Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
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Director: Cast: Country: Year: 2003 Score: MPAA Rating: |
I was originally going to write this review on a Tuesday night, exactly one day after I went to a screening of it with four other people. But I knew I would see it again on Friday because my girlfriend Emily wanted to see it with me. She was actually a little upset that I went to see it without her, mostly because I have been talking about it all summer, calling it “the best movie ever.” Of course I was being facetious, but a part of me-the uber-horror nerd in me-was hoping that I could actually be right about that.
After the Monday screening, I will admit I was kind of left with a sense of disappointment. Maybe it was all the nay-saying that was going on around me (the majority opinion in my party was that it sucked), but I felt let-down. I felt like a kid who wanted a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas but instead got socks. It just really wasn’t what I expected. It seemed like a mean, spiteful trick, played on us by mean, spiteful filmmakers. Horrible script, horrible acting, horrible direction…but then something happened.
On the ride back to Rod’s, I came to this realization: this is a ***censored*** Freddy/Jason movie. This isn’t Shakespeare. This isn’t Citizen Kane. This is a movie about a dream-stalking, bad-pun spewing, child-molesting demon with knives on his right hand fighting an undead machete-wielding retarded mama’s boy in a goalie mask. It’s not supposed to be good. It’s not supposed to be high art. It’s supposed to be Freddy vs. Jason.
And then I felt good.
So after seeing F vs. J two more times (once with the aforementioned Emily and then last night with another friend), I can roundly say I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Yes the set-up is stupid, but how else are you going to get them together? Box social? No, you need a plot contrivance and here, it works.
My only actual complaint about it is that it takes thirty minutes to really get started-movies like this should be rearing to go. Anytime the story leave Freddy or Jason and focuses on the teens, it becomes tedious-just ***censored*** kill them already.
Yes the dialogue is horrible and the acting even more so, but hell, it’s such a fun ride you don’t care. The humor that started with Jason X is here (albeit mostly of the stoner variety, which reminds me: there’s a guy in here who does a constant impersonation of Jason Mewes through out the whole thing, right down to costumes and vernacular; why not just hire Jay-it’s not like he’s that expensive, and with this crowd, he’d probably actually be a big draw).
The film is loaded with plenty o’tits and the gore is plentiful. When Jason and Freddy do meet (at Camp Crystal Lake, which is luckily being renovated with steel poles and fresh propane tanks), the film reaches an apex that most other summer offering wished (Matrix, I’m looking in you’re direction!). The ending (a cheap shot if I ever saw one) leaves plenty of room for a sequel, which, knowing me, I’ll call the “best movie ever” when I see the trailer.
Louis Fowler is a frequent contributor to Cinema Eye and Hitch Magazine. He is also the publisher of Damaged Magazine, a new issue of which is coming soon.
Review by: Louis Fowler
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Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
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Director: Cast: Country: Year: 2003 Score: MPAA Rating: |
Following the teasing final shot of Jason Goes to Hell, there are some people out there who have waited 10 years for Freddy vs. Jason. The result isn’t worth waiting 10 minutes.
In the lamest and laziest setup yet in either of the franchises, Freddy Kruger can no longer engage in killing the Elm Street kids in their dreams because they no longer know about him, and thus, cannot fear him. To solve this nagging condundrum, Freddy somehow brings Jason back to life to start a bloody carnage, so that local authorities and residents will believe Freddy to be responsible, therefore effectively bringing Freddy back, too. But much to Freddy’s chagrin, he still can’t kill kids because Jason keeps beating him to the punch, further angering the knife-clawed child molester.
There are three good scenes in Freddy vs. Jason:
1. An early kill where a post-coital teenage boy gets folded in half thanks to Jason and a Craftmatic adjustable bed.
2. When the requisite fat guy says, “This Everclear is kicking my ***censored***!,” just before his friend gets his noggin turned 180 degrees by Jason.
3. When the titular promise of the two movie monsters meeting and mauling
finally comes to fruition.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film is like another ridiculous Elm Street sequel, with unintentional humor, Freddy’s corny quips, preposterous acting and exactly zero scares. (The Friday the 13th series had all these in spades, too, minus the quips, but I still think Jason X works wonderfully as a parody.) Monica Keena makes for an appealing heroine, but most of that is due to her push-up bra. As her pal, Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland shouldn’t have to worry about carving out a big-screen career like bandmate Beyoncé. Robert Englund plays Freddy like an old hat, which certainly it must be. Director Ronny Yu – credited for breathing life into the Child’s Play series with Bride of Chucky (although I disagree) – does nothing to shake life into this one, with his sense of style seemingly confined to overhead shots of girls’ cleavage. The final act is as by-the-numbers as the rest of the film (or its many, many predecessors); thank God the long-abandoned Camp Crystal Lake still had those huge active propane tanks around. And the ending is an absolute cop-out, sitting smugly atop an insult.
-- Review by Rod Lott
Review by: Rod Lott
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Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
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Director: Cast: Country: Year: 2003 Score: MPAA Rating: |
In their prime, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger were creatures to be feared. However, a lot has changed since the initial installments of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street unspooled on theater screens across the United States. Back then, there was still something shocking about seeing skulls split apart by cleavers. Topless chicks impaled by spears was still titillating. Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger were the bad guys.
A lot has changed.
After a few years on the sidelines, Jason and Freddy have re-emerged and for the first time, their worlds collide in a crossover film called Freddy Vs. Jason. The title may bring back memories of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, but in reality the film is more akin to Batman and Superman teaming up for an adventure.
Only it’s all in reverse.
The convoluted story involves Freddy somehow using Jason from beyond the grave. It seems the citizens of Elm Street have been doping up their kids to make them forget all about Freddy Krueger. Since Freddy feeds on fear, he is somewhat impotent. So Freddy tricks Jason into paying a visit to Elm Street to terrorize and murder stupid teenagers. This is all working out cool, until Jason proves to be too good at his job. He is so efficient at killing the kids that Freddy can’t get his claws on any of them. This sets up the Freddy Vs. Jason part of the movie.
You won’t be surprised to learn that the supporting cast is bad. Monica Keenan (Lori) and Jason Ritter (Will) who portray the two “leads” are so annoying that their survival seems downright unjust. But i guess you have to give them a little credit because there isn’t much high quality dialogue here to work with.
The plot is bad, too and requires a suspension of disbelief that seems to be asking too much even for the audience of this sort of movie. The fact that there is a conspiracy to cover up the existence of Freddy Krueger seems even more far-fetched than the existence of a dream-killing pedophile in the first place. In this same vein, sequences set in a mental hospital filled with a cast of WB rejects seem laughable.
The movies human characters figure out the highly illogical scenario way too easily. This is so blatant that it is actually humorous (although I’m not sure if this is intentional or not). The upside all of this is that it allows the movie to quickly get the characters to another scene where they can be slaughtered.
This movie may have many weaknesses, but when it comes down to its “real” protagonists, Freddy Vs. Jason gets it right. This is one of the best Jason’s ever. He is a killing machine on a mission and nothing is going to distract him from that. This film restores him to the simple-minded but ruthless butcher he was in the beginning. Freddy has also returned to his roots as a sick and sadistic pedophile. He is truly creepy and threatening in a way he hasn’t been since the very first Nightmare on Elm Street.
In some ways, Freddy Vs. Jason also returns to the roots of the splatter film. The blood really splatters in a way that should prove quite nostalgic to fans of this type of movie. There is also gratuitous nudity, an important element of splatter flicks that is all too lacking in modern b-movies. There is also lots of underage drinking, screwing and pot-smoking.
When Freddy Vs. Jason focuses on Freddy and Jason it is actually pretty good. Director Ronny Yu keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. He actually seems to lose patience when he has to focus on the boring human characters for too long. And he seems to really love splattering the screen with gore. There are moments when Freddy Vs. Jason doesn’t feel like the mainstream studio film that it is.
There are also moments when Freddy Vs. Jason borders on being truly great. The inevitable clash of the two super-monsters is great fun. It’s also nice to see Jason hacking apart ravers after being doused with Everclear and set ablaze. Freddy is meaner than ever and manages some nice dream tricks like turning into a worm and firing up a hookah and performing some impromptu plastic surgery.
If you are going into this movie expecting to be scared, you have missed the whole point. Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger are not the villains anymore. They are anti-super-heroes. Their fans go to see their movies because they love to see them terrorize, brutalize and slaughter the idiotically annoying teenagers that populate their respective universes.
If you’ve grown up with Freddy and Jason and you’re looking for a good bit of mindless fun at the movies, you’d be hard pressed to find a better movie to see at the moment. Freddy and Jason have slogged through a lot of movies far worse than this one. It just seems a shame that their screenwriters can’t come up with human characters to serve as better foils for these icons of horror.
Review by: Cinema Eye
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