by Lee Skavydis

Created on: January 19, 2011

There had been rumors that a Friday 13th film was going to be set in space for years before this movie was finally released. And then Jason X was. Let's get the obvious out of the way first, this is not a film that is meant to be taken seriously, just like Freddy vs Jason, and even a lot of the later Friday 13th sequels.

Kane Hodder reprises his role as the hockey mask wearing killer, who has been captured at the beginning of the film for research. He soon breaks free, but one particularly brave woman named Rowan cryogenically freezes him, and herself. Years later, the two bodies are recovered by a colony in space after the Earth is no longer inhabitable, and, seemingly to everybody's surprise on board the spaceship, Jason awakes to do some slashing.

Lexa Doig plays the heroine, Rowan, although she is not some virginal type. She does not have the kind of innocence that a lot of horror heroine's do have. Rowan is quite strong willed, and very educated. She has had experience in dealing with Jason before, so is wise to Jason's tricks.

I am not really a fan of Hodder's Jason, but he is undeniably a fan favorite, probably due to the fact that he has played Jason the most times out of all the actors that have. Hodder is still quite intimidating, and performs as the famous movie slasher with bad intentions.

The tone of Jason X is quite light hearted as evidenced by the fact that it purposely contains cardboard characters, such as Kay-Em 14, a female cyborg that is desperate for a boyfriend. As you can tell, it is all played for fun.

Considering that this is a movie that is set in space, this is a Friday 13th movie that contains the most special effects in the entire franchise. It was all shot digitally, but nevertheless there are some impressive shots of space elements for a film that has a measly $11,000,000 budget.

It was well publicized before the movie's release that this was going to have "uber Jason", a metal version of Jason that is a cross between the Terminator and Robocop. The metal suit of "uber Jason" looks cheap and the red eyes of Jason are quite clearly contact lenses, and this is easy to see. "Uber Jason" also does not really get a lot to do in the film, since he only appears in the climax, so most of the movie is already done at this point. It was a bit of a waste!

The body count is high, actually the highest in the Friday 13th movie series, and blood flies thick and fast. The variety of the on screen kills will also please "Jason" fans, the one involving dunking a woman's head in liquid nitrogen, in particular, is impressive!

This entry may be heavily disliked by hardcore Friday 13th fans, but I do admire it for doing something original with the series. For so long it seemed that every sequel was more or less the same, and that is why I even enjoyed Friday 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Sure, Jason X may be an example of taking things just a little too far, but it's still a fun and entertaining little slasher flick.

Viewers will like this so long as they have an open mind, but if that is not the case then it is probably best to move on to something else.

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