If you do something ten times, you're likely to get it right in the end. Nine years on from the last straight-to-video Friday The 13th sequel, the franchise is here revived by a film that manages to be better than the previous nine entries put together.
Set in a post-Armageddon future where belly-revealing tops are still in fashion, Jason X cleverly sends up the conventions of both the original stalker cycle and the post-Aliens, space-grunts-go-up-against-a-monster movie.
Deprived of his machete for a while, Jason comes up with some inventive new deaths, including real showstoppers like a sink of freezing liquid and a giant drill-bit ("He's screwed!"). The few survivors and many victims - beginning with an apt cameo from David Cronenberg - are comic book characters, but all have neat bits of business, making this a unique F13 in which you actually cheer the good guys. The most surprisingly good film of the year.