Jason X Film Review

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JASON X

In space, no one can hear you scream, but in the multiplexes they'll certainly hear you yawn with boredom at Jason X.

The latest installment of the hugely popular Friday The 13th series is given a futuristic twist, as the hockey-masked maniac stalks the passengers on a state-of-the-art spaceship. It's Alien-style setting brings nothing new to the franchise: if anything, watching Jason X only reminds you how good Ridley Scott's 1979 shocker was.

The year is 2455, and a scouting party from Earth II stumbles upon the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility, and two cryogenically frozen bodies.

One survivor is pretty researcher Rowan (Lexa Doig), the sole survivor of Jason's last bloody rampage; the other is a rather large gentlemen sporting a hockey mask and machete. Guess who.

Back on the ship, Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts) and tech-droid KAY-EM 14 (Lisa Ryder) re-animate Rowan. However, Jason (Kane Hodder) also comes back to life, and begins stalking the terrified crew members through the corridors of the spacecraft.

Cliches abound as the cast is picked off one at a time, in the obvious manners (walking alone down dark corridors). If, by the middle of the 25th century, these characters haven't learnt the conventions of the horror movie, and continue to wander blindly to their doom, then perhaps they deserve a sticky end.

Performances are perfunctory, and a couple of the female characters actively compete to see who can screech their lines the loudest.

There are a couple of choice though obvious one-liners, like when one victim is impaled on a large drill bit, and his distraught college quips, "He's screwed!" Special effects are unconvincing - there's a laughable Star Trek-esque wobbliness to the sets - and the big finale falls horribly flat.

Hopefully, the Friday The 13th series will be laid to rest with this installment.