For what seems like a hack studio pitch ("What do we do with Jason for the 10th movie? I don't know, fucking send him to space"?) this is SO consistently inventive and, most importantly, true to the Friday The 13th legacy. In fact, I'd argue that linear, full circle reading is this film's greatest strength, and my best argument for it transcending its contemporaneous aesthetic/logistical flaws- as a maximalist conclusion for the revenge story of a wronged child who, subsequently and sympathetically, grows across several decades of films to become a popular and prominent pop culture avatar of collective subconscious moral resentment, it feels poignant and outright compelling that his final massacre takes place at the farthest reaches of conceivable human circumstance/limitation...

In other words, the line between the first Friday The 13th and Jason X is both massive and incredibly straight and short - Jason stalking and murdering teens around camp crystal lake and stalking and killing hot astronauts feels like it could have been told by the same stoned counselor around the campfire, and all it really would've taken to get on board is to crane your head upwards to the sky for a second and let your imagination go. The franchise has always been about the unstoppable emotion that the experience of human tragedy can yield, no matter what obstacles are thrown at it... - Devon Green

Preceded by KITCHEN SINK - Dir. Alison Maclean, 1989, 14min, DCP

Film courtesy of Hibiscus Films, Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga New Zealand Film Commission and Aotearoa New Zealand Film Heritage Trust

From the bowels of the kitchen sink comes a dark and tender love. A nightmare come true ...