By Stephen Pytak 

     For the first time in this series, "Jason"
gets 20/20 vision.
     Or maybe it's better that that.
     The boy who supposedly drowned in
Crystal Lake was kind of deformed. One
of his eyes was slightly above the other. 
That had to skew his vision just a little, 
don't you think?
     No doubt it got worse from the multiple
blows to the head he received as the series
went on and on.
     And in "Jason X," while he's still
thawing out on a heat rack, a chick in a 
lab rips one of his eyes for a science project.
     Then late in the game, the Crystal Lake 
killer is reincarnated by some 25th Century 
technology. And he's given some new blood 
red eyeballs that stare out of a high polish
metal goalie mask with laser intensity.
     I bet he could read an eye chart from
200 paces.
     The writers and director of this film
also had pretty good vision, and not just
in focusing the cameras.
     I wasn't sure what to think when I heard 
they were making "Jason in space." But I
was surprised by how interesting and 
inventive it was.
     We get to see "Jason" in a lot of new 
places. Take the opening credits for instance.
     Jason has been captured and doctors or
scientists of some sort are taking blood
and tissue samples right off the guy. He's
strapped down of course, but awake! 
     The whole scene makes you wonder how
the Crystal Lake Research facility caught
him. I'm sure Jason didn't come in for these
blood tests himself.
     While the credits pop up, we travel
in Jason's brain, which is a firey Hell, and 
out through a hyperdermic needle. What
a rush!
     At the end of the sequence, one of those
needle pushers puts a hefty collar around
the killer's neck. We see this through 
Jason's POV. It actually looks as if we're
the ones being collared. 
     Of course, there's the space ship in the
year 2455, where Jason stalks shiny
corridors and VR chambers. 
     Jason gets to kill a drooling alien
simulation in one of those places, then
looks completely stupefied as the VR
folds up. I doubt he knew what the heck
was going on.
     The body count is high. It has be in the
hundreds, if you count the destruction
of the space station the Grendel crashes
into after Jason chops up the pilot.
     Some of the kills are creative, but
not in the usual way. Take the off camera
killing of "Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts)."
It's like a joke of some sort. 
     A few hours after waking up after 400
plus years, Jason finds his old machete
in the lab with Lowe.
     Jason picks it up, of course without 
saying a word. Lowe puts two and two
together and makes a bad assumption. His 
scream is the punchline.
    Lowe's head ends up in another 
interesting kill scene. When "Crutch
(Phillip Williams") is refueling the drop
ship, Jason holds the head up to Crutch's
just to make the guy scream. 
     What's also really interesting, and 
important I guess, is how the teens in peril 
fight back. This time, they have an android
on their side, "Kay-Em 14" played by 
Lisa Ryder.
     She amputates and castrates Jason in
a few minutes, and she steals the show.
     Of course, after the attack, Jason's lands 
in the worst possible spot, the high-tech med
lab which can turn a Pinto into a pimp 
Cadillac.
     The acting isn't bad either. I have to
mention Kane Hodder, who plays Jason 
with freight-train menace. 
     I loved his work in the four "Friday" 
films he did and thought he should have
been hired to continue playing the role.
     In a recent interview, Hodder said of
the four films he played Jason in, part
VII was his favorite.
     Jason X is mine. 
     Ryder, Lexa Doig and Peter Mensah are 
all pretty solid for their part.
     Legendary director David Cronenberg's
cameo at the start of the show is also great.
It's neat to hear this guy, who made such
classics as "Scanners (1981)" talk about 
taking Jason cross country to a facility in 
Scranton.
     I kind of wish the hard rock song that
was used in the trailer, "Bodies" by 
Drowning Pool, got in there somewhere.
     Instead, it was used in "XXX (2002.)"