Freddy vs Jason

Posted by Greg

November 10, 2007

The Gorer… The Gorer

** out of *****

The first real horror movie I ever saw was A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. My friend had turned 12 and all of us were in his basement, pretending not to be scared while at the same time wondering how much ridicule we’d get if one of us turned on the lights. I don’t think I slept for three days.

You could probably make a pretty good argument that the seed of the ‘teen horror movie’ genre was sewn by John Carpenter when he did Halloween in 1974. Friday the 13th appeared a few years later, further exploring the burgeoning sub-culture. But it was really Wes Craven who hit the nail on the head by doing two things - adding humor to the mix, and giving his protagonist an actual personality. After that, it seemed that you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a wannabe horror franchise.

For whatever reason - marketing, bribery, deals with Satan - the only two super killers that had real staying power were Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th and Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street. Me, I’ve always preferred the Nightmare series. Jason was cool but all he ever really did was walk around in murderous silence stabbing people. But Freddy, well, he joked, danced, growled and the very nature of his power - he can enter your dreams and kill you - provided nearly endless opportunities for creative deaths. Anyway, much like their respective counterparts, it seemed that these two series just would not die. Think about it - the first Friday the 13th came out in 1979. That’s 25 years - longer than most marriages last these days.

So even though the idea had been done, re-done, done again, turned around and done one last time, and then done again just for good measure, Hollywood decided to finally give the horror geeks what they wanted and put both of the unstoppable killers in the same movie. People have been imagining situations like this for as long as I can remember - Kirk vs. Picard, Transformers vs. Go-Bots, Jackie Chan vs. Bruce Lee. It’s imagination for entertainments’ sake, which is where this movie is coming from. Movies have been made for worse reasons but most of the time, they’re made for much better ones.

Much like the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator, Freddy vs. Jason is more of a marketing move than an attempt at a real horror film. Taking these figures who are so entrenched in the psyche of pretty much everyone between the ages of 15 and 30 and pitting them against each other is - dare I say it - an important moment in pop culture.

The movie actually comes up with a clever and interesting setup. Everyone has forgotten about Freddy, hence, he has no power to do what he does best. He figures that the kids of Elm Street need some fear put into them so he resurrects Jason to go on yet another killing spree. Killing sprees = fear, fear = bad dreams, bad dreams = Freddy gets to kill again. After a few quick deaths to whet his appetite and get the ol’ killing arm into shape, Jason shows up at a rave in the middle of a cornfield and goes totally crazy. At least I think that’s what happens - the much talked about scene has been hacked to pieces by Thai editors who apparently know what I want to see in a movie. How smart of them. (Sarcasm doesn’t come across too well in writing).

Well, just like a little sister stealing her older sisters boyfriend, Freddy gets a bit jealous. HE’S supposed to kill these kids, not Jason! A plan is hatched to get rid of the new kid on the block and the stage is set for a showdown - Jason ain’t going down without a fight.

You might have noticed that I’ve written about 650 words and haven’t said much about the actual movie itself, and you’d be right. Like I said, this is more of a marketing gimmick; an entry in the pop-culture pantheon that’s too busy making sure it’ll be immortalized in magazines like Fangoria and Cinefantastique to worry about actual film troubles. The cast of relative unknowns does their job but don’t warrant their own paragraph - they scream, they run, they bleed - you know the rest. Director Ronny Yu doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but I must say he has a real talent for aiming the camera directly down the shirts of his ridiculously curvy starlets.

After about an hour we get to what we’ve been waiting for, which is to see the two indestructible titans throw down and have a go at each other which is where the movie actually becomes fun to watch. In a neat twist, the two killers have fun with two different set-pieces. In the first, Freddy hammers on the nearly powerless Jason in the dream world, and in the second, Jason mops the floor with the nearly powerless Freddy in the real world. It’s a guilty pleasure to watch these two titans go at it - it’s a fight that’s been brewing for so long that you almost giggle with every jet of blood that squirts across the screen.

However, keep in mind that I am a horror fan from way back, and even that rather large bias couldn’t keep me from seeing that this movie, although ambitious, is pretty bad. The average moviegoer won’t admire the intricate prosthetics or reminisce about the back-story. They might jump once or twice but when all is said and done, they’ll probably note that the flick was nothing more than a cool idea for a multi-franchise combination padded out with a bit of a story and average acting talent.

As a movie on its own, I’d give it 1 star out of 5, but since it does have two such eminent horror figures going mano-a-mano, I’m going to have to give it 2.

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