Well, he’s back. Jason Vorhees the hockey-masked lunatic from the infamous FRIDAY THE 13^th series is back from the 80s much like Alf. But instead of mooching long distance phone service, he’s returned to kill more amoral teens; this time on a spaceship in the year 2455.

The setup is that after capturing the unstoppable Jason, authorities in the present decide that since they can’t kill him, they’ll freeze him in a cryogenic chamber, but before doing so Jason escapes and goes on one more rampage that kills all but one of his captors, a young woman named Rowan (Doig), who manages to freeze them both. Flash forward to the future, Rowan and Jason are discovered and thawed out by a team of researchers from Earth 2. Conveniently enough, this team includes several horny college students, (incidentally, midriffs remain popular in the future) practical begging to be chopped up. 

From there you can pretty well imagine what happens. He comes to life and starts killing. At this point the movie becomes a series of gory Alien style cat and mouse confrontations with the non-descript crew. Naturally, all of this is just a formality to a final confrontation, and Jason makes short work of the cannon fodder. The highlight of his spree would probably be the impaling a marine on a giant screw. 

Aside from taking him out of the woods the filmmakers have also moved Jason into the realm of intentional self-parody. This is particularly evident in the second half of the film as characters start pounding out lame one-liners about getting killed, and Jason is treated to a virtual reality room that offers the only genuinely funny moments in the movie. The writers seem to have ceded that they can’t really scare anyone with this kind of crap anymore so they might as well go for a laugh, or maybe it’s just a requirement for all post Scream slasher flicks.

Well, what else is there to say about this film, the directing is flat, the acting is wooden, the characters are thin even by slasher movie standards, and the special effects wouldn’t impress anyone who’s seen Battlestar Galactica, but I wouldn’t say avoid it at all costs. It’s a unique opportunity to see a movie this cheap and shameless on the big screen nowadays. If you do go, and I’m not really recommending that you do, try to see it drunk, late at night, with a few friends.

As homage to the great drive-in critic Job Bob Briggs, I decided to keep a tally for those who like to know the score:

At least 25 dead bodies          4 decapitations

1 plucked eyeball                   2 impaling

6 breasts                               robot kung fu

1 case of implied robot, human sex.

And 1 cameo from a legendary cult director, DAVID CRONENBERG

— Edward Rholes

hybridCinema Ratings Guide:

Take a pal and pay full price for both tickets.

It’s worth a full-price ticket.

It’s worth a matinee ticket.

Wait for video rental.

Check out the video from the library, if you must.

While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video...