Jason X

“
Evil gets an upgrade.

”— Tagline
***Jason X*** is a 2002 Canadian-American science fiction slasher film directed by Jim Isaac. It is the tenth installment in the *Friday the 13th* film series and stars Kane Hodder as the undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees. The film made $16,951,798 worldwide against a budget of $11 million. Thus far, it is the last appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason Voorhees.

The film was conceived by Todd Farmer and was the only pitch that he gave to the studio, having suggested sending Jason into space as a means to advance the film series while *Freddy vs. Jason* was still in development hell and is set in the future so as not to confuse the continuity of the series.

## Plot

In 2008, (5 years after *Freddy Vs. Jason*) Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is captured by the United States government and held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. In 2010, a government scientist decides to place Jason in frozen stasis after several failed attempts to kill him. While Private Samuel Johnson (Jeff Geddis) places a blanket on Jason, Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg), Sergeant Marcus (Markus Parilo), and a few soldiers hope to further research Jason's rapid cellular regeneration and try to take Jason. They pull off the blanket covering his body, but find Johnson dead, instead. Having broken free of his restraints, Jason kills the soldiers and Wimmer. Rowan (Lexa Doig) lures Jason into an "ice" pod and activates it. Jason then ruptures the pod with his machete and stabs Rowan in the abdomen, spilling ice fluid into the sealed room and freezing them both.

Over 445 years later, in 2455, Earth has become too polluted to support life and humans have moved to a new planet, Earth Two. Three students, Tsunaron (Chuck Campbell), Janessa (Melyssa Ade), and Azrael (Dov Tiefenbach), are on a field trip led by Professor Braithwaite Lowe (Jonathan Potts), who is accompanied by an Android robot, KM-14 (Lisa Ryder). They enter the Crystal Lake facility and find the still-frozen Jason and Rowan, whom they bring to their spaceship, the *Apache*. Also on the ship are Lowe's remaining students, Kinsa (Melody Johnson), Waylander (Derwin Jordan), and Stoney (Yani Gellman). They reanimate Rowan while Jason is pronounced dead and left in the morgue. Lowe's intern, Adrienne Thomas (Kristi Angus), is ordered to dissect Jason's body. Lowe, who is in serious debt, calls his financial backer Dieter Perez (Robert A. Silverman), of the *Solaris*, who notes that Jason's body could be worth a substantial amount to a collector.

While Stoney has sex with Kinsa, Jason comes back to life and attacks Adrienne, then freezes her face with liquid nitrogen before smashing her head to pieces on a counter. Jason takes a machete-shaped surgical tool and makes his way through the ship. He stabs Stoney in the chest and drags him away, to Kinsa's horror. Sergeant Brodski (Peter Mensah) leads a group of soldiers to attack Jason. Meanwhile, Jason attacks and kills Dallas by bashing his skull against the wall after breaking Azrael's back. He then tries to attack Crutch, but Brodski and his soldiers save him. Jason disappears, and after Brodski splits up his team, Jason kills them one by one.

Lowe orders Pilot Lou (Boyd Banks) to dock in on *Solaris*. As he is talking with the *Solaris* engineer, he is hacked apart by Jason. With no pilot, the ship crashes through a nearby space station, destroying it, and killing Dieter Perez and everyone else on the *Solaris*. The crash damages one of the *Grendel*'s pontoon sections. Jason breaks into the lab, reclaims his machete and decapitates Lowe.

With the ship badly damaged, the remaining survivors head for *Grendel*'s shuttle, while Tsunaron heads elsewhere with KM-14. After finding Lou's remains, Crutch (Philip Williams) and Waylander prepare the shuttle. Rowan finds Brodski, but he is too heavy for her to carry, so she leaves to get help. Waylander leaves to help with him, while Crutch prepares the shuttle. Jason kills Crutch by electrocution. On board the shuttle, Kinsa has a panic attack and launches the shuttle without releasing the fuel line, causing it to crash into the ship's hull and explode, killing her. Brodski attacks Jason, but is overpowered. Tsunaron reappears with an upgraded KM-14, complete with an array of weapons and new combat skills. She fights Jason off and seemingly kills him, knocking him into a nanite-equipped medical station and blasting off his right arm, left leg, right rib cage, and, finally, part of his head. The survivors send a distress call and receive a reply from a patrol shuttle.

The survivors set explosive charges to separate the remaining pontoon from the main drive section. As they work, Jason is accidentally brought back to life by the damaged medical station, rebuilt as an even more powerful cyborg. Jason easily defeats KM-14 by punching her head off. As Tsunaron picks up her still-functioning head, Jason attacks them, but is stopped by Waylander, who sacrifices himself by setting off the charges while the others escape. Jason survives and is blown back onto the shuttle. He punches a hole through the hull, blowing out Janessa. A power failure with the docking door forces Brodski to go EVA to fix it.

Meanwhile, a hard light holographic simulation of Crystal Lake is created to distract Jason, but he sees through the deception just as the door is fixed. Brodski confronts Jason so that the rest can escape. As they leave, the pontoon explodes, propelling Jason at high speed towards the survivors; however, Brodski intercepts Jason in mid-flight and maneuvers them both into the atmosphere of Earth Two, incinerating them. Tsunaron assures KM-14 that he will build a new body for her.

On the planet, two teens beside a lake see a falling star as Jason's charred mask sinks to the bottom of the lake.

## Cast

* Lexa Doig as Rowan LaFontaine
* Lisa Ryder as Kay-Em 14
* Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron
* Jonathan Potts as Professor Brandon Lowe
* Peter Mensah as Sergeant Brodski
* Melyssa Ade as Janessa
* Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees
* Melody Johnson as Kinsa
* Phillip Williams as Crutch
* Derwin Jordan as Waylander
* Dov Tiefenbach as Azrael
* Amanda Brugel as Geko
* Kristi Angus as Adrienne Thomas
* Yani Gellman as Stoney
* Todd Farmer as Dallas
* David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer
* Robert A. Silverman as Dieter Perez
* Marcus Parilo as Sgt. Marcus

## Production

### Development

Development of *Jason X* began in the late nineties while *Freddy vs. Jason* was still stuck in development hell. With *Freddy vs. Jason* not moving forward, Sean S. Cunningham decided that he wanted another *Friday the 13th* film made to retain audience interest in Jason. The film was conceived by Todd Farmer, who plays "Dallas" in the film, and was the only pitch he gave to the studio for the movie, having suggested sending Jason into space as a means to advance the film series.

The film score was composed and conducted by Harry Manfredini. It was released on Varèse Sarabande. *Jason X*'s theme song is "Bodies" by Drowning Pool from their album *Sinner*. The song, while used in the film's theatrical trailer, does not actually appear in the film, itself.

## Release

### Box office

The film made $13,121,555 domestically, and earned $3,830,243 overseas for a worldwide gross of $16,951,798, making it the third lowest-grossing film in the series.

### Critical reception

The film received unfavorable reviews, holding a "Rotten" rating of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 104 reviews, with the consensus being that "Jason goes to the future, but the story is still stuck in the past." Metacritic shows the film as having "generally unfavorable" reviews based on 23 critics, with a score of 25/100. American film critic Roger Ebert wrote a scathing review of the film, quoting one of the film's lines: "This sucks on so many levels."

However, the film was better received in the United Kingdom, gaining positive reviews from the country's two major film magazines, *Total Film* and *Empire*. *Empire*'s review by Kim Newman in particular praised *Jason X* as "Wittily scripted, smartly directed and well-played by an unfamiliar cast, this is a real treat for all those who have suffered through the story so far."

## Legacy

In 2005, Black Flame, a subsidiary of Games Workshop, began publishing a series of paperback books based on *Jason X* and aimed towards young adults. While the first book adapts the film, the following books feature new story lines based on the character in the setting established by the *Jason X* film. The five books in the series are *Jason X* by Pat Cadigan, *Jason X: The Experiment* by Pat Cadigan, *Jason X: Planet of the Beast* by Nancy Kilpatrick, *Jason X: Death Moon* by Alex Johnson and *Jason X: To the Third Power* by Nancy Kilpatrick.

Avatar Press produced two comic book titles based on this film: *Jason X*, a one-shot by Brian Pulido that picks up as a sequel to the movie, and *Friday the 13th: Jason vs. Jason X*, a two-issue mini-series by Mike Wolfer that pits the two versions of Jason (original-classic Jason vs. Uber Jason) against each other.

The scene where Jason freezes Adrienne's head in liquid nitrogen before smashing it to pieces was the subject of an episode of *MythBusters*. The team built several fake heads, dipped them in liquid nitrogen and attempted to smash them with a robotic arm. The myth was declared "busted" after none of the heads appeared to replicate the effect in the movie.

**Films:** *Friday the 13th* • *Part 2* • *Part III* • *The Final Chapter* • *A New Beginning* • *Jason Lives* • *The New Blood* • *Jason Takes Manhattan* • *Jason Goes to Hell* • ***Jason X*** • *Freddy vs. Jason* • *Friday the 13th* (2009)
**Characters:** Jason Voorhees • Pamela Voorhees
**Comics:** *Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash* • *The Nightmare Warriors*
**Games and TV:** *Friday the 13th* (1985 game) • *Friday the 13th* (NES game) • *Mortal Kombat X* • *Friday the 13th: The Series*
**Related topics:** *A Nightmare on Elm Street* • *Mortal Kombat* • *Evil Dead*