or: Jason X, People 0.

After being cryogenically frozen for half a millennium, the unhappiest camper of all time is transported via space station to Earth 2 (the sequel?) and accidentally thawed out. He begins hacking and slashing his way through a group of less obnoxious nitwits on board the space station in deep space.

Uneven structure, the film is basically two acts: the first last about 20 minutes, and sets up Jason being frozen and thawed. Then the second act has him slaughtering a commando unit, and various other people on board this space station, for the remainder of the film's run time. Film never really climaxes, it just stops in a way which the filmmakers incorrectly think is clever and humorous.

A definite improvement over the previous film, Jason goes to Hell, but there are absolutely no scares. Technically well made, this is mostly a science fiction/ comedy, as the film is set on board a space station and the majority of the dialogue is one-liners. Jason makeup has been toned down considerably: no longer is he a rotting, walking corpse; here, he appears to be just a guy in a hockey mask. But that works for this movie, for some reason. I kind of liked it that way for a change. The characters are fairly dim, as always, but not as repulsive as in a couple other installments of this series. Lexa Doig, Kane Hodder, and Peter Mensah do surprisingly well with their characters and the material, which is the biggest asset for this movie.

Filmed in March and April 2000, released in Germany in July 2001, Spain in November 2001, South America in January and February 2002, Stateside and the rest of the world did get it until at least the spring of 2002, giving this film probably the oddest, longest delayed release in the series' history.

So Jason is back, and in a big way, with possibly the most expensive movie of the series so far and certainly the most special effect-filled one. Following on from JASON GOES TO HELL, which changed the core concept by having Jason becoming an evil slug that jumped from person to person, here we have the traditional hockey-masked killer back, but the setting is a futuristic spaceship in the style of many recent B-movie sequels. Thankfully, the film is still violent at heart, and for a 15 certificate film it offers some of the most imaginatively gory moments I've seen in a long time. People are decapitated, cut in half, thrown onto enormous drill-bits, get impaled, electrocuted, have their throats slit, and plenty more. Certainly the film's most notorious sequence is also the most inventive, having a young blonde lady getting her face frozen in liquid nitrogen, then smashed apart on a work surface – this is without a doubt the most disgusting thing I've seen on screen in a long, long time.

The formula is predictable, involving young good-looking heroes and heroines narrowly evading Jason at every turn, but the special effects are better. Certainly the kills are authentic-looking and the CGI shots are fun if not particularly convincing. Set design is spot on, and elements of the traditional Friday the 13th music are more than welcome. Like it or not, things do become very cheesy as the film progresses, introducing the 'Uber-Jason', a nanobot-modified killer who looks more like the Terminator than Mr. Voorhees, and the climax, set in space, is totally off the wall and utterly unbelievable.

The main thing, though, is that this film is fun, and a whole load of fun at that. There's plenty of self-knowing humour, black comedy and the young cast do a lively job. The film introduces a new hard-assed action hero in Tony Todd-lookalike Peter Mensah who I'd certainly like to see more of (and thankfully I did, when he took a lead role in the smash TV series SPARTACUS). And it wouldn't be the same without stuntman Kane Hodder, as huge and hulking as ever, who positively delights in a return to his famous role. So, fans of the series will delight in this entry which is both predictable and unpredictable at the same time; it never lets up from the start and offers enough blood and guts to satisfy any horror fan's appetite. An absolute delight.

Jason Voorhees is finally captured by the U.S. government and held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. They can't find a way to kill him. Scientist Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig) decides to freeze Jason in cryogenic suspension. Jason escapes and Rowan is just able to freeze both him and herself. 455 years later a scientific team returns to a desolate earth and finds the frozen bodies. They bring the two on their ship, but the reanimated Jason just can't stop killing.

This movie borrows heavily from Alien, Blade Runner and many others. It just does it without the tension or style. It is cheesy camp. The only good thing is that director James Isaac knows it. He's made a hopeless B-movie with a high cheese factor.