Susan Granger’s review of “JASON X” (New Line Cinema)
It’s curious what the continuing success of this slasher/sci-fi franchise reveals about us as a society. Ever since the beginning of the “Friday the 13th” series, the zombie-like Jason Voorhees has been slicing, dicing and slaughtering. And many audience members laugh at the violence, particularly when one young man is impaled on a giant industrial screw and another victim is fatally stabbed after foolishly proclaiming, “It’s gonna take more than a poke in the ribs to put down this old dog.” After “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday” (1993), we were told the series was put to rest but now Sean S. Cunningham, who directed the 1980 original, is back onboard as executive producer. After an explanatory prologue, the fright flick unfolds in the year 2455 aboard the spaceship “Grendel,” carrying the cyrogenically suspended Jason far from the now-uninhabitable Earth. He’s been frozen since 2010, along with a doctor (Lexa Doig) from the Crystal Lake Research Facility. When the serial killer thaws, he systematically goes after the college student crew because, like their predecessors, these fools stupidly think that the best way to catch the fiend is to split up and roam through the corridors. Director James Isaac and screenwriter Todd Farmer lift liberally from “Alien,” “Terminator” and “Star Trek,” inject some self-parody and follow the monotonous, grisly gore formula of murder and mayhem, displaying not one shred of originality. Stuntman Kane Hodder plays the mutilator for the fourth time, hiding behind the hockey goalie mask, but without the dark spookiness of Crystal Lake Camp, the horror concept completely loses its creepy menace. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Jason X” is an idiotic, ominous 1, clumsily clumping in the blood-soaked footsteps of its nine predecessors.
