Janessa clung on to the grated floor aboard The Grendel with all her might. The gaping hole on the spaceship was pulling everything out with tremendous force. Alarms were going off and the air was thin, every muscle in her body was pushed to its limits to just hold on…Tsunaron tried to save her now…and how did she find herself in this situation? She was smart, sexy and talented, she’d avoided being chopped up by that frozen bag of pus that came to life on board the ship, and for what? To die like this? This was stupid! No! No! It can’t end like this…Hold on a little longer… Her ears started to bleed from the pressure and she felt herself falling free.

“This sucks on so many levels!”

Her tight little body was crushed through the narrow opening with such a force that her consciousness ended in an instant. Ejected into the vacuum of space, like so much garbage, was the pink and red pulp that had once been Janessa.

The opening credits for JASON X (see previous Unlucky Days entry here for the beginning of our JASON X discussion) ran over a montage of scientific tests being performed on Jason himself, bound in chains. JASON X starts with no exposition on how the Sultan of Slaughter escaped hell or was captured. The only concession to THE FINAL FRIDAY was the brief reflection of flames in Jason’s one good eye. Could that be memories of the flames of hell?

The year is 2008, and Jason is being kept under observation at the Crystal Lake Scientific Research Facility. So the sleepy little town that became famous for a killer has become the home to a government funded research center? After numerous attempts to execute him failed, Jason is being studied to determine what gives him his remarkable healing and regenerative powers.

Jason himself has not looked this “alive” since before his “death.” Gone is the bulbous, lumpy head of THE FINAL FRIDAY, and his skin has an almost yellowish flesh tone to it and no exposed bone. The ax scar is still there and he still has only one good eye (I like that consistency). The most amazing thing about Jason’s new appearance is his hair. Not just a few strands like in JASON GOES TO HELL, but fairly evenly distributed hair.

We are introduced to Rowan, the beautiful female research scientist who insists that the only way to deal with Jason Voorhees is to cryogenically freeze him until a way to finally destroy him can be discovered. The head of the research facility, Dr. Wimmer (genre director David Cronenberg), insists that Jason be transported to a military installation where he can be further studied.

Naturally, Rowan is correct and Jason escapes from his bonds and begins a slaughter spree of the installation’s soldiers and Dr. Wimmer. Rowan leads the rampaging Jason to the Cryo-chamber to trap him for freezing. Jason strikes one last time, breeching the freezing chamber, stabbing Rowan with his machete and sending the entire facility into lockdown. Both Rowan AND Jason are frozen for the long haul.

It all seemed very Captain America and Red Skull to me.

Our main story is set in the year 2455, when a group of student scientists led by their teacher, Professor Lowe, exploring “Old Earth” find the frozen bodies of Jason and Rowan. Right away the exploration goes bad…in a freak accident, Jason’s frozen body falls forward and the machete he’s holding slices the arm off of one of the students!!  The android female that accompanies the group (Kay-Em 14) determines that Rowan is still alive. She also makes a rather humorous summation of the violent game of hockey based on the strange mask the big one is wearing.

Both Rowan and Jason are taken back aboard the spacecraft The Grendel for transport back to the Solaris Space Station and then Earth 2. The amputee victim (Dylan Bierk) is made whole again by the amazing nanomites in Lab 2 and the same technology is used to revive Rowan. Naturally, she’s stunned to learn that it is now 2455, but the main question that she keeps asking is, ”Where’s Jason?” Meanwhile, Professor Lowe discovers just who the masked body really is and realizes what a fortune he could make by selling the body of Old Earth’s most notorious serial killer. Ah, greed… Nice to know that in 2455, it hasn’t disappeared.

Jason begins to thaw (as we knew he would) and kicks off his slaughter spree once again with the brutal death of a young scientist named Adrienne. Jason slams her face into a vat of liquid nitrogen, freezing it solid, and then shatters it against the counter top. OUCH! The Sultan of Slaughter was back!

The movie enters into VERY familiar territory with Jason stalking victims throughout the ship. Even when the military team commanded by the brave Sgt. Brodski takes up weapons and fight back, Jason makes short work of them. The violence in the film (thanks to CGI) is done in spectacular ways. Victims are impaled on giant screws, cut in half, gutted and crushed. There are also a few classics like the throat slit and the head crush. Todd Farmer, the screenwriter, cameos as the character whose head is smashed by Jason.

The Grendel reaches its destination, the Solaris Space Station, but Jason causes the ship to fly into the station, destroying it. Up until this point, a highly respectable body count of 17 was maintained, but with the explosion of the Solaris, THOUSANDS are killed. Jason’s body count has become uncountable!!

The remaining students are huddled in the main lab and Jason attacks again, killing Professor Lowe. All seems hopeless until the female android Kay-Em appears with a new battle program. She attacks Jason with incredible ferocity, pumping his body full of bullets and blowing off his arm, his leg and finally, reduces his head into pulp!!! Jason is spectacularly destroyed! Of course, we all knew what is coming next…

As the survivors make contact with a rescue ship, Jason’s remains are foolishly left in lab 2, and the nanomites go to work. Fabricating a new metallic body for the missing pieces and reforming him into the new Jason for the 25th century, Uber-Jason!!! Wisely, the designers of the Uber-Jason didn’t change him so much that he was unrecognizable. The mask was still there but silver, and he was bald once again. The body was mostly metallic, with flesh and bone melded within. Jason must have felt better than he did in years. With both his eyes intact once again and blazing red, the new upgraded Sultan of Slaughter heads back to work.

Key-Em goes toe to toe with Jason again, but the outcome this time is decidedly different. Jason punches her head clean off. Being an android, Key-Em doesn’t die of course, but the only remaining student survivor, her creator and love interest Tsunaron, carries around her noggin.

Rowan, Tsunaron and Key-Em (her head at any rate) attempt to escape in the Grendel’s evacuation pod, but it needs repairs. Sgt. Brodski (believed dead) returns and volunteers to don a space suit and repair the pod from outside the ship. Uber-Jason is advancing and there is no stopping him. Their only hope is to distract him.

What follows is one of most hilarious moments in all of the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. Using a hologram program, they place Uber-Jason back into Camp Crystal Lake circa 1980. The metallic, futuristic Uber-Jason suddenly finds himself in a very familiar setting with trees, music, wind and familiar Harry Manfredini music. It’s magic.

Uber-Jason pauses ever so briefly, but then continues onward so a further distraction is needed. Suddenly two beautiful female camp counselors are generated and say together in robotic singsong:

“We love to drink beer, smoke pot and have premarital sex!”

Then the counselors strip off their tops and climb into sleeping bags giggling. This was too much! Uber-Jason immediately goes after them…some temptations are too hard to resist. Jason picks up the sleeping bags and bashes them together over and over then slams one against a holographic tree. It is a classic moment.

The repair is completed and the survivors prepare to eject to Earth 2. Uber-Jason attacks again, and Sgt. Brodski sacrifices himself by holding on to him and launching them both into space. The result is a fireball entering Earth 2’s atmosphere. The fireball lands in a lake of a summer camp on Earth 2.

The End.

JASON X had unspooled and my brother and I sat in the back of the truck, stuffed with fried chicken and with big stupid grins on our faces. That was so much fun! The film did not take itself seriously and that was the only way it worked. Maybe it was the environment of the drive-in, but JASON X was everything I hoped it would be. The entire cast of “scientists” were hot young sexy model-types wearing lots of revealing belly shirts, the Grunts were very reminiscent of ALIENS, and the hologram scene was just film-stopping funny. In essence it was everything a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie should be. There was nudity, blood, gore and a silly plot.

I was talking about the film for days after. Jason had been revived once again! At the drive-in that night, I saw teenagers watching JASON X, and kids not much older than I was when I first saw Mrs. Voorhees do her thing in the original. Now Jason was being introduced to a new generation who had only seen him on video. The one element that made me sad was Jason’s new look. It was cool, but I was really going to miss classic Jason.

Wait a moment, what’s that sound? Scraping along a pipe…sounds like…the fires of an ancient boiler room springing to life…and a wicked laugh.

Could it be?

TO BE CONTINUED

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features