| Freddy vs. Jason Posted: Freddy Krueger. Jason Voorhees. Two characters in the American horror film canon that simply refuse to go away. Literally, since both are impervious to lasting physical injury. You can set these guys on fire, stab them, dissect them, blow them up, do just about anything you want to them and they keep coming back for more. How many films have both of them made at this point? Twenty? It feels like a hundred. The combined box office and home rental take of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" franchises must be close to a billion dollars by now, so when New Line Cinema acquired the rights to make future Jason films they knew they were on to something big. Finally, they thought, they could put together a film containing both Freddy and Jason. New Line spent years developing just the right script for the showdown every horror fan wanted to see. Hence "Freddy vs. Jason" cleaned up big time at the box office last year, making so much money that plans for a sequel should be a foregone conclusion. Until New Line figures out how to make lightening strike twice, content yourself with the DVD version of the film.
"Freddy vs. Jason" reintroduces us to good old Springwood, the home of the late but definitely unlamented Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Things have changed in the old neighborhood since Freddy went on his dreamscape rampages back in the 1980s and early 1990s. The adults in the area figured out an excellent way to get rid of the man with the frayed sweater and razorblade gloves forever, or so they hope. They simply removed every reference they could find in newspapers and magazines about Freddy Krueger. Go to the library to do some research on the man, as one of the characters does in the film, and you won't find a darn thing. Why go to all the trouble of a news blackout?... Easy. The kids can't dream about Freddy if they don't know he exists. And if they can't dream about him, they can't perish horribly. There are a few kids that know the ghastly secret, like Will Rollins (Jason Ritter), but the authorities have him and the others tucked away in a high security mental hospital under the influence of the powerful anti-dream drug Hypnocil. Before Rollins unceremoniously went to the hospital, he spent a lot of time with his gorgeous girlfriend Lori Campbell (Monica Keena) and her friend Kia Waterson (Kelly Rowland). Lori doesn't learn what happened to him until Freddy decides to come out of retirement.
Krueger, you see, despises the fact that the Elm Street kiddies don't know about him. In order to once again torment the descendants of his oppressors, he resurrects the dreaded Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) to stir things up in his old neighborhood. Jason does an excellent job of instilling the appropriate amount of doom and gloom in the kids, partly through his beastly appearance and partly through his penchant for imaginative killings. In one case, he folds a kid up in a bed. Hardly disturbing, right? Well, it is when the poor chap's heels are touching the back of his head! Voorhees's antics soon know no bounds. He shows up at a rave in a cornfield just in time to massacre scores of kids in particularly heinous ways. Jason kills so many people, and keeps on killing more, that it puts a serious crimp in Freddy's plans when he shows arrives on the scene. He wants all the children to himself, which means Jason has to go back to hell posthaste. Problem is, the masked maniac isn't going to do it without a little help. The result is the fight, a slam bang, take no prisoners tete a tete that is breathtaking to behold. Neo and Agent Smith can't compare to these two. Freddy and Jason squaring off translates into a lot of blood and a lot of broken bones. Any humans who happen to get in the way are hamburger.
"Freddy vs. Jason" is a massively entertaining film. It's not a traditional slasher film although there are slasher elements in it. It's not a character driven film, either, except for the two killing machines. The entire film exists solely as background for the final showdown. Sure, some of the effects up to this point, including the shadow Freddy and Kelly Rowland's nose flying off, garner a chuckle or two. But the fight scene stands center stage. The best part has to be when Freddy dumps dozens of long pieces of rebar down on an unsuspecting Jason, several pieces of which turn the hockey masked maniac into a giant shish kebob. Or maybe the best scenes include the battle at the lake where Freddy and Jason exchange blows resulting in huge gouts of black gore. Whichever part you like the most, the conclusion to the film won't disappoint. Given the emphasis on the fight, it's sort of disappointing we don't get to spend more time with the always beautiful Monica Keena. She's the sort of young lady I never tire of seeing in a film. I would tune in to watch her sit around in sweat pants and a grungy T-shirt eating breakfast. In "Freddy vs. Jason," though, she's one step above cannon fodder. Pity.
The amount of supplements included with the film stagger the imagination. A commentary track with director Ronny Yu, Robert Englund, and Ken Kirzinger heads the list. You've also got a "jump to a death" option, trailers, an intriguing documentary on the special effects, interviews about the difficulty in bringing the film to fruition, and a lengthy text article from Fangoria magazine about the myriad scripts penned by many writers over the years. I highly recommend this film for those viewers looking for a great way to whittle away a few hours. I'll be watching it again soon. |
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