Now that I’ve finally clawed my way out of the mainline Friday the 13th franchise and survived ten consecutive encounters with Jason (and Pamela) Voorhees, the time has finally come to experience New Line Cinema’s early attempt at experimenting with a cross-franchise shared universe film. While this is technically still part of my self-issued challenge to watch every Friday the 13th film, Freddy vs Jason is also technically a crossover with Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, a series that I also am interested in exploring in totality. Unfortunately, I don’t think this particular film serves as a good introduction to Freddy or Jason.
Even though it is described as a crossover between both franchises, I can’t help but feel like this movie is really an attempted reboot at A Nightmare on Elm Street with special guest Jason Voorhees. When it comes down to it, Jason is just a large, unkillable lunk with a machete that lacks the gimmicks, humor and character of Freddy Krueger, someone who can really hold a a paper-thin slasher movie together. Because of this it really feels like Jason is just intruding on a story that really focuses on Krueger as its centerpiece. All in all, I don’t think this was the wrong way to go about making this long-delayed project a reality as Freddy is definitely the more interesting character of the two.
In what could be taken as a metaphor for audience interest in the slasher franchises of the 80s, the film starts off with the collective unconscious’s memory of Freddy Krueger waning. Without him being a figure in the forefront of everyone’s fears, he lacks the ability to interact with (and murder) residents of the waking world. In order to continue his reign of terror, he enlists in the help of Mr. Voorhees to terrorize the teens of Elm Street and somehow inadvertently spread the good word about Freddy, reigniting the memory of him. What follows is a set of loosely-strung-together excuses for Freddy and Jason to rip apart the town as well as each other.
Hong Kong director Ronny Yu, who also directed the 1998 Childs Play sequel Bride of Chucky, brings a kind of slick and stylish gloss that feels right at home in the early-2000s alongside the film’s nu-metal soundtrack and outdated, buffoonish characters. The production design and look that Yu brought to the film is probably to blame for why the film is as watchable as it is despite the weak plot and characters. This is easily one of the better looking Friday the 13th-adjacent films and can probably be said for Freddy as well. The movie could easily be mistaken for a feature-length Korn music video and I honestly don’t know if I mean that as a compliment or not.
It feels weird to say it but I think Freddy vs Jason may be one of the more easily accessible films related to the Friday the 13th franchise. However, this comes at the expense of losing mostly all of the context of Jason and the preceding ten films. It has the fresh coat of paint of a mass-market horror movie but under the hood there’s not much going on aside from buckets of blood and dismembered limbs. For a film decades in the making it really feels like corners were cut and concessions were made in order to produce this before interest in either franchise was dead forever. Unfortunately, knowing how the subsequent remakes performed, this was the last nail sealing both coffins.
5
Current Ranking of Friday the 13th films:
1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
2. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
3. Jason X
4. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
5. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
6. Freddy vs Jason
7. Friday the 13th Part III
8. Friday the 13th Part 2
9. Friday the 13th (1980)
10. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
11. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan