Movies:
Jason X
DVD Release
- Release Date: 2002
- Original documentary: The Many Lives of Jason Voorhees - documentary on the history of Jason
- Original documentary: By Any Means Necessary: The Making of Jason X - making of/production documentary
- DVD-ROM content: script-to-screen, link to original website, hot spot
- cc
- Widescreen version of the film
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
- DTS Surround Sound
- Stereo Surround Sound
- English subtitles and closed captions
- Filmmaker commentary with director Jim Issac, writer Todd Farmer and producer Noel Cunningham
- Jump to a death Theatrical trailer
- Rating:
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Movie Type: Slasher Film, Sci-Fi Horror
- Themes: Experiments Gone Awry, Serial Killers, Time Sleepers
- Director: James Isaac
- Main Cast: Lexa Doig, Kane Hodder, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, Jonathan Potts, Peter Mensah
- Release Year: 2002
- Country: US
- Run Time: 93 minutes
- MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Popular bogeymen Jason Voorhees terrorizes a group of nubile astronauts five centuries into the future in this sci-fi update of the Friday the 13th franchise. Early in the 21st century, Jason (actor/stunt man Kane Hoddar, filling the role for a fourth time) is experimented upon by army technocrats who hope to turn his supernatural invulnerability into a military application. Most of them meet a swift and bloody end -- except Rowan (Lexa Doig), a beautiful functionary, who traps the killer in a cryogenic stasis chamber. Unfortunately, she takes a machete blow in the process, gets frozen herself, and wakes up on a spaceship in the year 2455. The earth has long since been rendered uninhabitable, but the survivors include a group of archaeological students headed by Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts), who hopes to make a quick buck by selling the corpse of the historical serial killer. The kids re-animate Rowan with the help of nanotechnology. Little do they know that a mere thaw job is enough to resuscitate Jason and reawaken his bloodthirst. Soon, the comely students and their space-marine protectors are being dispatched one by one. Help arrives in the form of a holographic chamber and an android named Kay-Em 14 (Lisa Ryder). Soon, though, Jason himself gets an upgrade -- just as the spaceship is getting ready to self-destruct. The tenth installment in the long-running horror series, Jason X was the first new entry to appear in almost a decade. In fact, the previous film, 1993's Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, was one of two installments whose titles erroneously contained the word "final." ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie GuideReview
Like any business, a B-grade horror franchise needs occasional investment in its infrastructure in order to stem the tide of ever-lessening returns. And so, following the success of Halloween: H20, the Friday the 13th series gets its own renovation. With a splashy-enough concept and ad campaign to lure big audiences the week before Spider-Man took summer 2002 by storm, Jason X is certainly a far cry better than most of the pitiable late-'80s installments in the series. But in its willingness to poke fun at both itself and the other movies from which it cribs, the flick isn't a whole lot different from 1993's Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. The best sequences are therefore the jokiest, and also, coincidentally, the most indebted to Star Trek. In the first, a female Mr. Spock/Data hybrid suddenly sprouts bondage gear and Charlie's Angels attitude. In the second, Jason, trapped on an imitation Holodeck, gets to party like it's 1980 at the expense of retro-bimbo phantasms. Elsewhere, it's all bland teen sex-comedy rejects in sub-Lost in Space costumes getting sliced and diced with ruthless efficiency. Despite the presence of a character named Dallas, the film never achieves a single moment of actual Alien-style terror. As for enjoyable gore, there are some inventive assassinations, such as the use of liquid nitrogen to render a human head into a blood Popsicle. Aside from the intentional laughs, there are some accidental ones, including an android beheading too cheap to make use of even a single digital FX shot to make it look convincing. It's as if, having blown their entire budget on post-Seven opening credits and Resident Evil character concepts, the producers had to scrimp when it came to the actual movie. Still, a thoroughly slick Friday the 13th just wouldn't gel with the rest of the series; it's enough to know that someone somewhere was willing to put enough time and money into a Jason flick to infuse it with even a modicum of cool. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie GuideCast
- Kane Hodder - Jason
- Lexa Doig - Rowan
- Lisa Ryder - KAY-EM 14
- Chuck Campbell - Tsunaron
- Jonathan Potts - Professor Lowe
- Peter Mensah - Sgt. Brodski
Melyssa Ade - Janessa; Melodie Johnson - Kinsa; Dov Tiefenbach - Azrael; Derwin Jordan - Waylander; Kristi Angus - Adrienne; Yani Gellman - Stoney; David Cronenberg - Dr. Wimmer
