Freddy vs Jason [DVD] [2003]

It seems to me that there had been talk of a film throwing together the slasher icons from the "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchises for about a decade, which is about how long Jason and Freddy had been in mothballs. When New Line acquired the rights to both franchises we eventually ended up with a script by first time scriptwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, directed by Ronny Yu ("Bride of Chucky"), with old hand Robert Englund back for the umpteenth time as Freddy Krueger and oversized stuntman Ken Kirzinger as the new Jason Vorhees.

It is not that the script is original, but it does set up an interesting idea with regards to the "rules" of the two series. The problem is that everyone on Elm Street has forgotten all about Freddy, which is a fate worse than death, because he cannot enter the dreams of kids who no longer remember him. So Freddy resurrects Jason to do his dirty work for him. When Jason shows up on Elm Street and starts slicing and dicing, the locals remember Freddy and the game is afoot. The only problem is Jason continues to kill the kids that Freddy thinks of as "his."

This sets up the films two battles between the title characters. Not surprisingly, one takes place in Freddy's nightmare world and the other at Jason's old haunts at Camp Crystal Lake (kill, kill, kill...kill, kill, kill...). This makes for two rather different fights since Freddy's powers are much more impressive on his own turf. At this point the film also has the advantage in that Freddy and Jason ripping each other apart is not exactly a bad thing, when compared to what the two arch-fiends have been doing to teenagers for the first two-thirds of the film.

Caught in the middle are Lori Campbell (Monica Keena), Kia Waterson (Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland), Will Rollins (Jason Ritter), and Charlie Linderman (Christopher George Marquette) as the teenagers who have a 50-50 chance of making it to the end of the film alive. Of course these teens have twice the problems of most kids in splatter flicks because they have to not only set up Freddy and Jason so that one of them will take the other one out, but they need to be able to take down which ever one is left standing on their own.

The first half of the film is rather standard fare for a splatter flick as the body count escalates, which is really just setting the table for the point when Freddy and Jason start going head to head (more machete to body and razor blades to face actually). Since these are pretty much indestructible killing machines the kid gloves are really off with the violence, and things that would make you close your eyes if done to a "real" human being are now the splatter flick equivalent of a championship fight. There is a tendency to see "Freddy vs. Jason" as a modern day version of the old Universal monster fests that brought the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, and everybody else in the studio stable together for a romp. But none of those films delivered the big confrontation the way this one does.

The title along will tell you whether or not you have the stomach for this one. I have missed a lot of the films in each of these series, losing interest after the first several films, but those gaps in my knowledge of the cinematic histories of Freddy and Jason did not hurt my enjoyment of this film, which succeeds on its own level. "Freddy vs. Jason" does not really attempt to be a great splatter flick, it only wants to satisfy the fans of these two monsters. You might think that is setting the bar a tad low, but this film has no problem clearing that particular hurdle.

I really enjoyed this film - so much so, that I've just ordered the complete Elm Street box set on DVD - wahey!

I love this movie. It has everything I would have asked for: gratuitous nudity (well, I might have added a little more of it); an acceptable number of kills and the blood and gore to go with them; insights into the "births" of both Jason and Freddy; a return to basics for Freddy himself, veering him away from his stand-up comedy career of later Elm Street films yet retaining his wickedly sarcastic wit; an interesting cast of characters I enjoyed seeing die one by one; and of course both a home and away match for our two star attractions. It also has plenty of an oftentimes wet Monica Keena, and the fact that she remained clothed throughout the film only made her that much sexier. You've got plenty of action at Crystal Lake as well as Freddy's boiler room turf, and the premise of the film works very well. How to bring Jason and Freddy together? That was always the crux of the matter, and the assorted scriptwriters who worked on the story over the years came up with some ridiculous ideas that would never have worked. Damion Shannon and Mark Swift deserve kudos for discarding all the old ideas that continued to cling to the project and giving us a darn good script. We all know that Freddy draws his power from the fear of his victims, but he has suddenly been forgotten. The adults of Springwood have erased Freddy and his activities from the collective history of the town, and those kids who know Freddy and fear him have all been shipped to an asylum and deprived of the ability to dream via drug therapy. Freddy has been made too weak to come back, and so he selects Jason Voorhees to go to Elm Street and spread fear anew. His plan works, as the authorities let Freddy's name slip out, and with each of Jason's kills, Freddy grows stronger. This leads us to the second critical aspect of the plot: why would Jason and Freddy fight one another? Once Freddy's back, he doesn't take kindly to Jason claiming all of his own would-be victims - obviously, the guy in the hockey mask needs to learn who the boss really is. And so the rumble begins, a fight brought over into the real world thanks to the kids of Elm Street who work things out and intentionally place Jason in Freddy's path.

I thought all of the young actors did a great job, even though a couple of characters were not fleshed out as much as they might have been. Freddy is his old self again, witty but downright vicious, and Jason is his single-minded murdering self. I had a hard time deciding who to pull for, though. I love Freddy because he takes the time to enjoy tormenting his victims before killing them, but you have to admire the one-man killing machine that is Jason Voorhees. I think there was plenty of fighting between the two at the end, and I approved of the ending. You can argue about the victor of the fight, but clearly (whether or not a rematch ever occurs) the fight ain't exactly over just yet.

The DVD is fantastic, filled with all sorts of goodies. I actually started wondering when the featurettes on the making of the film would ever end - there is an amazing amount of material here. Another wonderful addition was the two-part Fangoria article detailing the wild history of this long-awaited film; I could not believe some of the ridiculous ideas espoused by earlier script writers; had New Line made this film earlier than they did, they would very likely have doomed both the Jason and Freddy franchises. The Ill Nino video for "How Can I Live" is fun to watch, although I was disappointed it did not feature any movie clips (and thus no Monica Keena). Best of all, though, you get a number of deleted/alternate scenes as well as an audio commentary of the film by director Ronny Yu, Robert Englund (Freddy), and Ken Kirzinger (Jason) - England sort of dominates the conversation, but his excitement about the film is palpable. Yu was an interesting choice as director, but I think he did a fine job; I was especially fascinated to learn how much of an impact early screenings of the film with test audiences affected the final cut - Yu knew that the fans were more knowledgeable than he was on the subject at hand and rightly deferred to their opinions when they made plain the fact that certain elements of the first cut just would not fly.