Jason X

Jason X
Theatrical poster
Directed by	James Isaac
Produced by	Noel Cunningham Sean S. Cunningham Geoff Garrett James Isaac Marilyn Stonehouse
Written by	Todd Farmer
Based on	Characters  by Victor Miller
Starring	Lexa Doig Lisa Ryder Chuck Campbell Jonathan Potts Kane Hodder
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Cinematography	Derick V. Underschultz
Editing by	David Handman
Studio	New Line Cinema Crystal Lake Entertainment Friday X Productions
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	July 24, 2001 (2001-07-24) (Germany) April 26, 2002 (2002-04-26) (United States)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States Canada
Language	English
Budget	$14 million[1]
Box office	$16,951,798[1]

Jason X (also known as Friday the 13th Part X: Jason X) is a 2001 science fiction horror slasher film directed by James Isaac. It is the tenth in the Friday the 13th film series and stars Kane Hodder as the undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees, the film made $16,951,798 worldwide with a budget of $14 million.^[1] Thus far, it is the last appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason Voorhees.

The film was conceived by Todd Farmer and was the only pitch he gave to the studio for the movie, having suggested sending Jason into space as a means to advance the film series while Freddy vs. Jason was still in development hell^[2] and is set in the future so as not to confuse the continuity of the series.

Plot

In 2008 (five years after Freddy vs. Jason), Jason Voorhees is captured by the United States government and held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. In 2010, a government scientist decides to place Jason in frozen stasis after several failed attempts to kill him. While Private Tanner Heflin places a blanket on Jason, Doctor Whimmer, Sergeant Trent, and a few soldiers hope to further research Jason's rapid cellular regeneration and try to take Jason. They pull off the blanket covering his body, but find Calvert dead instead. Having broken free of his restraints, Jason kills the soldiers and Whimmer. Rowan lures Jason into an "ice" pod and activates it. Then Jason ruptures the pod with his machete and stabs Rowan in the abdomen, spilling ice fluid into the sealed room and freezing them both.

Over 445 years later in 2455, Earth has become too polluted to support life and has moved to a new planet, Earth Two. Three students, Tsunaron, Janessa and Azrael are on a field trip led by Professor Brandon Lowe who is accompanied by an Android robot, KM-14. They enter the Crystal Lake facility and find the still frozen Jason and Rowan, whom they bring to their spaceship, the Apache. Also on the ship are Lowe's remaining students, Kinsa, Waylander and Stoney. They reanimate Rowan while Jason is pronounced dead and left in the morgue. Lowe's intern, Adrienne, is ordered to dissect Jason's body. Lowe, who is in serious debt, calls his financial backer Dieter Perez of the Solaris, who notes that Jason's body could be worth a substantial amount to a collector.

While Stoney has sex with Kinsa, Jason comes back to life and attacks Adrienne and then freezes her face with liquid nitrogen before smashing her head to pieces on a counter. Jason takes a machete-shaped surgical tool and makes his way through the ship. He stabs Stoney in the chest and drags him away, to Kinsa's horror. Sergeant Brodski leads a group of soldiers to attack Jason. Meanwhile, Jason attacks and kills Dallas by bashing his skull against the wall after breaking Azrael's back. He then tries to attack Crutch, but Brodski and his soldiers save him. Jason disappears, and after Brodski splits up his team, Jason kills them one by one.

Lowe orders Pilot Lou to dock in on Solaris. As he is talking with the Solaris engineer, he is hacked apart by Jason. With no pilot, the ship crashes through a nearby space station, destroying it, and killing Dieter Perez and everyone else on the Solaris. The crash damages one of the Grendel's pontoon sections. Jason breaks into the lab, reclaims his machete and decapitates Lowe.

With the ship badly damaged, the remaining survivors head for Grendel's shuttle, while Tsunaron heads elsewhere with KM-14. After finding Lou's remains, Crutch and Waylander prepare the shuttle. Rowan finds Brodski, but he is too heavy for her to carry, so she leaves to get help. Waylander leaves to help with him, while Crutch prepares the shuttle. Jason kills Crutch by electricution. On board the shuttle, Kinsa has a panic attack and launches the shuttle without releasing the fuel line, causing it to crash into the ship's hull and explodes, killing herself in the process. Brodski attacks Jason, but is overpowered. Tsunaron reappears with an upgraded KM-14, complete with an array of weapons and new combat skills. She fights Jason off and seemingly kills him, knocking him into a nanite-equipped medical station, and blasting off his right arm, left leg, his right rib cage and finally part of his head. The survivors send a distress call and receive a reply from a patrol shuttle.

The survivors set explosive charges to separate the remaining pontoon from the main drive section. As they work, Jason is accidentally brought back to life by the damaged medical station, rebuilt as an even more powerful cyborg called Uber Jason. Jason easily defeats KM-14 by punching her head off. As Tsunaron picks up her still functioning head, Jason attacks them, but is stopped by Waylander, who sacrifices himself by setting off the charges while the others escape. Jason survives and is blown back onto the shuttle. He punches a hole through the hull, sucking out Janessa. A power failure with the docking door forces Brodski to go EVA to fix it.

Meanwhile, a hard light holographic simulation of Crystal Lake is created to distract Jason, but he sees through the deception just as the door is fixed. Brodski confronts Jason so the rest can escape. As they leave, the pontoon explodes, propelling Jason at high-speed towards the survivors, however, Brodski intercepts Jason in mid-flight and maneuvers them both into the atmosphere of Earth Two, incinerating them. Tsunaron assures KM-14 that he will build a new body for her.

On the planet, two teens beside a lake see a falling star as Jason's charred mask sinks to the bottom of the lake.

Cast

• Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees / Uber Jason
• Lexa Doig as Rowan LaFontaine
• Lisa Ryder as KM 14
• Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron
• Jonathan Potts as Professor Brandon Lowe
• Peter Mensah as Sergeant Brodski
• Melyssa Ade as Janessa
• Melody Johnson as Kinsa
• Phillip Williams as Crutch
• Derwin Jordan as Waylander
• Dov Tiefenbach as Azrael
• Amanda Brugel as Geko
• Kristi Angus as Adrienne Thomas
• Yani Gellman as Stoney
• Todd Farmer as Dallas
• David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer

Production

Development

Development of Jason X began in the late nineties while Freddy vs. Jason was still stuck in development hell. With Freddy vs. Jason not moving forward, Sean S. Cunningham decided that he wanted another Friday the 13th film made to retain audience interest in the character. The film was conceived by Todd Farmer, who plays "Dallas" in the film, and was the only pitch he gave to the studio for the movie, having suggested sending Jason into space as a means to advance the film series while Freddy vs. Jason was still in development hell.^[2]

The film score was composed and conducted by Harry Manfredini. It was released on Varèse Sarabande. Jason X's theme song is "Bodies" by Drowning Pool from their album Sinner. The song, while used in the film's theatrical trailer, does not actually appear in the film itself.^[3]

Reaction

Box office

The film made $13,121,555 domestically, and earned $3,830,243 foreign for a worldwide gross of $16,951,798,^[4] making it the third lowest-grossing film in the series.

Critical reception

The film received unfavorable reviews, holding a "Rotten" rating of 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 102 reviews, with the consensus being that "Jason goes to the future, but the story is still stuck in the past."^[5] Metacritic shows the film as having "generally unfavorable" reviews based on 23 critics, with a score of 25/100.^[6] American film critic Roger Ebert wrote a scathing review of the film, quoting one of the film's lines: "This sucks on so many levels."^[7]

However, the film was better received in the United Kingdom, gaining positive reviews from the country's two major film magazines, Total Film^[8] and Empire.^[9] Empire's review by Kim Newman in particular praised Jason X as "Wittily scripted, smartly directed and well-played by an unfamiliar cast, this is a real treat for all those who have suffered through the story so far."

Other media

In 2005, Black Flame, a subsidiary of Games Workshop, began publishing a series of paperback books based on Jason X and aimed towards young adults. While the first book adapts the film, the following books feature new story lines based on the character in the setting established by the Jason X film. The five books in the series are Jason X by Pat Cadigan, Jason X: The Experiment by Pat Cadigan, Jason X: Planet of the Beast by Nancy Kilpatrick, Jason X: Death Moon by Alex Johnson and Jason X: To the Third Power by Nancy Kilpatrick.

Avatar Press produced two comic book titles based on this film: Jason X, a one-shot by Brian Pulido that picks up as a sequel to the movie, and Friday the 13th: Jason vs. Jason X, a two-issue mini-series by Mike Wolfer that pits the two versions of Jason (original-classic Jason vs Uber Jason) against each other.

The scene where Jason freezes Adrienne's head in liquid nitrogen before smashing it to pieces was the subject of an episode of MythBusters. The team built several fake heads, dipped them in liquid nitrogen and attempted to smash them with a robotic arm. The myth was declared "busted" after none of the heads appeared to replicate the effect in the movie.

References

External links

• Jason X at the Internet Movie Database
• Jason X at allmovie
• Jason X at Rotten Tomatoes
• Jason X at Box Office Mojo
• Film page at the Camp Crystal Lake web site
• Film page at Fridaythe13thfilms.com