Jason X (Friday the 13th Part 10)

Jason X (Friday the 13th part 10) title

Tag line : Evil Gets an Upgrade

Jason X (Friday the 13th part 10) With a plot that tends to ignore most of the previous sequels, the tenth film in the Friday the 13th saga starts with a somewhat different storyline. Psycho killer Jason Voorhees (played once more by stuntman Kane Hodder) has been finally been captured and is being held at an underground research facility near Crystal Lake.

Unable to kill him, they decide to keep him out of trouble by cryogenically freezing him until a more "permanent" solution can be found. Unfortunately, things go a bit wrong (as they always do) and the facilities administrator Rowan (Lexa Doig) gets frozen along with him.

Flashing forward some 450 years into the future, and the Earth is now a barren wasteland. A salvage team from "New Earth" sets down looking for scientific curiosities amongst the dust and rubble, and stumbles across the old Crystal Lake Research Facility (you can see where this is heading).

Having discovered the two frozen bodies, they take them back to their spaceship where they successfully revive Rowan, who seems none the worse for being asleep for 4 and a half centuries. But she is alarmed to discover that they are currently busy thawing out Jason as well. They assure her that Jason is dead, and has no chance of being revived, but of course we know better and it isn't too long before a bloodbath ensues as Jason carves his way through the ships security team, and then the rest of the crew.

This film is an interesting spin on what was becoming an otherwise worn out series. There are some great in-jokes and references to previous Friday the 13th films (particularly the hologram scene near the end), although I couldn't help but notice a few distinct similarities between this and some of the "Alien" films. But, there are some nice death scenes (particularly "death by corkscrew") and it's great to see Kane Hodder back in the role of Jason. Look out for cult director David Cronenberg who makes a cameo appearance near the beginning as a mad scientist.

Overall marks : 6/10.

Other Information.

Alternate tag lines "Welcome to the Future of Horror", "He's been drowned, chainsawed, knifed, axed, hammered, shocked, burned, spiked, nailed, shot and frozen. Now he's back for more" (that last ones a classic!!).
The films budget was $14
Lexa Doig (Rowan) and Lisa Ryder (Kay-Em 14) both star in the US Sci-Fi show Andromeda.
The US theatrical release was trimmed by the US ratings board, the MPAA, in order to get an "R" rating (meaning children under 17 can see it if accompanied by an adult). These shortened 3 main death scenes, involving Dr Wimmer's impaling, the death by corkscrew and a scene showing a disembodied security officer still trying to crawl, although these appear to be intact on the US DVD. The UK and European releases are of this same version.
The writer, Todd Farmer, makes a cameo appearance as one of Brodski's security team. His characters name "Dallas" was named after Tom Skeritt's character in Alien.
An earlier rough cut of the movie revealed how Jason broke free at the beginning, showing the young soldier inadvertently knocking out the IV line feeding him sedatives to keep him docile as he puts the blanket over Jason's head.
An additional scene filmed, but not included, showed Brodski engaging in a knife fight with Jason.
The character of Adrienne, played by Kristi Angus, was named after Adrienne King, the star of the original Friday the 13th.
The spaceship in the movie is called "Grendel", named after the villain in the famous narrative poem Beowulf. Grendel was a monstrous killer.