JASON X (2001)

JASON X is a wildly improbable but enjoyable concept by director Jim Isaac and writer Todd Farmer. After pitching the still involved Executive Producer Sean S. Cunningham his ideas placing Jason anywhere he could think of, the one that stuck was to project the homicidal hillbilly into outer space. Fortunately, New Line supported the idea enough to give Isaac a relatively huge £13m budget (over three times the scale of any previous sequel) which allowed him to employ VFX film Toybox to produce over two hundred visual effect shots using green screen and CGI. It also benefits from a surprisingly rich and quite lovely score by long-term FRIDAY THE 13TH company member Harry Manfredini.
The cast are of a high standard and play with spirit and a genre knowingness. Lisa Ryder relishes her role as kick-ass android Kay-Em 14 as just one of a number of elements inspired by James Cameron's 1986 sci-fi/horror hybrid ALIENS along with the gung-ho Marine grunts who are culled like the rest of the crew.
David Cronenberg appears at the beginning as Dr Wimmer, a favour asked by Isaac having worked for him as a special effects supervisor on EXISTENZ (1999). His is a nice genre cameo, inhabiting the horror movie archetype of cold fascination for the evil subject's potential overriding concerns for human safety that his own movies often featured in various clinics and facilities.
One slightly grating aspect is that whilst Rowan (Lexa Doig) is accidentally freeze-dried into cryogenic suspension in our time, she awakes on a space vessel in the year 2455 where female crew members are dressed in the skimpiest, sexualised outfits since 1960s shows like STAR TREK. As attractive as they are, you can't help thinking 'In space no-one can hear you objectifying women just like your ancestors'.
That aside, this sequel is sheer fun if you accept it on its own terms. Kane Hodder still imbues Jason with a towering dextrous force in his fourth outing, and Farmer's script saves a crowd-pleasing transformation for him till the last act where he is remodelled by the science lab's nano-technology into a steroidally-enhanced metal and leather clad uber-Jason before blown out of the airlock and vaporised with Peter Menhas's Sgt Brodksi.
Lastly, the humour of JASON X is worth mentioning. After taunting Jason's ineffectiveness for his first literal stab at him, the Sarge suffers a penetrating slicing through his chest and gasps "Yep, that oughta do it". My favourite one-liner though is the scientist who tells Rowan she's lucky that "you weren't alive during the Microsoft conflict. We were beating each other with own severed limbs".
No matter that JASON X only grossed four million more than its budget on release. Within two years, the long-awaited match between Jason and Freddy Kreuger would finally take place...