While the upcoming crossover with the Nightmare on Elm Street was still in development hell, Cunningham decided to produce another film to keep people interested in the franchise. After shooting around several idea of Jason in a new setting (including one where he fights LA street gangs), screenwriter Todd Farmer eventually came up with the idea of "Jason IN SPACE!". Farmer was very influenced by Alien and wrote several homages to that film within the script. Director James Isaac had been a visual effects director, with films like Return of the Jedi and The Fly (even getting Fly director David Cronenberg to cameo in the film). The film was mostly shot in Canada, with the help of Cronenberg's Canadian crew. It was a minor success, though not a massive one, and savaged by critics, though is beloved by fans.
In the year 2010, Jason (Kane Hodder) has found himself stuck in the Crystal Lake Research Facility. Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg) and Sergeant Marcus (Markus (?) Parilo) decide that his cell regeneration ability is simply too valuable, and decide to transfer him, over the objections of lead scientist Rowan LaFountaine (Lexa Doig), who had hoped to put him into cryogenic storage. To prove her point, Jason breaks out, and kills Wimmer, Marcus, and the group of soldiers accompanying them. Rowan is able to lead him to the cryogenic chamber, but is stabbed at the last minute, and frozen with him. 445 years later, a group from "Earth 2", lead by Professor Braithwaite Lowe (Jonathan Potts), and crew, including Tsunaron (Chuck Campbell), Janessa (Melyssa Ade), Azrael (Dov Tiefenbach), Adrienne Thomas (Kristi Angus), Stoney (Yani Gellman), and Sergeant Brodski (Peter Mensah) are doing a survey of the old Earth, long destroyed by an unspecified incident. They find the capsule, and take both bodies back on board to revive them. They learn of Jason, and Lowe's backer Dieter Perez (Robert Silverman) notes his value. However, Rowan (revived and healed) warns them of his true nature. Sure enough, he gets back to his old business.
This film was occasionally creative, particularly in using its futuristic space setting. For instance, an early kill uses liquid nitrogen to freeze a body and break it. Another had someone die when pushed through a ventilation system. I liked that they tricked Jason by creating a simulation of Crystal Lake and two teenagers. There is one really good sequence which uses a similar conceit to Alien, where Jason is in the shadows, fighting off soldiers. Surprisingly good acting from most involved.
This film looks like a TV show, and not in a good way. Everything looks cheap, from the interior of the labs or the ship. It looks like a UPN space series from the late 90's, like Jason jumped into Star Trek: Enterprise. It isn't helped by the CGI augmentation, which makes it look even worse and more dated. It is also incredibly boring, with even the signature chase sequences being really dull and uninteresting. This isn't really a bad idea, but this feels too serious and ponderous to reach this full potential. It seems convinced that it is Alien and not a Friday the 13th film. Oh, and the Jason X costume looks terrible. Looks more like a villain from a really bad mid-90's Image Comic.
Okay, so another dud, and another definite skip. That said, this was explicitly a filler movie, meant to maintain interest as they went into Freddy v. Jason. It feels like a swan song for the franchise, an penultimate entry meant as a final farwell to the character (in a solo film) in the changing horror landscape. New slashers like Scream (which satirized the very genre tropes Friday the 13th helped promulgate) and I Know What You Did Last Summer were becoming big, and the genre was moving further from the formulas of the previous franchises. More importantly, in 1999, a $60000 budget film called The Blair Witch Project became the 10th highest grossing film of that year, ushering a new form of horror in the "found footage genre". In a sense, this was Jason's last stand, in the new millennium.
Well, that, and his upcoming fight with Freddy Krueger, which will be covered tomorrow.
In the year 2010, Jason (Kane Hodder) has found himself stuck in the Crystal Lake Research Facility. Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg) and Sergeant Marcus (Markus (?) Parilo) decide that his cell regeneration ability is simply too valuable, and decide to transfer him, over the objections of lead scientist Rowan LaFountaine (Lexa Doig), who had hoped to put him into cryogenic storage. To prove her point, Jason breaks out, and kills Wimmer, Marcus, and the group of soldiers accompanying them. Rowan is able to lead him to the cryogenic chamber, but is stabbed at the last minute, and frozen with him. 445 years later, a group from "Earth 2", lead by Professor Braithwaite Lowe (Jonathan Potts), and crew, including Tsunaron (Chuck Campbell), Janessa (Melyssa Ade), Azrael (Dov Tiefenbach), Adrienne Thomas (Kristi Angus), Stoney (Yani Gellman), and Sergeant Brodski (Peter Mensah) are doing a survey of the old Earth, long destroyed by an unspecified incident. They find the capsule, and take both bodies back on board to revive them. They learn of Jason, and Lowe's backer Dieter Perez (Robert Silverman) notes his value. However, Rowan (revived and healed) warns them of his true nature. Sure enough, he gets back to his old business.
This film was occasionally creative, particularly in using its futuristic space setting. For instance, an early kill uses liquid nitrogen to freeze a body and break it. Another had someone die when pushed through a ventilation system. I liked that they tricked Jason by creating a simulation of Crystal Lake and two teenagers. There is one really good sequence which uses a similar conceit to Alien, where Jason is in the shadows, fighting off soldiers. Surprisingly good acting from most involved.
This film looks like a TV show, and not in a good way. Everything looks cheap, from the interior of the labs or the ship. It looks like a UPN space series from the late 90's, like Jason jumped into Star Trek: Enterprise. It isn't helped by the CGI augmentation, which makes it look even worse and more dated. It is also incredibly boring, with even the signature chase sequences being really dull and uninteresting. This isn't really a bad idea, but this feels too serious and ponderous to reach this full potential. It seems convinced that it is Alien and not a Friday the 13th film. Oh, and the Jason X costume looks terrible. Looks more like a villain from a really bad mid-90's Image Comic.
Okay, so another dud, and another definite skip. That said, this was explicitly a filler movie, meant to maintain interest as they went into Freddy v. Jason. It feels like a swan song for the franchise, an penultimate entry meant as a final farwell to the character (in a solo film) in the changing horror landscape. New slashers like Scream (which satirized the very genre tropes Friday the 13th helped promulgate) and I Know What You Did Last Summer were becoming big, and the genre was moving further from the formulas of the previous franchises. More importantly, in 1999, a $60000 budget film called The Blair Witch Project became the 10th highest grossing film of that year, ushering a new form of horror in the "found footage genre". In a sense, this was Jason's last stand, in the new millennium.
Well, that, and his upcoming fight with Freddy Krueger, which will be covered tomorrow.
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