep-freeze him until science has advanced enough to take down a being with cell regeneration as advanced as Jason's. But then army scientist Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg) pulls a few strings to instead of having Jason frozen he wants to take him to his lab to examine in order to create super soldiers. It doesn't go well of course, and Wimmer and his entourage are slaughtered on site, and only thanks to Rowan (Lexa Doig), the scientist responsible for freezing Jason, can he be lured into the cryogenics chamber and be frozen. One problem though, Rowan is stabbed in the process and frozen with him.

It's 2455, and earth has long become extinct, but humankind has long found a safe haven elsewhere in space, and by now earth has become mostly an archeological dig - like for professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts) and his students, who on a field trip find the cryogenics chamber Rowan and Jason are hibernating in, and take them both back to their spaceship, where they thaw up Rowan, and medical science has advanced to a degree where her stab wound can be cured in a manner of minutes. However, the professor thinks Jason's beyond hope and lets his assistant Adrienne (Kristi Angus) do a post mortem. Rowan pleads with Lowe to get rid of Jason's body right away as he's still a threat, but Lowe learns about who Jason was and that his body could be sold for a high price, and thus doesn't listen to Rowan. Of course, Jason soon comes to life against all logic, kills Adrienne as well as several of Lowe's other students, and when Brodski's (Peter Mensah) security detail try to lure him to the cargo hold and take him out, Brodski's the only one to survive if only barely. And whether she likes it or not, now it's up to Rowan, knowing Jason better than anyone in the 25th century, to save the others ...

After Jason Goes to Hell, that ditched the slasher formula of earlier Friday the 13th movies to take a more fantasy inspired route with supernatural forces and a silly but fun mythology tagged onto the concept, that didn't sit very easy with fans who wanted more of the same and not the deviation that movie was (the film's inherent entertainment value notwithstanding) - and thus the series was put on hold for 8 years, and when the series came back, the events tackled in Jason Goes to Hell were consequently gone and forgotten, and Jason was back to being Jason the unstoppable teen-killing machine - with the added attraction that he now does so in space. But even this change of location didn't sit well with fans and the movie tanked. But this time around Jason resurfaced only two years later to play second fiddle to Freddy Krueger in the rather less imaginative Freddy vs. Jason.

Its poor box office aside, Jason X is actually a very entertaining movie. Sure, it's a tad silly, but to its credit the movie acknowledges its own silliness and while playing it mostly straight takes its time to every now and again wink at the audience, from the VR female teen campers (Kaye Penaflor, Tania Maro) to the manga-inspired kinky female fighter android (Lisa Ryder), and it's more than obvious that the filmmakers had good fun with their material and were taking cues not only from previous entries in the series and the ultimate space slasher Alien, but also more poignant science fiction like Dark Star. And it terms of production value, the film sure lives up to its task without burying everything under too much bombast. Of course, storywise there are certain leaps of reason and the occasional plothole, but that's what one has come to expect from a slasher movie, really, and a light-footed approach and steady pace really gloss over this and make the movie a very enjoyable ride that certainly would have deserved a bit more fan appreciation.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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