FREDDY VS. JASON

Surrealism and straight slice 'n' dice - fun for the whole horror family!

By John Ringer     August 15, 2003

What sounded like it could have been a really bad idea turns out to be a genuinely bright one. It couldn't have been easy getting the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13th universes to fit together - this movie was in development for years - but writers Damian Shannon & Mark Swift have come up with a solution so clever that it makes FREDDY VS. JASON one of the best entries in either franchise.

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), as NIGHTMARE fans know, is the boogeyman who not only appears in bad dreams but orchestrates them to be fantastical and fatal. Alas, Freddy is languishing in Hell because, like some infernal Tinkerbell, no one believes in him any more. The grownups in Springwood have managed to erase him from the minds of the town's youth. Freddy's solution is to resurrect Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger), the virtually indestructible, hockey-mask-wearing scourge of Crystal Lake, and point him at Freddy's old Elm Street haunts. Sure enough, Jason's new killings are blamed on Freddy, who starts getting his mojo back. However, to Freddy's intensifying irritation, Jason keeps jumping in and killing Freddy's intended victims. On Jason's untalkative and not especially reflective part, he's not used to having anybody around who he can't kill, and Freddy's habit of impersonating Jason's mom is a big no-no.

The dialogue is sometimes geek heaven. As our teen heroes band together and notice the animosity between the two different deadly forces on their heels, they try to figure out if there's any way of exploiting it. It's a variation on the venerable "if Superman and Batman fought, who would win?" discussion, with the twist that this time, the answer is of vital importance to the debaters. The plot logic is no more screwy than usual in either series (which is to say that it's still pretty gonzo most of the time), and there are actually a few very clever ideas that propel the action along handily.



Director Ronny Yu demonstrates that he understands both the commonalities and the differences in the styles of the FRIDAY and NIGHTMARE movies, making for what amounts to a side-by-side comparison. In case you had any doubts, NIGHTMARE comes off as the more unpredictable, varied and actually scary of the two; FRIDAY relies more on shock value and black comedy. Both are extraordinarily bloody, with the excess and stylization of violence they're known for.

Apart from a couple of brief turns in the beginning, the acting is quite good. Englund, of course, knows exactly what he's doing. Monica Keena, as the current adolescent resident of the house on Elm Street where it all started, is smart and vulnerable, Jason Ritter has appropriate sincerity and desperation as her boyfriend, Kelly Rowland is nicely feisty as Keena's best friend and Christopher George Marquette makes the most of what are actually some good character moments as a nerd who finds his courage through the ordeal. Kirzinger is allowed to make Jason a little more aware than the silent monster is usually shown to be.

For a lot of viewers, the most fun to be had here is in seeing Freddy and Jason both growing vexed and vengeful as they mutually defy each other. People who've been following NIGHTMARE and FRIDAY movies of course have seen both villains thwarted before, but they've always been up against terrified potential victims. Here, it's like watching two big, homicidal Wile E. Coyotes going at each other - and, if you're in the mood for it, the intentional humor behind the concept is truly a hoot.

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