Director: James Isaac
Starring: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, Jonathan Potts, Peter Mensah, Melyssa Ade, Todd Farmer, Melody Johnson, Derwin Jordan, David Cronenberg 

- Reviewed by Dan

Even the name of this movie should frighten you. Or maybe it should be thought of as a warning. To me, Jason X sounds like an ointment you'd apply to get rid of that embarrassing, unsightly "jason" problem that's been making you scratch in public. (Yes, I realize the "X" is a roman numeral.)

So on this ride through the splatter-funhouse, Jason is cryogenically frozen in an attempt to contain him because, as most horror aficionados will tell you, killing him is impossible. Several hundred years later, a team of space-traveling student archeologists and a handful of military-commando types led by a smarmy professor (with a nipple fetish) unfreeze our "hero" who then runs amok on the spaceship chopping holy hell out of everything. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six co-eds left... you all know the drill.

This is a genre film and should be reviewed as such. I'll admit that if you really like these kinds of movies or the Friday the 13th series in particular, Jason X will get your blood pumping, and, compared to the rest of the series, boasts lavish production value. But still, I would give this movie only five slices. One for good space and gore effects, one for making me jump at least three times, one for a couple of sly winks to the previous NINE movies, another for occasionally showing restraint in the gratuitous gore department—and I do mean occasionally (gore-hounds will not be disappointed) and a final slice awarded for the three scenes that were actually funny as opposed to "punny." (But be forewarned-groan-worthy one-liners abound.)

For me, in the early eighties, Jason was a metaphor for morality-based fascism (which is why he so violently offs people who have premarital sex or do drugs for fun). Then AIDS hit the scene and he became symbolic of the virus.

So what's Jason all about now? Is he a Una-bomber-type technophobe with a machete punishing a decadent future where a severed arm can be reattached with ease—or is he pissed that humanity has come full circle back into the free love mentality which spawned the first 13th film? Maybe he's killing mankind because mankind killed the earth. Yes, that's it—Jason Voorhees is actually a concerned environmentalist.

Actually, I don't think the filmmakers have a clue. There is one character in the movie who says "It's always all about the money," and because I can't think of any other good reason to have made this film, I'll have to agree. The groan-inducing humor makes it clear that writer Todd Farmer and director James Isaac realize how tired, clichéd, and generally used up the whole "trapped on a spaceship with a maniacal thing" plot has become. This is probably why they've plagiarized virtually every popular science fiction and horror film that ever made a buck. They've thrown it all into a messy cinematic pop-culture casserole—a little Matrix-style ass-kicking, a dash of A.I.—and then they dropped a machete-wielding maniac into the role previously occupied by Ridley Scott's Alien. It cooks up into a sloppy accident you can't take your eyes off of. It's terrible for you and full of preservatives, but kind of tasty—like Spam, or Twinkies. Or a horrific combination of both.

So Jason X is silly and gratuitous and probably too violent for the 14-year-old demographic that would be most entertained by it, but die-hard fans will appreciate the production values lavished on a favorite splatter-maven. Certainly, worse horror films have been made... a rental or a matinee could be in order.

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