Review of Freddy vs. Jason (2003) by Ben F — 05 Nov 2012

What happens when you mix two horror franchises that really have nothing to do with each other together? You get "Freddy vs Jason." This film had technically been in production since the early 1990's when it was revealed at the end of "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday" that Jason is dragged to hell by Freddy Krueger. But lets take even a couple of more steps back. It wasn't even until the financial failure of Part 8 of the Jason series that Paramount decided to dump all of there assets and sell the rights to New Line Cinema. I just think it's interesting to see how these things work out. But when all is said and done, this film proves to its audience that it has absolutely no heart, and no real desire to be good. The horrible decision to hire Ronny Yu to direct the film sent this film into oblivion. How absurd.

Freddy Krueger wants to terrorize elm street again, but he can't do it if no on remembers who he is. He raises Jason Vorhees from the dead and allows him to go on a killing rampage on Kruger's home turf. People start to think that it's Freddy, and so he starts to regain some of his power. The only problem is, Jason can't be stopped. The only way to end things is for one slasher to come out on top. Okay, there's the plot. It's a pretty cheap attempt to make these two guys coming together sensible.

The whole concept of bringing these two together is something that bothers me. If you take a look at both original films, you'll notice that they are the complete opposites of each other in terms of style. Craven's masterpiece is a bone-chilling satanic nightmare, while Cunningham's film is just a simple slice and dice flick. When you take these franchises and throw them together like its not a big deal, there is no room for any creativity. New Line decided it was a good idea to hire Ronny Yu for this film. I don't know if anyone else thought this, but at certain points, this film felt like a martial arts movie. 80% of the film felt like an action movie to me, and thats just ridiculous.

It's pretty obvious that if you just have two guys fighting each other in stylized ways, its not going to be scary. This film has absolutely no horror value to it. Most of the film time is used for actors to state horrible one-liners, and for as much gore as possible to be pumped onto the screen. The acting is atrocious, but I don't really feel the need to comment on it because the performances aren't really supposed to be good in the first place. The only actor I liked was Robert Englund, who was let down by the horrible screenwriting.

This is what happens when you decide to do something like this. To the common 14 year old boy, "Freddy vs Jason" is an amazing badass action movie. But to individuals who know both series well and who were expecting a little bit of horror, the movie is a complete joke. "Freddy vs Jason" represents an exhibition of poor film management, direction, and execution. It also represents how radically different Krueger's character has become since the 1980's. The film may throw a lot of things at you and make a whole lot of noise, but the one thing it lacks is true integrity.