JASON X

Starring: Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig
Director: James Isaac

Run Time: 88 minutes
Edition Details: Region 2 encoding (Europe, Middle East & Japan only), PAL
Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound

DVD Features: Commentary by director Jim Isaac, Writer Todd Farmer, and Producer Noel Cunningham; Theatrical trailer(s); Original documentary: The Many Lives of Jason Voorhees; Original documentary: By Any Means Necessary: The Making of Jason X; Jump to a Death Feature; Widescreen anamorphic format

Movie: * * ½
Disc: * * *

Having Jason killing off teenagers in space was a good decision. This Friday the 13th pokes fun at its own genre conventions and is probably the best of all the numerous instalments.

The original films were cheap and nasty, a bit like a venereal disease I suppose. For some reason I have seen the first three movies when they were finally unbanned in South Africa back in the mid-1980s. That’s right, apartheid South Africa didn’t ban just politically sensitive movies about political leaders being murdered in police detention (Biko), but they also went to the bother of banning splatter movies like this one.

After more than twenty years of having the hockey-masked serial killer Jason killing off an estimated 200 plus horny teenagers, the franchise was however more than just tired: it was pretty much dead. However, just like its protagonist that never seems to die, along came this entry in 2001. (For some reason it took about a year after completion before it got a theatrical release in the States.)

It’s all very ridiculous and over the top, but the movie is in on the joke. Okay, the acting, special effects and costumes are all bad, and some of the attempts at humour will make you groan, but the movie clips along at a brisk pace to clock in less than 90 minutes.

Better than I thought it would be.

THE DISC: Surprisingly the features are quite good for such an el cheapo movie. My favourite is a documentary titled “The Many Lives of Jason Voorhees”. It clocks in at almost half-an-hour and is like attending a geek convention of some sort! Lots of “Internet critics” getting their fifteen minutes here . . .

By the way: is it just me, but isn’t Moriarity (the regular “informant” on Harry Knowles’ Ain’t It Cool web site) a dead ringer for the comic book storeowner in The Simpsons?

The widescreen anamorphic transfer is flawless and so is the Harry Manfredini score. Manfredini apparently did the music for all the Friday the 13th movies through the years – practically guaranteed lifetime employment that!

WORTH IT? The movie is better than I expected it to be and so is the treatment it got on disc.

RECOMMENDATION: I can’t seriously recommend that you rent a Friday the 13th movie – I’ll never live it down – so you’ll just have to read between the lines here . . .

See also: Movie Gurus.