Sequel To: The first nine films in the Friday the 13th Franchise
Starring: Kane Hodder, Jonathan Potts, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder
Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of… Wait, Jason Voorhees? Like, the hockey-mask-wearing guy who kills teenagers who have sex at summer camp? In space. Of course.
This cinematic gem opens with everyone’s favorite machete wielder being held in a place called the Crystal Lake Research Facility. What is the Crystal Lake Research Facility, you may ask. Hell if I know. I like to think it’s the result of someone in the government going “Wow, a lot of teenagers get killed at that Crystal Lake place. Like, every year or so. We should use American tax dollars to set up a research facility where we can conduct expensive experiments to figure out why!”
Anyway, Mr. Voorhees finds himself in a straight jacket that’s suspended from the ceiling by a lot of chains that are all secured by a bunch of padlocks. Security at it’s finest. Why is he “hanging around” (get it? humor!) rather than, y’know, dead? Because the people at this research facility have decided that it’s far too hard to kill Jason, so they’re just going to freeze him in a cryogenic chamber instead! Let the future deal with him! Problem solved! Yay science!
However, a monkey wrench is soon thrown into the whole plan when David Cronenberg shows up and decides that Jason is much more valuable thawed than frozen and he’s going to transfer him to a new facility where he will lead a series of experiments on him. Now, I say David Cronenberg and not an evil scientist portrayed by David Cronenberg, because I strongly believe that David Cronenberg really is an evil scientist and he’s technically just playing himself in most of his cameos.
The person in charge of making sure Jason gets turned into a monstersicle is a woman named Rowan LaFontaine (I can’t decide if that’s the best or worst name I’ve ever heard). She keeps telling Dr. Cronenberg that the only safe option is to freeze Jason so he can never kill again. Or, y’know, until someone thaws him out in the future.
But hey, Cronenberg only wants to figure out why Jason can’t be killed. That’s all. Granted, he doesn’t care that he’s risking countless lives in the event that Jason escapes, thus making him a bad guy, but still. He’s only trying to help. And he’s got a bunch of army guys with him, all of whom have guns. So what could possibly go wrong?
The answer to that question, if you were wondering, is everything.
When Cronenberg and his army guys get to where Jason was being held, they discover that he’s somehow pulled a Criss Angel and has not only escaped the straight jacket and chains, but has also put a dead body in his place! That’s some Vegas style shit, right there. All the army guys are killed off rather quickly, as their guns do nothing to kill Jason, a fact that escaped Cronenberg’s brilliant scientific mind even though he wanted to conduct experiments on Jason to find out why he couldn’t be killed by conventional means (ie: GUNS), in the first place. LaFontaine hears the commotion and runs in to find a bunch of dead guys littering the floors of her research facility, which is enough to piss anyone off, really. But before she can say “I told ya so”, she’s attacked by Voorhees and forced to flee.
She leads him to the basement where the cryogenic chamber is being held and after a bit of a scuffle, succeeds in locking him inside of it. She flips the switch, the cryogenic stuff floods the chamber, and she approaches the little window so she can boast. But then Jason shoves his machete through the chamber door and into LaFontaine’s stomach, which does two things: First, it injures LaFontaine, which she is not very happy about. Secondly, it causes a leak of the cryogenic stuff into the room, thus freezing her along with him. Because that’s how that works, I guess.
Suddenly, it’s the year 2455 and the Earth is a polluted rotten husk of it’s former self. A group of students on the worst field trip ever come across the room frozen in time. Lead by their professor (played by Jonathan Potts, making this the second film of his that has been reviewed on this site), they open the cryogenic chamber to find a frozen Jason Voorhees holding a machete. Rather than pointing out how creepy it is to stumble across a frozen dude holding a sharp weapon above his head, the professor asks his students to identify the type of mask he’s wearing. One of them says “it’s a hockey mask”, though no one else seems to know what the hell hockey is prompting the android in the group (oh yeah, there’s an android there for some reason) to say that the sport of hockey had been outlawed in the year 2022. So enjoy the few NHL seasons you have left, guys.
One of the students discovers LaFontaine’s frozen body nearby and the android determines that they can revive her if they hurry. The group hauls LaFontaine’s body back to their ship or shuttle or whatever, but because the idea of a frozen guy wearing a mask from a sport deemed too violent to exist a number of years earlier and holding a giant bladed weapon is apparently no longer a frightening concept in the future, they also take Jason’s body with them.
Once their shuttle docks with the mothership (or whatever) called the Grendel, they rush LaFontaine to a medical bay where they can bring her back. They can rebuild her. They can make her faster, stronger, they have the technology. They also take the ugly frozen mess that was once Jason Voorhees to the morgue to be dissected, because apparently there’s good money to be made in frozen serial killers.
While the people aboard the Grendel work tirelessly to bring LaFontaine back from the brink, two students decide to have sex near the morgue, because why the hell not. So, we have the frozen body of Jason Voorhees being allowed to thaw near a couple of young people having sex. I think you see where this is going.
This is quite literally exactly the same film as every other entry in the Friday the 13th series, except that it is also in space. So, there’s also people doing space stuff. Like flying around space stations and making androids and little nano machines that can repair someone’s missing body parts, etc. I mean, there are the teenagers having sex, the stoner guy, the heroine who stands up to Jason, everything. It’s all there, it’s just in the future. And, again, in space.
I’m glad that Hollywood has realized that the mathematical equation of Popular franchise + SPACE! does not always = a good time for the people watching the film since then, but it didn’t happen soon enough to stop this movie from being made.
This is worst films reviewed on site, so far. I’m very comfortable saying that. Well, actually, I’m very uncomfortables saying it watch the damn thing. It’s seen by many fans of Friday the 13th franchise as worst one made yet. Keep in mind, people. This is seen some as worst film in series of very bad films, and that coming from fans the series.
Overall, I’d say avoid this one, but already know most of won’t able to contain your morbid curiosity. Just remember, I warned you.
And while I’m warning you about stuff, if you ever come across a cryogenic chamber that contains a guy in a hockey mask holding a machete, you might want to just close the door and pretend your saw nothing. Then again, after see this movie, you might also want to close the door and pretend you saw nothing.
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