Jason Voorhees has been after all these years successfully captured. Executed is a different matter altogether. Nothing seems to work. And if Dr. Wimmer David Cronenberg has his way, Jason will be the next advancement in military might. Of course, since Jason is scheduled for cryogenic entombment, Dr. Wimmer might not get his wish. And as in any good Friday The 13th, things hit the fan early and Jason is frozen along with Rowan (Lexa Doig), head of Crystal Lake Research and the woman who put him on ice. Then we get a four hundred year jump and the Earth is a wasteland. A perfect place for a group of science students and their professor to look for relics of the old Earth. That's right, they find Jason and Rowan and put them on their spaceship, Grendel. Of course the ship is brimming with nubile young women and their male counterparts. And someone lets Jason thaw, bad move. It isn't long before he is at it again and being on a spaceship makes it all the better. He's got a captive audience with no where to go.

The concept of a slasher in space sounds hokey at first. Thankfully the first time screenplay by Todd Farmer makes it work. We get a little more humor than usual. After ten installments you are bound to parody yourself. I mean we're talking about a mass murderer that is virtually indestructible. Finding him worthy opponents is like finding bad guys that Superman can't beat. Farmer is smart enough to inject a few new elements to the series. We get a squad of space marines ala ALIENS. Also KM is the best android since Lance Henriksen, also from ALIENS (Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern). In addition to that we get uses for a holodeck that never came up in Star Trek : TNG. Usually, the characters in a Friday The 13th film are busy hoofing it as far away from Jason as possible. Now they rush right at him guns blazing. Poor bastards must not have caught any of his earlier films.

The other characters are a little one dimensional. We don't get a lot of time to make any sort of emotional attachments. Lead Lexa Doig is gorgeous and one of the best babes to go up against Jason since Part 7 when he had to hold his own against Lars Park Lincoln and her telekinetic whammy.

Jason has always been my favorite slasher. He's quieter than Freddy. Not as freaky as Leatherface. And seems more, I don't know, sincere than Michael. He's about one thing...killing good looking teenagers. It doesn't hurt that this is Kane Hodder's fourth time up at bat. He brings a consistency to the character. If you've met Kane in person you can tell it's him by the body movements and his eyes. But, when he's on his killing jag it doesn't matter. The man plays lunatic to perfection. Why? Who cares? It makes for a great 93 minutes of celluloid.

Director Jim Isaac gives us the most bang you can get for your buck. All those years of doing special effects for Cronenberg must have paid off. He also did something quite daring for the film. Most films up to the point of Jason X would digitize portions of the film to do CGI and other special effects. Jason X is the first film to be shot entirely on film, then the entire film is digitized and then a print is made from that. They were able to tweak any little thing they wanted on any given frame of film. What can I say? It's gorgeous. To make sure that the viewing experience is optimum they give us a disc with widescreen, Dolby digital 5.1 Surround Sound, DTS Surround sound and stereo surround sound. Crank this puppy up and turn off the lights, it's just like being in the theater.

The disc gives us two documentaries, The Many Lives Of Jason Voorhees and By Any Means Necessary:The Making OF Jason X. The first gives us an overview of Jason from the Mongoloid boy in the lake up to the new and improved Uber Jason. It has some great commentary by Joe Bob Briggs and Mark and Mike from the documentary AMERICAN MOVIE. Not as in depth as a lot of fans would like, but some definite effort was made in linking the various incarnations of our favorite slasher. The other documentary is just a behind the scenes kind of thing. It's here that we learn that the entire film is digitized. Really the only valuable piece of information in the entire documentary. We also get the theatrical trailer and if you have DVD-ROM, then you can read the script as well.

Then there is my favorite option I've ever seen in a DVD. It's called JUMP TO A DEATH. That's right, not interested in valuable character development? Just want to see a bunch of well deserving morons get theirs? Then just click to this option and it will play all the kill scenes in sequential order. Truly the best innovation in DVD technology in years.

Jason X is what all the other discs in the series need to be. Unfortunately, they're all stripped down, bare bones editions. Maybe when we reach our thirteenth installment New Line will put out a box set. I remember years ago when there was a rumor that there would be thirteen installments. Back then it seemed impossible. Now there's only three to go and with the attention that the Jason VS Freddy flick is getting we'll get our three more. Ad maybe when he's finished mopping up that red and green clad psycho from dream land, he'll get the title shot at Michael and Leatherface. Now that would be cool.