An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the final film entry in the original Friday the 13th timeline, 2002’s Jason X
After being cryogenically frozen in 2010, Jason is accidentally awoken in 2465 aboard a space ship where he continues his murderous rampage
Is Jason X Scary?
No, while this entry is about a horror icon, it leans more toward science fiction. There are some gory kills but nothing that you shouldn’t be used to by now if you’ve been watching the rest of the films. Overall you won’t leave Jason X scared of anything unless you work in a cryogenics lab and have co-workers who don’t check to see if someone’s been accidentally frozen.
All Friday the 13th Explanations/Reviews:
Related Article: Friday the 13th (1980) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part II (1981) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part III (1982) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Explained
Related Article: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday Explained
Related Article: Jason X (2002) Explained
Related Article: Friday the 13th (2009) Explained
Jason X Full Plot Summary:
The film opens sometime around 2010 revealing Jason is still alive and being held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. We get no explanation on how Jason got out of hell or how he was captured but I think the writers of the Friday the 13th movies gave up on continuity a long time ago.
We learn Jason is scheduled to be cryogenically frozen as a punishment for his crimes. Outside the very large room he is being held in, Dr. Wimmer (played by THE David Cronenberg) and a group of military personnel tell scientist Rowan (played by Lexa Doig) that those plans have changed.
Much to her protest, Dr. Wimmer says he has gone over her head and has received approval to keep Jason alive so his regenerative abilities can be tested. Dr. Wimmer and his group enter the room and quickly discover Jason has somehow escaped his chains. He then appears behind them and kills them with extreme ease.
Jason throws one of the guards through a door that lands directly in front of Rowan. She doesn’t immediately put it together that the group walked into the room of a supernatural killing machine and asks the dying guard what happened. That question is answered for her when she turns around and finds Jason staring at her.
Rowan runs and leads Jason to the cryogenic room where she successfully traps Jason in a cryogenic chamber. Turning on the machine, Jason starts to freeze but before he does, he stabs Rowan in the stomach through the door.
Because his machete, which can apparently cut through several inches of steel like butter, has cut a hole in the door, the cryogenic gas spills out and the room goes into lockdown. You would think the automated step, when cryogenic gas leaks, is to turn off the cryogenic fluid but nope, it’s to lock down the entire freaking room.
Due to the cryogenic gas, both Jason and Rowan freeze. And then no one checks on them for over 400 years! Cut to the year 2455 where a group of researchers enter the frozen room and find both Rowan and Jason frozen and preserved. In 400 years, no one touched the door to the room in passing and thought “Hey why is that door so cold… and where’s Rowan?”
Turns out these researchers are students led by Professor Lowe (played by Jonathan Potts). Some of the students in the screenshots below include Azrael (played by Dov Tienfenbach), Janessa (played by Melyssa Ade), an android named Kay-Em 14 (played by Lisa Ryder), and Tsunaron (played by Chuck Campbell) who created and programmed Kay-Em 14.
Deciding to revive Rowan, the group rush to carry them back to their spaceship. In the rush, Jason’s body falls and his frozen machete slices off Azrael’s arm with ease. Turns out chopped-off limbs aren’t that serious in the future as Kay-Em quickly secures the wound and injects him with a pain reliever.
As the group bring Rowan and Jason to the ship we see that Earth is now a barren wasteland DUN DUN DUNNN.
The ship takes off and reaches the main spaceship called The Grendel where the crew takes Rowan to defrost and heal her wound, Jason to perform an autopsy, and Azrael to reattach his arm. Since this is the future, Azrael’s arm is easily reattached in a few seconds with nanobots, tiny microscopic machines that look like ants.
The movie cuts between the next few scenes but it’s just easier to write them separately so that’s what I’ll do; we’ll start with Jason. Lowe puts researcher/teacher Adrienne (Kristi Angus) in charge of performing Jason’s autopsy and assigns students Kinsa (played by Melody Johnson) and Stoney (Yani Gellman) to assist.
Unfortunately, Kinsa and Stoney are unrealistically horny and start making out right next to Jason’s body (gross) so Adrienne sends them away.
Alone with Jason, Adrienne first pulls out one of his eyes and drops it in liquid nitrogen for preservation. She next cuts off his mask and we see what Jason’s face looks like now and I’m seriously questioning his “regenerative abilities”.
As Adrienne reviews other samples under a microscope, Jason’s body thaws and he starts to move unbeknownst to Adrienne. A few moments later, Jason wakes up, grabs Adrienne, dips her face in the liquid nitrogen, and smashes it against the desk.
Grabbing a large serrated blade from the autopsy table, Jason wanders around the ship. While all that was happening, Rowan is brought back to life and healed by the nanobots. Upon waking up she is informed by Lowe that she is now in the year 2455. Lowe also tells her Earth is no longer livable and The Grendel is heading to Earth II.
Interestingly, earlier they say she’s been asleep for 455 years meaning she would have been frozen in 2000 but it’s established she was frozen at the earliest in 2008. So we moved on from not being able to keep the timeline straight between movies to not being able to keep the timeline straight during the movie.
In a separate room, Lowe calls his superior and is dismayed when told that the 455+-year-old Rowan isn’t the scientific marvel he thought. Lowe had planned on making money off of people wanting to see Rowan as he is financially strapped. His superior then realizes the other person brought on board is Jason Voorhees and he could be worth a fortune.
Lowe returns to speak with Rowan and we get some backstory on Jason between the last film and this one. By some I mean virtually none, all we learn is Jason was caught in 2008 and after multiple attempts to execute him, it was decided he would be cryogenically frozen instead.
Lowe takes Rowan to meet the rest of the students but is interrupted by another student Waylander (played by Derwin Jordan) who asks Lowe where to place Jason’s machete. Rowan realizes Jason is on the ship and after calling him an unstoppable killing machine, the Head of Security, Sgt. Brodski (played by Peter Mensah) doesn’t seem too happy about it.
Lowe asserts that Jason is dead and by now, Jason has killed Adrienne so Lowe comes off as a dick here. Rowan demands he take her to him and everyone finds out Jason is very much not dead.
Brodski puts the ship on lockdown, announces that all the students should lock themselves in lab 1, and preps his security team to hunt down Jason. Meanwhile, Stoney and Kinsa have just had sex which is basically a Jason summoning ritual. Jason appears at their door, stabs Stoney, and drags his body away.
In another room, Dallas (played by Todd Farmer) and Azrael are playing a virtual reality game where apparently you don’t need a controller to play since Jason walks up and kills a monster. Azrael shuts down the game believing Jason’s appearance to be a bug in the game despite having literally seen his body earlier. They learn the hard way that Jason is real when he kills them both.
As Brodski heads to meet with his team, Lowe stops him and begs him to take Jason alive. Though he refuses, he changes his mind when Lowe offers $500 thousand dollars if he’s taken alive. After Lowe leaves Brodski tells his team to kill Jason.
Brodski’s team quickly finds Jason and Light. Him. Up. Jason then just disappears…
Brodski’s team search for Jason but unfortunately for them, Jason was allowed to reroll his stats upon coming back to life and he put all his skill points in stealth. Jason creeps up behind a soldier, drags him into an isolated hall, and snaps his neck. He throws another onto a random large screw that impales him.
Another soldier backs into him in the dark so he cuts her neck open. One soldier is able to hook Jason onto a large spike but the moment he looks away, Jason jumps off the spike and cuts him in half. Another is killed off-screen but we see her hanging on a hook.
Finally, Brodski, being the only surviving member of his team, is grabbed by Jason through a wall and stabbed twice.
Meanwhile, the ship’s engineer Crutch (played by Philips Williams) reaches lab 1 just as the students learn that the entire security team is dead. Lowe calls the ship’s pilot, Lou (played by Boyd Banks), and is told they are approaching the Solaris space station where a larger team of soldiers are waiting to take down Jason.
If you’re wondering, yes Lou is wearing a cowboy hat because every space movie/show in the 2000s had to have a pilot with a cowboy hat for some reason.
Before Lou can dock, Jason appears and kills him. This causes the ship to veer off course and instead of docking, it crashes into the space station. Somehow the ship is fine but Solaris is mostly destroyed.
As Lowe, Tsunaron, Kinsa, Waylander, Janessa, Rowan, Crutch, Kay-Em 14 all try to figure out what to do next, Jason jumps through a window and they all run; so that solves that problem. Except it turns out Lowe was frozen in fear and didn’t run. Jason approaches him, sees his original machete, and kills Lowe with it.
The rest of the group decide their best bet is to reach the shuttle and escape the ship. Crutch and Waylander head to the bridge to start a pre-launch while the rest head to the shuttle. On their way Rowan spots one of Brodski’s team and takes her weapon, noting that she knows how to use it. They’re in space over 400 years in the future and Rowan is confident weapon technology hasn’t changed… sure.
Tsunaron and Kay-Em 14 grab more weapons and Kay-Em alerts him they only have a 12% chance at survival. The two kiss (aww) and Kay-Em says the chances are now 53%. I was never good at statistics in school but this seems like bullshit to me.
On their way to the shuttle Rowan, Kinsa (who is starting to have a nervous breakdown), and Janessa spot a still-alive Brodski. Rowan sends Kinsa and Janessa to the shuttle and calls Waylander for help to move Brodski but when they return to move him, Brodski is gone.
Meanwhile, Crutch sets up the shuttle for pre-launch but before he can finish, Jason appears behind him with Lowe’s head and kills him. Hearing Jason killing Crutch, Kinsa locks herself in the shuttle as the rest of the group plead for her to open the door.
Unable to deal with the situation, Kinsa releases the shuttle but because the fuel lines are still attached, it crashes into The Grendel and she dies.
Jason appears and is about to attack Janessa, Waylander, and Rowan but is stopped by Tsunaron who has given Kay-Em 14 a violent upgrade. Now stocked with multiple weapons, Kay-Em shoots Jason down a hall, kicks him through several rooms, and is about to shoot him in the head but Jason manages to knock her off of him.
Before Jason can kill her, a still-alive Brodski appears and stabs Jason in the shoulder. Kay-Em then shoots Jason’s arm off and kicks him through a wall. Using a big fucking gun, Kay-Em blows Jason’s leg off, shoots a hole in his chest, and blows half his face off.
With Jason dead, the group take Brodski to a lab and have the nanobots heal him. Meanwhile, Waylander discovers the ship is only 30 minutes away from self-destruction due to the damage it has sustained. Luckily another ship, The Tiamat, answers their distress call but they’re 45 minutes away.
The group decide to buy themselves some more time by moving to another part of the ship and blowing up the connecting walkways. As they leave to enact their plan, we see Jason’s body conveniently fell on a bed that contains the nanobots. In some more convenient fuckery, the computers in the room malfunction, turn on by themselves, and deploy the nanobots.
The nanobots cover Jason’s body but the computer aborts the procedure as there isn’t enough tissue on his body for reconstruction. In what I can only assume is the computer gaining sentience and saying, “Nah, this is gonna be fucking cool”, it cancels the “abort procedure” order and gathers synthetic material from around the room.
Meanwhile, the survivors finish placing bombs around the walkways and are shocked when Uber-Jason enters the room.
Kay-Em shoots Jason but her weapons have no effect, she also doesn’t even try the BFG. Instead, she tries to kick him and Uber Jason simply punches her head off. Tsunaron grabs Kay-Em’s head as Rowan grabs Jason’s arm, preventing him from killing Tsunaron. Waylander lunges at Uber Jason and is easily knocked away, what was the plan?
As Uber Jason tosses Waylander around like a ragdoll, Janessa presses the button to close the walkway doors. Rowan and Tsunaron carrying Kay-Em’s head make it to the other side with Janessa just as the doors close.
Brodski enters the room and upon learning Jason is back, tells the group to blow the charges and the walkway. We then cut to Waylander holding the trigger who sacrifices himself by detonating the explosives and destroying the walkway.
The remaining survivors get a message from The Tiamat who are making their approach, but as they celebrate, a still-alive Jason punches a hole through the wall from outside. I guess Jason can now canonically breathe in space or he’s just more machine than monster at this point.
As everything is sucked out of the room through the small hole made by Jason, the group attempt to hold on but Janessa is unable to and is killed. Her final words were “This sucks on so many levels.”…
Rowan, Brodski, and Tsunaron, still carrying Kay-Em, all run through several rooms to the evacuation door as Jason breaks through the wall and enters the ship. The Tiamat connects to the ship via a walkway but the doors refuse to open automatically.
Tsunaron attempts to open them manually but discovers the power is down and Brodski elects to do a spacewalk to reroute the power. Realizing Jason will reach them before Brodski finishes rerouting the power, Tsunaron connects Kay-Em to the computer and creates a diversion using the hologram projector.
Jason enters a room as the hologram activates and the room converts into Crystal Lake. Two young female counselors appear in front of Jason and offer him beer, drugs, and premarital sex. Needless to say, Jason takes the bait. He kills them by tying them up in their sleeping bags and repeatedly slamming one with the other.
Brodski and Rowan finally get the door open and not a moment too soon as the ship starts to blow up due to Jason punching a hole in it earlier. Rowan helps Tsunaron through the walkway to The Tiamat but runs back to The Grendel to grab Kay-Em’s head.
Grabbing her head, she sees Jason is no longer being fooled by the hologram and is making her way toward her. Rowan runs to The Tiamat and just as Jason is about to follow her through the walkway, the doors close. Jason turns around to see Brodski has closed the doors, trapping them both on the exploding ship.
With Rowan, Kay-Em, and Tsunaron safely on The Tiamat, it disengages from The Grendal and flies off. Back on The Grendel, Brodski, and Jason face off for a final showdown, though we cut away as the ship explodes.
Rowan, Kay-Em, and Tsunaron watch The Grendel explode and to their surprise, Jason is launched from the explosion toward them. Before Jason reaches them, Brodski comes out of nowhere and grabs Jason pushing him off course from The Tiamat.
As you’ve probably noticed from the screenshot, Brodski has pushed Jason off course directly toward Earth II. The two enter the earth’s atmosphere igniting on re-entry. On Earth II, two campers confuse them for a shooting star and see them land in a nearby lake. The film ends as the two campers decide to check it out and we see Uber Jason’s mask sink to the bottom of the lake floor.
Jason X Spoiler Review:
Jason X is great… but it’s not a good movie. After watching all the Friday the 13th films and especially after the last few entries, Jason X is great comparatively speaking. It has okay acting, okay dialogue with some pretty bad jokes/quips thrown in, and some forgettable characters. But it strikes a good balance between comedy and horror that Jason Goes to Hell couldn’t get down right. It also has that enjoyable story progression that Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan forgot it needed.
Go into Jason X expecting a serious movie and you’re going to be disappointed but go in expecting the 10th entry of slasher serious that should have ended around part 6 and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The only thing that I found somewhat oft-putting were the weirdly forced sex scenes.
Within 20 minutes of meeting the space peeps, we get unnecessary sex scenes but that’s not the weird part, this is Friday the 13th of course. The weird part was the fact they were intercut with scenes of cutting Jason’s mask off and seeing his face. My theory is that someone forced the director to add sex scenes and since they didn’t want to they added them in the worst part.
Overall I do recommend Jason X but only to those people who want to watch a silly early 2000s “horror” slasher and know that it shouldn’t be taken seriously plus Uber Jason looks awesome.
Cast IMDB