Freddy vs Jason
And so finally New Line Cinema succeeded in coming out with this historic cinematic showdown in 2003. It was about time, really. New Line had purchased the rights to the Jason character (for the specific purpose of making THIS movie) 10 years earlier before spending all of that time constantly developing a theoretic story while also shitting out perhaps the two worst Jason sequels ever in Jason Goes To Hell and Jason X. Why all that time was allowed to fly by is anyone’s guess as it seems that maybe finding a way for these two icons not only to meet up AND to fight each other as well was just too tough of a challenge for the so called creative minds to come up with, but among the other ideas thrown about included having a Freddy worshipping cult who resurrect Krueger before a rival cult worshipping Jason does the same, the reintroduction of old rivals like Tommy Jarvis and Alice Johnson to ensure that at least someone is intimately familiar with each combatant, and even an old fashioned Battle Royale to decide Hell’s Champion with possibly even Doug Bradley’s Pinhead (from Hellraiser) getting into the mix. Robert Englund, loyal to a fault during all of this development period, signed right up when the script was ready, marking his last onscreen appearance as Krueger, although he would continue playing Freddy in full makeup and costume during conventions and personal appearances all the way up through his “retirement” from doing so in 2014 (and well past the time of the ill advised remake with Jackie Earl Haley). Kane Hodder reprising his role as Jason was another issue though. Hodder had gained a reputation for having creative differences with various directors on sets over how to interpret the character (“Jason doesn’t do this….He don’t do that.”) plus when the line of communication was opened, he made the mistake of overestimating his worth and asked for a salary comparable to what Englund was getting (albeit forgetting that only Englund could really play Freddy while he was the 7th actor to have played Jason). New Line quickly broke off negotiations with Hodder before turning around and hiring Ken Kirzinger (a fellow stuntman who had worked with Hodder in the past and was actually even bigger than he was) to play the part and the performance just goes to show why Hodder should have kept his mouth shut and happily accepted any terms and conditions since Jason Voorhees is not exactly the hardest character for any big guy to pull off and that Hodder’s attachment to the role was more of a sentimental thing on the fans’ part than through any definitive kind of acting chops. And then for director, they signed up Hong Kong cinema veteran Ronny Yu who was coming off the ridiculously stupid Bride Of Chucky (but whom at least had the foresight to realize that any fourth film in the cinematic saga of a talking killer dolly just HAD to be stupid by nature). Yu even admitted when signing on having not been familiar with either franchise and reportedly gave himself a viewing crash course to get acquainted with such. Of course the most important question to be asked is quite simply when it comes to TONE, and did they get that right? The answer surprisingly is yes, as long as the viewer is able to accept as fact (as Yu seemed to) that any character here not named either Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees is really nothing more than completely useless cannon fodder, so much so that we can barely register nor even care which of the human characters are even alive at the end. The film begins with a long monologue by Englund as Krueger (where we even see some intriguing footage of Englund out of makeup stalking a younger victim) bragging about his reign of terror until the day came that the town fathers of Springwood found a way to successfully stop him by “erasing” his name and history from the record books and for all intensive purposes carrying on like he never even existed and more importantly, keeping his name and reputation out of the mouths of the young people in the town, and amazingly, it has worked(!), even as a few loose ends who still remember The Krueger Legend are kept locked up (quarantined) at the local mental hospital, with The Town Sheriff and a local doctor appearing to be the two chief architects of this whole operation. There is little more for Freddy to do than to scurry around Hell, but one thing that he CAN do is to revive Jason (still laid out after taking a shot with a “magic dagger” in Jason Goes To Hell), appearing in his mind to him as his dearly departed mother (a role sadly turned down by original actress Betsy Palmer who would have brought so much more dramatic weight to the proceedings) sending him onward and upward to Elm Street to start killing again and force the townspeople who “dare not speak his name” to start talking all about Freddy again. He even has Jason start his killing spree at Nancy’s old house! And on and on Jason goes, still as close to being that of a pure minded killing machine as any ever seen, but therein lies the problem: Just as Freddy is getting himself back to full strength again, he’s finding that he’s not going to have any VICTIMS left at the rancorous pace that Jason is tearing through “his children” slaughtering them like he literally is trying to win some kind of a contest. Freddy decides that since he brought Jason back to do this kind of dirty work, now he’ll just have to put him down like a bad, rabid dog as well, starting by getting into his head and finding out what hurts Jason the most (a specialty of Krueger’s) and then exploiting the weakness to dominate the action until Jason can take it out into the real world keeping the fight lively, well paced, and entertaining all the way up until the finish (and yes, we do get a winner). The rest of the main cast includes Monica Keena as the virginal (we think) female lead, obviously intended to draw comparisons to Nancy Thompson in more ways than one (despite the ugly tramp stamp tattoo on her back that we clearly see towards the end), Jason Ritter (son of John) as the old flame / first love recently escaped from the looney bin where he was locked up for knowing too much, but any attempt at having an edgy hero here is derailed by Ritter constantly smiling all the time (including when he is telling Keena that he saw her mother get murdered) and a seemingly Xanax induced performance by Ritter himself, Kelly Rowland as the token black female friend whose casting here was just to interest the fans of her musical group, Destiny’s Child, Chris Marquette as the requisite virgin male who is somehow afforded a “noble death”, Brendan Fletcher as the wild eyed fellow escapee whom it would seem actually does have a legitimate past with Krueger, Katharine Isabelle as the constantly drinking, chain smoking Gibb, a character with such a glib, unappealing attitude that she might be the single most unlikable character in either The Elm Street or Friday Series, Lochyn Munro as the typical Deputy Dewey short mind of the law, and Kyle Labine as your run of the mill stoner dude of the bunch. None of them really leave any kind of an impression and they’re really not supposed to. Long gone are the terrifying implications of falling asleep that Wes Craven put forth in his original as well as the creepy atmosphere and unsettling violence which we saw in Sean Cunningham’s premiere entry with 1980’s Friday The 13th. This is just a matter of two pop culture icons finally meeting up and battling it out that was years and years in the making (the initial attempts to get it off the ground actually started in the late 80s) and even for years after its release the rumor mill ran hot that the one and only Bruce Campbell was going to get into the mix for a Freddy vs Jason vs Ash or that at the very least a Part 2 to this saga just to get Englund into the makeup one more time. Either way, it still holds its entertainment value, playing first and foremost as being a tribute / revival of the old Elm Street formula (with Englund’s participation) and then developing into one of those oldschool Universal monster mashups (like Frankenstein vs The Wolf Man) where we actually could get to pick and cheer on our favorite and not get gypped out of having a winner either…
9/10