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Review Ratings

★★★★★ = Excellent

★★★★ = Good

★★★ = Average

★★ = Below Average

★= Abysmal

JASON X: Limited Edition (2001) 4K UHD. ★★★★

Arrow Video, Out Now. Cert: 15 I know what you’re thinking. “Why are they reviewing a Friday the 13th sequel in Infinity? Isn’t that the sort of thing its sister mag The Dark Side usually deals with?” And normally you would be right. But Jason X is no ordinary instalment in the long-running slasher series; it’s one that saw Jason Voorhees go where no hockey mask-wearing serial killer had gone before, as he blasts off into outer space!

Escaping captivity at a secret government facility, unstoppable killing machine Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is finally put on ice when he’s cryogenically frozen mid-rampage by scientist Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig), albeit not before shoving his machete into her guts. Flash forward to the year 2455 and Earth is a desolate wasteland, no longer capable of supporting life, humanity now living on the unimaginatively named Earth II instead. When a group of students on a field trip to the old Earth stumble across the abandoned facility they decide to take the two frozen Rowan and Jason back with them aboard their spaceship, the Grendel. Using advanced nanotechnology to heal her wounds, the craft’s crew revive Rowan but refuse to heed her warnings about Jason… until he revives himself and picks up where he left off.

Put into production as a stopgap solution while New Line tried to sort out its long-gestating Freddy vs Jason crossover, Jason X has no right to be as much fun as it is. While fellow horror icons of the era, Pinhead and Leprechaun, beat Jason into space, neither of them embraced the expanded opportunities the sci-fi setting offered. Todd Farmer’s unexpectedly witty and knowing Jason X script, on the other hand, does just that, pitting the hockey mask-wearing psycho against Aliens-inspired space marines, chucking him into a holodeck (leading to a laugh-outloud gag that surely ranks among the franchise’s finest moments), and even giving him a third-act cybernetic-makeover when those medical nanobots work their magic on his mangled cadaver.

Jason X also benefits from a better-than-expected cast for the tenth instalment in a horror franchise. While hardly major Hollywood stars, Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder were making a name for themselves in genre circles at the time, starring alongside Kevin Sorbo in Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda (2000-2005). Elsewhere, Jonathan Potts makes for an enjoyably greedy and slippery analogue to Aliens’ Carter Burke, while Peter Mensah brings the same sort of likeable gruffness to the part of Sgt. Brodski that would subsequently make him a standout performer in the Spartacus TV show (2010-2013). And, of course, Kane Hodder remains the definitive Jason Voorhees actor.

Successfully pulling all these elements together is director Jim Isaac, who sadly passed away in 2012. A former special effects artist who worked on several of David Cronenberg’s films (leading to a cameo from the Canadian auteur himself at the start of Jason X), Isaac not only keeps the action ticking over at a decent pace while also injecting the film with a level of visual style and flair beyond anything previously attempted in the franchise.

Jason X may not be the very best Friday the 13t h movie ever made, but it is the most fun. It takes a pretty silly idea and runs with it, tongue planted firmly in its cheek, to the point where the setup makes some kind of sense.

Extras: ★★★★

Arrow has gone back to Jason X’s original 35mm camera negative and undertaken a brand new 4K restoration, with new colour and HDR10/Dolby Vision grading.