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Movie Info
Movie Name: Jason X
Studio: New Line Cinema
Genre(s): Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/B-Movie
Release Date(s): July 24, 2001 (Germany)/April 26, 2002 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
In space, no one can hear your freeze
Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is captured and frozen in an attempt to find a way to contain him until he can be studied. When the freezing goes wrong, scientist Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig) is frozen with her. Now after over four hundred years, both Rowan and Jason are being unfrozen by a salvage group. Trapped on a space ship, Jason finds himself facing a new type of target with new weapons and new means to combat him. Unfortunately for the crew, Jason is about to undergo an upgrade and become even deadlier.
Directed by James Isaac, Jason X (or sometimes referred to as Friday the 13th X: Jason X) is the follow-up to the film Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday in 1993. Initially screened at the Munchen Fantasy Film Fest in 2001, it was almost a year before it was released in the United States. The film received some mixed reviews in regards to the decision to send the story into the future but largely negative.
Every android was kung fu fighting!
I’m on the side of the people who kind of liked Jason X. The Friday the 13th franchise had been dead for a while, and it needed a spark. The rumored Freddy Vs. Jason film had yet to be released and this movie’s tongue-in-cheek approach to Jason was a nice change from the sometimes heavy handed too serious for their own good feel of the Friday the 13th series (as opposed to the too light Nightmare on Elm Street series).
The movie has no stars (except a rather odd appearance by director/actor David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer at the beginning of the film), but the movie doesn’t really need any stars. It is a sci-fi horror film, and those types of films have a tradition of being low-budget and low stars.
The choices…which shall I kill first?
The movie smartly has Jason facing a lot of stuff that he’s never faced before. Jason battles the android KM 14 (Lisa Ryder) and finds himself trapped in virtual reality in two fun scenes…one where he finds the people he’s attacking aren’t dying and two in a scene where he’s given Jason’s dream (naked camper girls who he can try to kill forever). I don’t love the “upgrade” part of the film and find it a bit cheesy, but I also feel like it was meant to be. The ironic ending with the new Earth and new Crystal Lake also allows the franchise to reboot in a traditional Friday the 13th manner after the movie (though it never happened).
If you’ve never seen it or just skipped it, give Jason X a chance. It is by no means any sort of masterpiece, but it is light popcorn horror and like Halloween III: Season of the Witch, I think it will be debated and re-evaluated over the years. The movie obviously didn’t work to reboot the series, and it is one of the least profitable sequels. Jason X marked the official end of the original franchise and Jason Voorhees returned in a rebooted Friday the 13th in 2009.
Related Links:
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
