Freddy vs Jason (2003)

Summary:

Freddy Krueger tricks Jason Voorhees into killing a slew of teenagers for his own personal reasons, but when Jason finds out he’s been duped, he turns his machete towards the gloved-killer.

My Thoughts:

Finally, a horror movie I can get behind! Enough with the artsy crap like “Hereditary” or “The Witch”. I like my horror movies to be brainless, soulless slaughter-fests with more bodies piled up at the end than can fit in a county morgue.

Just kidding.

This movie is hot garbage, but I must admit I did enjoy it far more than I actually expected to. I think the reason that this movie partially worked for me (I still only gave this 2/5 stars) was because of the tone it took. This movie has an absolutely ludicrous plot, and it takes full advantage of it. This movie was never going to win any awards, nor was it trying to do so. What this film was trying to do was entertain a loyal fanbase; both Freddy (“A Nightmare on Elm Street”) and Jason (“Friday the 13th”) have spawned their fair share of horror sequels (Freddy currently has eight films, and Jason has twelve). I, personally, have actually enjoyed some of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. Again, none of them are award winning, but as Freddy uses nightmares to kill people, those films have a kind of pseudo-fantastical element to them that sometimes produces bizarre (and oftentimes humorous) results.

The Friday the 13th films are a different story. In my opinion, Friday the 13th is the epitome of all that is wrong with horror. Jason is clearly a rip off of Michael Meyers from “Halloween”, which came out two years prior to the original Friday, and was a huge success. The Friday films are a bastardization of slasher films- a genre I really love. Slashers were first derived from the Italian Giallos, like Mario Brava’s “Bay of Blood” or Dario Argento’s “Deep Red”, and those films used a similar techniques as far as their killings go, but at least the directors brought some substance with their story style with their directing. Friday the 13th films, at least the two that I have seen, have lacked any kind of spark of creativity. Jason Voorhees and his mother (she was the bad guy in the first film) are stupid and uninteresting characters. I have no interest in watching a mindless killer wander through woods to kill unlikeable teenagers… or at least, I thought I didn’t… and then I watched this film and laughed for about half of its runtime.

“Make them remember what fear taste like.”

Years after the original “Nightmare on Elm Street”, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund, “Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”) wanders the bowels of hell, unable to resurrect himself because people have forgotten about him. Determined to make a return, Freddy finds Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger, “Watchmen”) and resurrects him while disguised as Jason’s mother Pamela Voorhees (Paula Shaw, “Insomnia”). Freddy-in-Pam-face convinces Jason to kill a bunch of teens in his name, thus bringing power to Freddy. Will Freddy get enough power from the onslaught to resurrect himself, or will Jason figure out he’s been duped and fight back against Freddy?

Okay, so if you read the plot description, you’ll know whoever came up with this idea was on some serious drugs. This movie’s premise is totally ridiculous; the set up is so sloppily done that to say this film has a plot is almost a lie. Quite literally, the opening voiceover sets up the plot, and probably 70% of the rest of the film is either of the titular characters slashing their way through warm bodies. There is really no plot in this film, but if you thought a movie titled “Freddy vs. Jason” was going to be filled with plot twists and character development, you might want to reassess what kinds of movies you think you’re watching. No, there isn’t much a plot, but that’s the point.

Though I only watched this film last night, less than twelve hours ago, I couldn’t tell you any of the teenager’s names, nor could I tell you about any those teenager’s petty problems and drama. Those characters were thinner than paper, and that was demonstrated by how easily our heroes cut through them. This is exactly what fans of these kinds of films come to these kinds of films for. People who flocked to the theaters to see “Freddy Vs Jason” weren’t looking for “Rosemary’s Baby”. The people who saw this film and enjoyed it would be bored to tears in “Rosemary’s”. There are films out there for everyone, and for those that like actiony-horror films without plot but a high body count, this film is fine. There might not be any substance, the characters aren’t at all memorable, and in a month, I’m sure I’ll remember less than five minutes of this film, but hey, there is a market out there for films like this. Like I said, I laughed a lot, and it’s hard to think of this film as a waste of time or a bad film when I got so much enjoyment out of it. The way I enjoyed this movie might not have been how the producers intended me to enjoy it, but what do you do?

Verdict:

People love Freddy and Jason. Both of the characters have had reboots since this film, and both villains have new reboots in early stages of development right now. While these films aren’t exactly what I look for when I sit down to watch a horror film, I know some people really love them. This movie is far from good, but at the same time, it does seem to be exactly what it set out to be, and for that, I have to give it a little credit.

Review Written By:

Seth Steele