If you were one of the people who watched the entirety of Jason Goes to Hell, you’ll remember the fantastic final shot, which saw a hand with a claw glove grab Jason Voorhees’ mask into the depth of hell. Horror fans knew that the hand belonged to Freddy Krueger, antagonist of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Jason, the killer in Friday the 13th and all of its sequels, might have gone to Hell, but he was going to be met there by Freddy. A crossover was going to happen, and we were going to get a special movie.
That was back in 1993. It took a whole decade for that crossover film to happen, during which time each character only appeared in one other film. People had forgotten about Freddy, and Jason’s film a year earlier didn’t do so well at the box office. However, these two character had once been so profitable that they had yearly releases. It was time to bring them together, finally, so that’s what New Line Cinema has finally done with Freddy vs. Jason, a film which promises to have the monsters clash and fight to the death.
Freddy vs. Jason revolves around Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) deciding that he needs to come back, but can only do so when the people of the town of Springwood remember and fear him. In order for that to happen, he resurrects Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) to begin murdering people. The town will hopefully suspect Freddy was behind it, and he can then regain his strength and actually murder some people. What a devious plot that Freddy has come up with. But what happens if Jason decides to stop listening?
Well, then Freddy and Jason might have to fight, like the film’s title indicates they will. This only happens in the last 30 minutes of the picture, but it’s almost worth the wait. The brute-force killer, Jason, facing off against the smart, taunting trickster, Freddy? I’m down for that any day. The characters are representative of their respective franchises, too. The simple, slice-’em-with-a-knife film faces off against the intelligent, creative-kills one. How can you not like that?
I’ll tell you how you can not like it. The first hour or so involves the human characters running around trying to figure it all out. We know most of what’s going on, as Freddy directly addresses it to us and explains what’s going to happen in about two minutes. So, we have to watch these annoying human characters accomplish nothing we don’t already know, occasionally dying, all so that we can have our monster vs. monster fight at the end — which winds up, annoyingly, also involving the humans. The film is called Freddy vs. Jason, right?
It’s infuriating to have to sit here and listen to characters explain away a contrived plot that we’ve already had explained to us in a far more concise manner from a character we like a lot more. It doesn’t help that the acting is the worst in either franchise, and that the characters are so thinly written that you expect them to blow away at the slightest gust of wind. The film’s first 2/3 feel immeasurably long as we wait for the climactic battle of the titans.
The fight almost makes all of the film’s problems worth sitting through. Watching these two iconic characters do battle is an incredibly thrilling experience, especially if you’ve sat through almost twenty films featuring these two characters. There’s a lot invested in the battle, especially if you’re far more a fan of one franchise than the other — for example, I much prefer the Nightmare on Elm Street series and its killer, Freddy. Even though both characters are essentially unstoppable, immortal, and impervious to damage, the final 30 minutes are worth seeing.
I wonder if this film is going to reignite an argument that comic book fans always seem to have. The “who should win?” one. The one where “power levels” and strengths and weaknesses are discussed at length. Where a single frame of a film, or a single page of a comic book is used as an example as to why one character would defeat another, even if another scene refutes that evidence. These arguments always make me smile and laugh, especially because it’s often purely hypothetical. At least this film has the characters square off for Round 1. Anyone up for a sequel? I am.
Freddy vs. Jason is 30 minutes of a pretty excellent movie, and an hour of a redundant, unnecessary, and annoying one. Does the finale make all of that waiting around worth it? I’m going to say yes. Even with all of the terribly written and acted human characters running around explaining plot point we don’t care about or already know, the showdown between Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees is something I thoroughly enjoyed, and if you’ve been with both franchises this long, this is something you have to see.