// SPACE.COM — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
'Crystal Lake' is great, but nothing tops the space horror shenanigans of 'Jason X'
The Voorhees legend continues in Crystal Lake, but Jason X remains the Citizen Kane of this franchise.
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Peacock's "Crystal Lake" takes the story of the Voorhees family back to the beginning.
It's a full-circle moment revisiting Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini), who's the real star of 1980's "Friday the 13th" and the catalyst for all the murder and mayhem. While it's a welcome shake-up to the timeline of the horror franchise, nothing tops the originality of the slasher-in-space spectacle known as "Jason X".
It was 2001, and the "Friday the 13th" franchise had hit a bit of a snag. Audiences had seen Jason Voorhees go everywhere from Crystal Lake to Manhattan and Hell, but where else could this hockey-masked killer go? Screenwriter Todd Farmer had the answer: space.
"Jason X" says the quiet part out loud: Jason (Kane Hodder) can't die. In this movie, we find Jason being held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility in 2010. The head of the facility, Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig), wants to put him in a cryogenic chamber, but the government has other plans for him.
Things go as well as can be expected, with Jason freeing himself and slaughtering military men like they're pancakes at a buffet. Fortunately, Rowan manages to lure Jason into a cryogenic chamber as he stabs her, leaving them both frozen in time.
Fast forward to 2455, when a group of space explorers — led by Professor Brandon Lowe (Jonathan Potts) — discover the research facility and the frozen bodies. They bring Rowan and Jason on board their ship, the Grendel.
While they believe Jason to be dead, they're able to revive Rowan using nanotechnology. As it so happens, Jason isn't dead at all (what a shocker); he was just catching up on some sleep and dreaming about stuffing teens in sleeping bags and whacking them against each other. He rises from his slumber and goes on a killing spree in the spaceship.
It's not the slasher-in-space concept alone that elevates this flick (it's pretty much a running joke that every horror franchise ends up in space eventually). No, it's the brave (and honestly wild) turns that Jason X takes towards the end.