Jason X

Immortality kills tension. If you can't take the bad guy out, what can you do? Run?

Jason is Old Hockey Mask from Friday 13th. He doesn't eat, sleep or go to the bathroom. He cuts people up with a machete - a dull dinner guest, that's for sure.

He's been dead before, like his compatriot, Freddy Kreuger from Elm Street, but he's only faking. Apparently, you can shoot a magazine of titanium tipped bullets into his body and he still comes back for seconds.

He doesn't speak. That's another thing. His conversational skills would make a scriptwriter destitute.

This is Alien, without John Hurt's baby. The year is 2455. Jason is frozen solid in the bowels of a spaceship. He's been there for four centuries. But, hey, warm the critter up and he's in slashing form. With crude precision, over the length of time it takes you to crawl out of the cinema, he's dispatched half the crew. The Capt Kirk figure, who has been corrupted by 5000 years of capitalism, thinks there's money in this freak show. Think again, buddy.

The film exploits a desire to let the dogs out. Supernatural violence has the advantage of perpetual motion. It's unstoppable.

All you can do is laugh and there are some cracking one-liners, delivered by actors who don't understand comic timing. The question remains: did Jason ever learn to play hockey?