Freddy vs Jason

Here we are. We’ve taken a long road to get to this point, covering both her Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. And now get go to the point where they intersect – Freddy vs Jason, the horror movie equivalent of a title fight where the two horror icons Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees come to blows. It was directed by Hong Kong director Ronny Yu, a veteran director of Hong Kong action movies who also helmed the fourth Child’s Play movie, Bride of Chucky. Bride of Chucky was notable for being over the top and silly, the entire film being an almost cartoonish change of tone and pace to the first three straight horror movies. Freddy vs Jason, in comparison, is actually surprisingly more horror-focused, or at least as horror focused a film with that title could be.

I like it, and have a soft spot for it. It’s dumb as hell, sure, but it does exactly what it promises to do – it gives us an epic showdown between Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees. It’s actually a pretty good mix between a Friday the 13^th movie and a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, mixing ideas from both. The plot progression and dark visuals are more like an ANOES movie, while the more gung-ho pace and kills are more like a F13 movie. It’s a silly movie that doesn’t take itself seriously, being as ridiculous as you’d expect a combination of ANOES and F13 might be. That’s not to say it’s ineffectual or lazy – they manage to not just pay homage to both series but largely combine the two styles into one movie. For me it all worked.

 

The story for our dream match is simple but does a decent job of linking the two series. Freddy Kreuger is in hell, defeated and forgotten following his series of defeats in the first six ANOES movies. Freddy’s power came from fear, and now that nobody remembers him he’s powerless. He has a plan to get his power back by using slasher Jason Voorhees, undead and in hell. He manipulates the eternally resting Jason into resurrecting and stalking Elm Street, killing teens and spreading fear, with the panic bringing back the fear of Freddy Kreuger’s return, giving him more power. But Jason is doing too good a job of killing, taking Freddy’s victims before he has a chance to murder them.

The teen’s plot largely involves surviving both Freddy and Jason. Our heroine Lori and her friends are in shock after the violent deaths of some of their friends at the hands of Jason. Freddy begins to appear in their nightmares, growing in power and trying to kill them. They can’t sleep or Freddy will get them in their dreams, but Jason is stalking them in the real world – there’s no safe place for them. Together the teens have to survive and fight back, finding a way to get the two killers to fight each other. The movie is actually intricately written for what it needed to be, taking more cues from the original ANOES film. Lori in particular has memories about Freddy that make him target her specifically. There’s also Will, Lori’s missing ex-boyfriend who was institutionalised and is kept drugged up with Hypnocil (The dream-suppressing medication from ANOES 3) because he witnessed Freddy in action. He escapes to try and warn the teens, and together they try and find a way to pull Freddy out of the nightmares.

Freddy Kreuger looks pretty menacing this time, especially compared to the original six ANOEs movies. He’s got the burnt skin and freaky bloodshot eyes, and towards the end he shows up looking more devil-like in a nightmare, with sharp teeth. Robert Englund plays the role exceptionally well, with exactly the sort of menacing creepiness it needs. This is a far better Freddy than the last few sequels had. It’s a fitting swansong for Englund, as this is the last time he’s played the role. He also gets a nickname for his work as a pre-burnt child killer, the ‘Springwood Slasher’. We get more of an inside look at Freddy and his scheme, with the movie beginning with Freddy narrating his story – how he was a child killer, how the parents killed him in revenge, how he returned to kill teenagers in their dreams and his plan to use Jason.

Speaking of whom, Jason is also an imposing figure, more in size and frame. He’s the iconic version, the hulking slasher who stalks his victims, never moving faster than a casual pace, yet always managing to catch up to fleeing victims. This film goes a little deeper into his character, going into his past and what the inside of his mind might be like. It humanises and characterises him a lot more than his own series did. The film positions him as the ‘good guy’, or at least the lesser of the two evils, which is really strange because out of the two Jason does the most killing by far. I guess it makes sense as Jason is just about killing teenagers – he’s almost animalistic in his instinctual  simplicity, whereas Freddy is far more malevolent.

Lori is ok. She’s a bit too shriek-prone, panicky and wild eyed, and while she ends up pretty headstrong and willing to put herself in danger to kill Freddy she also has some dumb lines (at one point she says “Jason was killed by water and Freddy was killed by fire. Maybe we can use that!” Use what exactly? And how? What the hell was she talking about?). Will is an idiot, and basically responsible for Freddy getting more powerful because he runs around freaking people out about Freddy and making them fear him. Kelly Roland is actually not bad as Lori’s friend. The Destiny’s Child singer took the role because her former bandmate Beyonce told her she has fun in her acting gig in Austin Powers: Goldmember. She’s fine here as the sassy friend, and I’m surprised she didn’t get into any other horror movies. Other than that we have the slutty one (who just seems drunk all the time), the nerd, the stoner and Will’s mentally unhinged friend. They’re mostly fine actually, not enough to care whether they live or not but enough that they aren’t so annoying you’d wish they’d die sooner.

The parents and police are, in true ANOES style, covering up Freddy’s existence to a ridiculous degree. It makes sense – they know that Freddy’s power is drawn from people believing in him, so they try and cover things up to avoid panic. This means they dump two of the nightmare-prone teens in an insane asylum and keep them drugged up, and quickly try and pass off two deaths as a murder/suicide and close the case (despite Jason still wandering around).

It’s a well-made movie, shot well with a technical polish that comes from a director with a few decades behind the camera. It’s nicer looking than most of the films in both series. More importantly, it has the right feel – that sort of post 2000 horror movie that we don’t really see anymore. The effects are ok, though there are some bad special effects in there. A shadowy version of Freddy looks dated, while a CGI Freddy caterpillar that smokes a bong and gets high (in the stoner’s nightmare) is ridiculous. The gore effects though are great, seemingly all being practical effects, which is always a good thing, though the kills are fairly straightforward. This is a bloody movie, with plenty of the red stuff gushing from just about every cut, slash and stab wound. The kills aren’t particularly creative – there’re no nightmare kills – but they’re very swift, bloody and brutal. Jason slashes a bunch of people at a cornfield rave, sending sprays of blood through the air. One of the earliest kills sums it up best; a douchebag guy lying in bed is stabbed repeatedly through the stomach by Jason, his intestines beginning to spill through the sheets. Then Jason pulls the mattress up, snapping the guy in half. Now this is a bit of a fanboy issue, but the kill distribution is very much in Jason’s favour. Freddy spends much more time terrorising them in nightmares, but most of the kills are attributed to Jason’s handiwork. It makes sense in terms of both series – Freddy spent more time haunting and harassing his teens before killing them, whereas Jason has always killed his victims within seconds of bumping into them. I know some ANOES fans were annoyed that Jason got the bloody limelight, but I think its fine.

Nightmares scenes are appropriately freaky, but have a better visual representation than some of the others. The usual suspects are here – creepy houses, hellish factories and furnaces. The nightmares have either a green or red tint to them, making them stand out more. While the creativity might be toned down compared to some of the more outlandish ANOES movies (like 5 and its MC Esher realm), this works better for the film. For the first time though, Jason gets dragged into a nightmare. As part of his plan to get rid of Jason, Freddy drags him into a nightmare (Freddy’s home turf – he’s largely unstoppable there), and actually manages to get into Jason’s head, digging into his mind and memories where he’s haunted by his memory of drowning at Crystal Lake as a child. So we go to Camp Crystal Lake in a nightmare. It’s pretty good stuff. I do like how Jason Voorhees just dreams about killing horny teenagers.

And so we get to the titular showdown, Freddy vs Jason. And it’s awesome. It’s not long, but it’s brutal and ridiculous and absurdly bloody, with massive spurts of blood and gore. The two rivals get up close and personal – Jason’s bigger and stronger, but Freddy’s faster and smarter. In its final stages it slows down as each killer takes grievous bodily harm, the spurting of blood getting more ridiculous. The entire fight is at Camp Crystal Lake, which is exactly where it needed to be. The fight feels pretty definitive in its brutality actually, and though the end suggests both will be fine (you can never really kill off a popular horror icon) the entire enterprise plays out as you’d expect.

 

Freddy vs Jason pretty much delivers on its title, but I’d say it attempts to do more than that. While the titular fight to the death is enough to sell the movie, the rest of it is a strangely effective mashup of the two series, though I’d say it takes more influence from the ANOES movies – but that makes sense, those were the more plot and character-focused films. The movie is as silly as you’d expect it to be, and the acting for the supporting cast might be weak, but you can tell a lot of effort and passion went into this. And both Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees are in fine form here, giving us some of the better versions of the two characters ever seen. It’s a fun movie and better than most give it credit for. In many ways it was a last hurray for both horror franchises which, to this point, had largely been considered over. As both a reunion and a tribute for both series, this does its job well.