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FREDDY VS. JASON
(2003)
DIRECTOR:
Ronny Yu.
STARRING:
Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Monica Keena.
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| I hate rewatching some movies when I saw them during a stupid period of my life. I love rewatching films I first saw
when I was a wee child. But movies when I was a bratty teenager or a complete alcoholic in my early 20s that I used
to be all like, "oh fucking sick man!" over. I hate watching them because I just simply had no idea what good films
were. Where as now I do - which is why I am your master and you are simply reading my mental vomit. Mwahahaha!
Anyway, Freddy VS. Jason, not the worst movie of all time, but still not great and extremely sloppy at times (just like
my spelling and general gramma - yeah fuck you I'm aware of it, I simply don't care). It could've been so much more
than what it was and story has it so much time was spent finding the right script as bringing these two seperate evils
together would be harder to explain than what some people may think.
The first step towards bringing Freddy and Jason together was the end of Jason Goes To Hell. Upon Jason's decent into
hell we are left with a shot of Jason's hockey mask lying on the ground and then Freddy's glove emerges and drags it
along with Jason down into hell, cue Freddy's cackle, done. I will mention that JGTH was not a favourite amongst fans
although it's one of my pesonal favourites. JGTH was the first Friday the 13th or Jason or whatever the fuck movie to
be done by New Line Cinema since they had bought the rights to Jason and co. Now that they owned both Freddy and Jason's
asses there was really nothing stopping a Freddy vs. Jason (other than a decent script).
I remember waiting for this movie to come out for so long. I just couldn't believe it was finally happening. The two
craziest bastards up against each other. The first time I saw it I was amazed. I thought it was everything it had to be.
I also thought weed was awesome to smoke more than once a day and that it's okay to smell like booze in a cinema. These
are all naughty things boys & girls.
Since then my eyes have opened. I watched this movie the other day hungover. Maybe it was the double quarter pounder I
had eaten... or the stomach full of THAT and Coke, but I felt sick. No, it wasn't the food, it was the fucking abomination
that Ronny Yu (Bride of Chucky - boooo!) had given birth to, Freddy vs. Jason.
Everytime I see the cover for Freddy vs. Jason I remember it being so much better. Wow, Freddy and Jason fighting, awesome!
But as we have all learnt by now, if you take two iconic symbols of cinematic fear and throw them together, ALL scripts will
focus on a.) a pack of teenagers, b.) a group of professional hunters/scientists/experts or c.) *insert human stupidity here*.
Apparently the rule goes if two famous monsters EVER go head to head, humans MUST be involved. Therefore disabling the
usefulness of the titles of these films. I mean really, Freddy vs. Jason? Yeah, for 10 minutes of the movie. Although to give
this movie credit the humans don't seem to be held in as high regard as they are in say AVP : Requiem (remember the blonde
bitch in that movie? "I fired him", shut up BITCH! *punch*). But my six page long review of that is on another page! hehe
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Freddy vs. Jason starts with the New Line Cinema logo fading in with a combination of the Nightmare on Elm Street chiming
music and Jason's trademark "ki-ki-ki... hah-hah-hah" sound. Then a monologue by Freddy (Robert Englund - did I really need to tell you that?) himself begins, telling us, the
viewer (and most probably long time fan), that he used to be a child killer (no shit) and then the parents burnt him to a
crisp in his own home. Then he came back as a burnt looking boogeyman in the children of Elm Street's dreams to kill them.
See, nothing too complicated, why are we being re-explained this? Who would come to a movie titled "Freddy vs. Jason" if they
had no idea on the back stories of these people or who they were at all. For all they know Freddy is a shoe shiner and Jason
is a newsagent owner, what could possibly be interesting about these two people meeting? Anyway, you'll notice a trend of the
movie explaining to the audience on multiple occasions what exactly is going on, just incase it's too much for our "feeble"
minds. Hey writers, it's really NOT that complicated a film! They totally ruin the experience in doing this as it makes it
alot less fun it could've been and really feels very shoved into your face.
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^^ Passionate Director: Yes! It's a story about two monsters fighting but it's also a story about the struggle between a black womanand a white woman... who fall in love... |
Freddy informs us further that he has since been forgotten about in Elm Street and no longer has the power to enter all the
kiddies dreams to do some killing. Then he literally tells us a third of the movie by saying his plan is to bring Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) back
from hell to start killing them to make them scared again so he can regain his power and start killing the Elm Street kids
himself. He does so by pretending to be Jason's mother and by telling him he has only been sleeping and it's now time to wake
up and suddenly start killing Elm Street. No, don't start killing again in Camp Crystal Lake, you know, the place where the
evil doers let you drown and where you've spent decades exacting your revenge. Just go start killing in Elm Street, I'm your
mother damn it, now obey me! Well it kind of does add up as we all know from Friday the 13th part II that if you want to trick
Jason you pretend to be his mother. Anyway, after the title sequence (which starts with some excellent dark monster type music
and is then interrupted when FREDDY VS. JASON appears on the screen with fucking Ill Nino garbage music of all things) we see
Jason entering Elm Street, hence we know, blood will flow. (RHYME *ding!*)
Next we're introduced to a bunch of teenagers, one being Lori (Monica Keena), the lead female. She has recently suffered a few dramas,
namely her mother being murdered and her one true love, Will (Jason Ritter - son of the late, great John Ritter) disappearing without a trace. Her dad is over protective of her, her
friends are all morons (trying to set her up & just generally being shallow) and on top of that the boyfriend of one of her friends was MURDERED
in HER HOUSE! DUN DUN DUNNNN! She is taken to the police station for questions, where she has a dream after over hearing the
name Freddy. Shit that's an extreme dream assumption to have after hearing one name. She could have overheard people discussing
the late Freddy Mercury? They should've been anyway, Queen were awesome! Anyway, Laurie has a dream involving Freddy which
sparks her fear of him which gets her talking amongst all the Elm Street kids about Freddy Krueger. Hey, why is it always teenage
kids that get targeted by Freddy? He clearly killed little itty bitty children when he was a human, so why change the target age?
I say it's so we can have good looking sex symbols in our movies! Anyway, during this time Laurie's boyfriend, Will, who has been
locked up in an asylum with his best mate, Mark (Brendan Fletcher), for believing in Freddy show up (after escaping the asylum obviously). Mark is
unfortunately a moron who can't keep his mouth shut and backs up Lori's vague claims of Freddy by letting them know intricate
details of who this madman is while every kid gathers in school halls to hear about it! A note to the viewer, keep an eye out
in the background for each kid slowly stopping in the process of walking past to hear one small tiny conversation about Freddy
that's been had amongst hundreds of them. Really, really stupid.
Anyway before you know Jason is on a killing spree and now Freddy has had his powers returned to him so he too can begin killing.
One problem Fredddyyyyy *says it with a chuckle* - Jason wont stop killing now! Ho-ho-ho, you two rascals, when will the killing
end!? One great scene in this movie is when Jason massacres party goers at an outdoor cornfield rave. I loved the mass exposure
to Jason, brutalising one stupid fuck after another as they all stampede to get away. It truly proves Jason's power to still be
an unstoppable force against so many people at once. This is what Friday VIII - Jason Goes To Manhattan should have been like. Sort
of like the ending to An American Werewolf in London where there's public madness and mass fear as this monster is let loose on
everyone.
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This leads to Freddy and Jason duking it a couple of times as the bunch of teens and Laurie figure out a way to get rid of Freddy.
After a few "I'm more afraid of that hockey mask guy" comments, they all decide for some reason that Freddy is more evil and I
guess Jason is the good guy. They devise a plan in which to assist Jason with ridding of Freddy via a bloody climax with some bad
ass shots of Jason looking fucking mean! The ending is extremely vague with it appearing as though Jason has won when in actual
fact he hasn't won shit because - TADA - Freddy is still alive. Erm... so why did we just watch this for 90 minutes? Nothing has
changed! The end.
Two things worthy of mentioning at the end. The first being Jason's brutal killing of Lori's friend, Kia (Kelly Rowland). There she is talking some black jive to Freddy, "totally serving" and "dissing" him, when out of nowhere, SMACK! The stupid bitch is smacked hard by Jason's machete and she's launched into a tree where I assume the initial wound and snapping in half against the tree, killed her, cool! hehe
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LORI, YOU BITCH!
I'M NEVER COMING TO YOUR HOUSE AGAIN!! ^^
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The second part worthy of mention for most negative reasons it's the extreme weakness behind Lori's character trying to suddenly be redeemed in the last 5 minutes of the movie. Suddenly, after EVERYONE besides her and Will have died to get Jason to fight Freddy, she decides to grow a back bone and confront Freddy herself. To quote, "HE HAS RUINED BOTH OF OUR LIVES WILL, I WILL SEE TO IT THAT HE WILL PAY!". Now that's not exactly it, but it's close. Close enough to still sound obnixous, stupid and unremorseful of her friend's deaths. They DIED to achieve this plan you stupid bitch, now fuck off and at least have two of you live. Nope, she had to give Freddy the final blow (see - humans meddling amongst the monster vs. monster) and say a cool line before striking, "WELCOME TO MY WORLD BITCH!". Woah, that would've been pretty stylish - if it wasn't totally stupid and unneccessary! Fuck you ending!
There are several problems with this movie. One of them being Freddy's makeup. He looks fucking terrible. In one part during his
monologue and later on in a dream he has what appears to me sharpened fang like teeth and like supernatural being style eyes with
these ridiculous veins in them. He has a more pointed nose and sharpened elf like ears, almost vampire looking. It's just all quite
stupid and I understand why did this. Even just normally, the Freddy makeup is terrible. There's only going to be one worse looking
Freddy and that's whatever he looks like after they re-cast the role of Freddy Krueger for the remake.
I will, however, defend the decision to go with Ken Kirzinger playing Jason over Kane Hodder. Sure at first I was upset, Kane made the role. But I don't think Ken did that bad a job. He's an overall good size to play Jason and his Jason goes together with the movie world. Lacking characteristics, very stupid, slow and sloppy. It's all a packaged deal!
Secondly is this sudden stupid fear Jason has of water. Haven't the people who wrote this fucking movie seen a SINGLE Friday the 13th!?
Sure he DIED in water, but clearly at the end of Friday I we realise he's been LIVING UNDERWATER IN THE LAKE SINCE HE DROWNED ALL
THOSE YEARS AGO! Not only that but in numerous sequels he has been overly exposed to water without an issue. Should I even mention
that he walks directly OUT OF WATER at the end of FREDDY VS. JASON! Come on - that's fucking sloppy! You make a specific point of
having Freddy capture him through fear of water. Scaring him so much he turns into a little boy. Then Freddy explores Jason's dreams
and -why... look at that! He's WALKING IN WATER EVEN IN HIS DREAMS! Then after all that bullshit is over, in the very last few frames
we have Jason walking out of water. So bad it's not even funny, it's infuriating! You're not making another Die Hard, you're not
making a fucking Pirates of the Carribean. You are making the first ever combination of Freddy and Jason, two genre favourite. Not
just an genre - but HORROR of all of them. Horror - which has some of the pickiest fans in the world! Fuck, it boggles the mind how
they could let some of these things slip!
A third thing, so Freddy needed the children's "fear". He needed for them to know about him and how he looks and all that shit. So
how did the first children know about him? Surely there was a year long transition period between Freddy's human death and his dream
demon resurrection. Surely all the hype and fear was long gone by then. How did he muster the energy to do this shit in the first
place then? SEE - you don't fool me movie! I don't think he REALLY needed the kids fear, I think there just desperately had to be a
way to get Freddy and Jason in the same movie!
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Surely there were some better scripts. But when it comes down to it, things could have been worse, I guess. Unfortunately the script
constantly trips itself up by over explaining things. At the start Freddy monologues EVERYTHING that will happen in the first third
of the movie. Then Mark has a dream half way through which then RE-EXPLAINS everything again, but not like "mystically" re-explaining
it. Literally just telling us everything that is happening. Then constantly through subtle dialogue we get fed little bits and pieces
as if the story is far too complicated for us to know what's happening! Here's the story in three lines. Freddy needs the kids to fear
him so he can kill them in their dreams. He recruits Jason to start killing people so the kids become vulnerable and Freddy can enter
their dreams to kill them again. Jason doesn't stop killing once Freddy is back so then Freddy and Jason try to kill each other. The End.
Shit, that's some complex stuff.
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^^ "Gimme some sugar baby! |
A good aspect of Freddy vs. Jason is the gore. Good kills, good gore and at times alot of fun. Which is FUNdamentally what horror movies
are about. Actually, I only said that because I could use the word FUN inside another word, horror movies shouldn't be THIS dumb. Not for
HUGE horror icons like this meeting for the first time. Batman VS. Superman wouldn't be stupid, so neither should Freddy VS. Jason.
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While overexplaining why I'm scoring a movie, which is to let the public know how shit this film is, I give Freddy vs. Jason: |
2.5 OUT OF 5 JAGER-BABIES. |
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