Freddy vs. Jason

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Freddy vs. Jason
Two iconic but falling film franchises combine in one disappointing crossover.
Genre: Action Horror Slasher Thriller Crossover Directed By: Ronny Yu Produced By: Sean S. Cunningham Written By/Screenplay: Damian Shannon Mark Swift Starring: Monica Keena Kelly Rowland Jason Ritter Chris Marquette Lochlyn Munro Robert Englund Cinematography: Fred Murphy Editing: Mark Stevens Music By: Graeme Revell Production Company: New Line Cinema Crystal Lake Entertainment Distributed By: New Line Cinema Release Date: August 15, 2003 Runtime: 98 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $30 million Box Office: $116.6 million Franchise: Friday the 13th A Nightmare on Elm Street Prequel: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Friday the 13th) Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (A Nightmare on Elm Street) Sequel: Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash (Comic)

Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. The film takes place after the events of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and a crossover between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Friday the 13th series. It is the last film in each series before their respective reboots, being the eighth in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and the eleventh in the Friday the 13th franchise. The film was released in the United States on August 15, 2003. The film spawned a comic book sequel Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash.

Plot

Two horror icons face off in this supernatural movie. Disfigured dream killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), who is now became a ghost, has lost much of his power since citizens of his town have become less afraid of him. Enlisting the help of fellow violent murderer Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger), Freddy orchestrates a new killing spree. However, when the hockey-mask-wearing psychopath won't stop chopping up Freddy's intended victims, the two ghouls start to battle each other.

Nightmare Qualities

1. Misleading Title: Despite its very best title, the title is somewhat misleading, as there was no fight between Freddy and Jason until in an hour into the movie, and it wasn't seen again for a full length time until the very final act of the film, and the film's plot mostly consists of Freddy taunting the main characters.
2. The woman who plays Pamela Voorhees (Paula Shaw) looks nothing like the Pamela in the original Friday the 13th film (Betsy Palmer).
   • The Pamela in this film is elderly, has shoulder-length white hair, a red sweater, and very wrinkly while the one in the original has short brown hair, a light-blue sweater, and is middle-aged.
   • It is because Betsy Palmer refused to reprise the role due to being offered a low salary.
3. Also, Jason is shown drowning while fully-clothed in the movie, when in the original movie, he's shown to be drowning whilst wearing nothing but his swimming trunks.
4. Many of the characters are extremely clichéd and movie stereotypes, especially the teenage characters.
5. Some of the acting is mediocre, like when Blake gets "stabbed" by Freddy's shadow and he runs off unscathed saying "I'm okay, I'm alright." with a poor, almost nonchalant delivery.
6. A few major plot-holes that can be quite noticeable, such as how Springwood and Camp Crystal Lake are really close to each other when Springwood is in Ohio and Crystal Lake is in New Jersey (An unfilmed deleted scene was gonna address this by revealing the main characters have been driving for hours to reach Camp Crystal Lake.).
   • Also, according to this movie, Jason has deep fear of water, even though he had no trouble with being in water in the previous movies.
7. One of the characters, Trey, is a very unlikable and one-dimensional character who gets killed off early, making him feel completely pointless.
8. There's a few unfunny lines here and there, especially "GOT YOUR NOSE!".
9. A few continuity errors here and there, especially for the Friday the 13th franchise side of the story such as:
   • Jason is seen wearing different clothing such as, a jacket and a sweatshirt and gloves, while he had a ripped up blue shirt in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
   • Jason's hockey mask appears to be undamaged for some reason, despite his hockey mask from Jason Goes to Hell had damages like the axe mark from part III and the bullet hole and eye rip.
10. Development Hell: In 1987, when Paramount wanted to make a movie about Freddy and Jason and had different ideas such as Freddy molesting Jason Voorhees as a kid, but New Line Cinema rejected it and replaced Freddy with a Carrie White clone named Tina Shepard also when New Line bought the franchise there was ideas like a Freddy Krueger cult and Freddy and Jason fighting in a boxing match with real life serial killers as the audience and Ted Bundy as the ring announcer and mentions of the Voorhees house from Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday and Tommy Jarvis, those scrapped ideas were better than the final product.

Good Qualities

1. Some of the acting is good, like Robert Englund reprising his role as Freddy Krueger and Ken Kirzinger's performance as Jason Voorhees.
2. The two serial killers are interesting and likable and even still awesome villains.
   • Freddy Krueger is the purely evil dream demon who enjoys spreading fear and watching people suffer.
   • Jason Voorhees is the tragic anti-hero who became the way he is due to all the trauma he experienced as a child.
3. Some funny moments here and there, including Freddy fighting Jason like a pinball.
4. The death scenes are very memorable, like the scene where Jason kills a bunch of teenagers at a rave and Trey’s death, where he gets stabbed and squashed between a folding mattress.
5. Best special effects for the 2003 standards, as well as the very immersive CGI-effects.
6. The 2 actual climatic battles between Freddy and Jason are fantastic.
7. The final shot where Jason emerges from the lake, carrying Freddy's still-living decapitated head is awesome, which will led the events to the 2007 comic Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash.
8. The idea of making a crossover of two iconic horror movie killers doing brutal battles, is actually pretty original.
   • This idea is definitely something fans would love.
9. Great soundtrack, consisting of metal bands like, Slipknot, Stone Sour, Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed, Mushroomhead, Powerman 5000, Seether, Sevendust, Lamb of God, Type O Negative, Sepultura (ft. Mike Patton), Chimaira, and Murderdolls.
10. The plot is well-written, despite its idiotic flaws.
11. The line, "Welcome to my world, b*tch!", is pure gold.
12. Lots of good dialogue such as:
    • "SHE'S MINE! MINE! MINE!!!!".
    • "NOT MY ARM! AAGGGHHHHHHHH".
13. The end credits looks cool.
14. The soundtrack is pretty good.
15. At least it writes off Wes craven's New Nightmare and Jason X as Non-Canon.

Reception

Freddy vs. Jason received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 41% based on 162 reviews and an average rating of 4.98/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Fans of the two horror franchises will enjoy this showdown. But for everyone else, it's the same old slice and dice.". On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of B+ on an A+-to-F scale.

Trivia

• It spawned two comic book sequels Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash and Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.
• The film was meant to depict that Jason was drowned to the water by some of the camp children, but in the Friday The 13th: Pamela's Tale prequel comic, it was retconned that he was drowned because he tried to jump on one of the camp counselors' backs and was forced to run away.

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