- Directed by James Isaac
- Written by Todd Farmer, Victor Miller
- Stars Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Jeff Geddis, David Cronenberg
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3-_zxnCoXw
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Who knew that all Friday the 13th needed was a heavy dash of science fiction? This one takes Jason further away from Crystal Lake than he’s ever been, both in time and space. That also takes it further away from the classic slasher trope than it’s ever been too, but it’s still pretty entertaining in its own way.
Synopsis
We open in Hell, where Jason ended up at the end of the previous film. As the camera zooms out, we see a doctor working in a lab as credits roll.
We then cut to the Crystal Lake Research Facility, with the subject being Jason Voorhees, awaiting cryogenic suspension. Jason is awake but chained and hooked up to a bunch of medical-looking tubes. The attendant gets creeped out and throws a sheet over Jason’s face.
Dr. Wimmer arrives to take possession of Jason, and Rowan says it’s not worth risking transporting him. Wimmer says Jason’s ability to regenerate would be a great leap forward in medical science. Wimmer overrules Rowan and goes in to see the monster. They pull the sheet off, and it’s the attendant underneath. There’s a big gunfight as Wimmer gets impaled. [How did Jason get a machete so easily?]
Jason chases Rowan around the huge industrial-looking facility. She backs him into a cryogenic chamber and freezes him solid. We’ll never see Jason again, right? He stabs through the door and Rowan as well, causing a lockdown that traps her inside as the chamber leaks and freezes the entire room.
People in gas masks descend into the cobweb-filled facility. They open the cryogenic lab door. They mention that the cryo unit was from 2010, and they waste no time in opening the big door to Jason’s chamber. They also find Rowan, who was frozen with everything else. Kay-Em 14, an android, says she can be revived. Just then, Jason’s frozen corpse falls over, cutting off Azrael’s arm in the process.
The group carries everything out into the post-apocalyptic hellscape outside to their spaceship. Jason’s been frozen for a long time. It’s been 450 years. They soon dock with the mothership, somewhere near Jupiter.
They rush Rowan to the lab and that other big frozen corpse too. They fix Azrael’s arm quickly in the rejuvenation booth. Professor Rowe takes over the resuscitation attempt on Rowan. They cover Rowan with regenerative nanobots, and she’s soon just fine and awake. The first thing she asks is, “Is it contained?”
Professor Rowe’s boss asks if the other specimen is Jason Voorhees, who went missing and would probably be worth a fortune.
Adrienne examines Jason; he’s got an undersized brain, and his skin is unusual. She cuts off his mask, and he’s a real mess underneath. Of course, he’s slowly defrosting the whole time. It’s not long before we see him twitching and flexing.
Meanwhile, almost everyone else aboard the ship is having sex.
Jason sits up and grabs Adrienne, freezing her head solid in liquid nitrogen and then smashing it. He then picks up a … surgical machete and gets down to work. Rowe talks to Rowan about her ordeal. She explains about the several attempts to execute Jason, but if they couldn’t kill him, they could at least freeze him. Rowan meets all the other people, and we get a full set of introductions.
Rowan learns that Jason has been brought aboard and warns everyone that he cannot die. Rowe insists that they have it all under control. She wants to see him, and they all find Adrienne’s dead corpse. Elsewhere on the ship, Jason kills someone. Sgt. Brodski gets on the case and prepares his marines for battle.
A couple of soldiers play on the holodeck, shooting big aliens. Then Jason appears and cuts both the humans into little pieces. No, that was just their digital avatars. They end the game, and Jason is still there. They don’t live long in the real world, either.
The soldiers find Jason and shoot him excessively, but he’s gone when the smoke clears. Soon, everyone is wary of dark corridors and shadowy engine rooms. It becomes obvious that Rowan was right– Jason simply can not be killed. On the other hand, the soldiers can be killed, and they soon are.
The spaceship approaches the big space station, but Jason kills the pilot. The ship crashes right into the station and then continues on past it when it explodes.
Jason and the professor have a one-sided discussion about money. Everyone else decides to make for the shuttle. Everyone splits up.
Kinsa steals the escape shuttle, but the fuel lines are still attached, and it explodes. Now, there’s no way off the ship. Kay-Em 14 gets a battle upgrade, and she’s all super-soldiery until Jason stabs her just once. Nope- she’s faking it and shoots him repeatedly. She shoots his arm off. And his leg off. Jason falls down, and she shoots him apart.
Another ship radios that they can help, but there may not be enough time before the ship explodes. They fix up Brodski in the medical bay, and they make plans to separate the exploding part of the ship from where they are; it’s crazy, but it just might work.
Except they didn’t notice that Jason’s bits and pieces are on the medical bed, which is active. The nanites do their thing, and they rebuild him stronger, faster, and better. It’s a whole new Jason!
As the humans work to save the ship, the new and improved cyborg-Jason shows up, and he’s more than a match for Kay-Em 14 this time. They detonate the explosives to split the ship in two, and Jason’s on the other side… right?
The rescue ship arrives outside. Jason decompresses the hull by punching through it from the outside. The rescue ship docks, but they can’t get the door open, so Brodski has to go outside to rewire something.
They distract Jason by turning on the holodeck and sending him to a very familiar-looking camp by the lake. There are even some stereotypical teens there that he can kill.
The humans get the airlock doors open and run across to the rescue ship as things start to explode. Brodski seals the others outside while he waits to die with Jason. The whole ship explodes; only Rowan, Tsunaron, and Kay-Em’s severed head have survived.
Jason and Brodski fall from orbit, presumably burning up on re-entry. Down on the surface, a couple of sexy teen campers see the “meteor” and note that it landed in the nearby lake. Uh-oh.
Commentary
It ain’t “Aliens,” but clearly, that’s the story they were trying to parallel. If you include all the dead people on the Solaris space station, this is probably the highest body count in a Jason movie. The music sounds like something from “Hellraiser,” which would have been another excellent crossover, but not this time.
The sets look good, the acting is about typical for this kind of story, and the plot is fun. The spaceship CGI is pretty dated, but it works.
When any franchise does its version of “…In space,” they’re clearly scraping the barrel for ideas, but it’s not always bad. It’s more of a sci-fi monster in an enclosed space story than a “Friday the 13th” story, but it’s still fun.