It's been nine years since we last had the dubious acquaintance of serial killer par excellence Jason Voorhees.

The man with the hockey mask who slashed his way through nine (count 'em) instalments of the classic Friday The 13th horror film series is back.

This time, rather than running his blade over High School students in contemporary America, Jason has been frozen in cryogenic suspension and it's the year 2455.

A team of student explorers, led by seedy archaeology professor Lowe (Potts), enters the abandoned Crystal Lake Research Facility on a burned-out planet Earth.

They discover two frozen bodies - one is government scientist Rowan (Doig) and the other is, well you guessed it, our old chum Jason (Kane Hodder).

Taken on board Lowe's spaceship, Rowan and Jason are allowed to thaw out in the craft's laboratories... and it's not long before our man's on the rampage again.

You'd have thought that at 10 attempts the Friday the 13th people would have got it right... and here they have.

Essentially it's played for laughs in the same way Starship Troopers was such a success, with the dialogue choc-full of knowing references to the horror genre.

It's really Melrose Place in space as Jason works his way through a starship full of crop-topped bimbos and slacker guys.

Along the way there's some nice touches; a virtual reality game that gets a little too real for comfort, a starship commando that literally gets screwed and a beautiful cyborg woman who shows a nice line in detachable nipples.

The movie's forte is that it never takes itself too seriously... even the battle-hardened commando chief shows he isn't above self-mockery.

"It's going to take more than a little prick in the side to stop me," he says as Jason slides a blade into his rib cage. "That ought to do it," he adds as a second blade slots home.

Tim Evans