Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Starring Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland.
Directed by Ronny Yu.
Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift.
Produced by Sean S. Cunningham.
Distributed by New Line Cinema.
97 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 8/10

Clash of the Frighteners

By all accounts, Freddy vs. Jason is a limited-audience movie, only truly appreciable to the fans of two horror movie franchises that most people look down on. They've also had their overall quality diluted, thanks to a ludicrous number of entries in each series. I doubt many people take these sets of movies seriously, so how is this crossover movie supposed to be received, other than with low expectations? It has little chance of being any good, right? And yet -- I dug Freddy vs. Jason.

My enjoyment of this movie becomes more peculiar when one finds out I was neither a fan of the "Friday the 13th" series, featuring hockey-masked Jason Voorhees, nor the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, featuring dream-haunting bogeyman Freddy Krueger. I didn't give myself the chance -- I was scared of horror movies while growing up in the '80's. But I was always curious about the two series -- I wanted to understand the factors that made them survive as popular cultural entities. Now that I'm no longer a scaredy-cat, I've watched a few of the "Friday the 13th" movies and over half of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies. The former set of movies is just schlocky, low-budget horror; the latter set has personality and some flair, but also low ambitions, mostly going for gore over psychological creepiness.

What stuck out the most, though, were Jason and Freddy, the anti-heroes of these series. The teenagers are all disposable -- at first they were the vehicles through which we were supposed to experience fear, but later they just became fodder because the real reason to see the "Friday the 13th" movies was to find out how much more unstoppable Jason would become, while the true purpose in viewing a "Nightmare" movie was to watch Freddy dispatch victims with style, cracking wise all the while. Though the worlds they inhabited could no longer be taken seriously by that point, their personalities continued to carry them -- even Jason's, whose silence is more childlike than menacing, and who wouldn't understand the concept of finesse if it were drilled into his head. They had become something more than just the stalker/villain in their respective films -- they became comic-book characters, beings with unusual powers doomed to live life (or live death?) as slaves to the circumstances that come with their abilities.

According to comic-book law, their similar roles as well-known teen-killing machines demand a crossover. All I ever expect a crossover to do is to "get it right." They're always tricky because of two stars having to share a spotlight -- even worse if they're pitted against each other, since one of them has to win (a tie is always a cop-out). How does one construct a story that a) gives equal time and respect to each character; b) retains the spirit of the realms they each reside in; and c) actually doesn't waste the opportunity to make a good show of the actual fight? This is my definition of a good crossover, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who can pull this off and still be able to give two groups of fans what they want.

So my hat is off to the makers of Freddy vs. Jason, a fun concoction of crossover elements that truly lives up to its title. The story is well-constructed into three acts: the part where each of the stars gets to do his thing; the part where the conflict between them emerges; and the main event itself. All three are given exactly the right flavor. Part 1 is the land of silly slasher movie conventions, complete with bad-acting teenagers we don't care to see live, gratuitous nudity, and creative, bloody deaths. Part 2 gives us the chance to form allegiances, as the scheme of the villainous Freddy (Robert Englund) begins to fail and Jason (Ken Kirzinger), strangely, starts to earn audience sympathy as the guy who doesn't know he's being used.

And Part 3's showdown gives viewers plenty of movie-monster action. Freddy and Jason have no fewer than three staged battles, first on Freddy's turf before moving on to Jason's home-court. It's exactly what the audience came to see. Jason attacks with brute force while the weaker Freddy has to find a way to use speed and the surrounding environment to his advantage. It truly is funny to watch Freddy execute agile attacks while Jason just swipes at the air with his machete. Overall, these battles were much better than the dinosaur fights in the "Jurassic Park" movies, because those are always too short.

Did I say funny? Yes -- in fact, if you're used to buckets-o'-blood horror movie gore, Freddy vs. Jason is really more of a comedy. It's chock full of references and gleefully plays up cheesy horror movie elements. Give credit to Ronny Yu, who directs this crazy thing with confidence, reproducing Jason's jump-shock horror moments as well as he mimics Freddy's sudden reality-to-dream transitions. Meanwhile, Robert Englund, who has played Freddy since the beginning, wastes not the opportunity to revel in the role that made him famous, throwing out macabre zingers and taunting opponents like the cut-up he is. To Freddy fans, watching him must be like revisiting an old friend in some strange, twisted way.

This is what it all comes down to: if you must make a movie combining two series at which most people would turn up their noses, make it right for the people who wouldn't. It took almost 10 years for this project to finally see the light of day, but I think they made it right.

©Jeffrey Chen, Aug. 15, 2003

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