After doing retrospectives on Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, it hit me that I was unintentionally covering the New Line Cinema era of the Friday the 13th franchise. When that hit me, I realized what that meant and where all roads lead to - Freddy Vs. Jason.
Freddy vs. Jason was an epic concept. I mean we hadn't really had anything like that yet. It was something that took forever to get made. There were numerous and I mean numerous different scripts that were written. But there was always something wrong with them. Whether it was too meta, too different or didn't show respect to what these two Titans of horror were.
Somehow, New Line Cinema had finally found something that worked. It was directed by Ronny Yu and written by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon. This version of the film was able to balance between feeling like an Elm Street movie and a Friday the 13th film. Some people will probably say that it fails in both regards. However, I think it does a decent job of it.
I remember how big of a deal this film was. It was a huge event for New Line Cinema. The trailers and tv spots were everywhere (I remember seeing one on ESPN). Hell, they have a weigh in event for it. (If you haven't seen it, you can see it on YouTube I'm sure.)
It was August in 2003 when the film was released. I remember it was during a time where there were blackouts happening because of the heat. My Dad and I drove to a town over to go see it. We arrived at the theater to find that the power had just turned on as we got there.
Sitting in the theater, the lights dimmed and the previews began. I honestly couldn't tell you what they were. Then the film began....hearing the Elm Street theme turn into the Ki-Ki-Ki Ma-Ma. It put a smile on my face. This was the first time I was able to see either an Elm Street or Friday film in the theater.
Seeing the recap of the previous Elm Street movies and Freddy's origin. It is so good. To this day, this part of the film brings a huge smile to my face. A large part of that has to be Robert Englund's performance.
I understand that there are a lot of people don't like Jason in this film. The main reason being that New Line didn't bring Kane Hodder back. I get and understand that argument. However, Ken Kirzinger does deliver a solid performance. He brings a different approach to Jason. Some have said very Frankenstein approach. And that's okay. I mean Kane wasn't the only actor to play Jason before. I realize that my thoughts on this may upset some. But it's been 18 years now as of this writing.
Then we have the teenagers - Lori (Monica Keena), Kia (Kelly Rowland), Gibb (Katherine Isabelle), Will (Jason Ritter), Mark (Brendan Fletcher), Linderman (Chris Marquette) and Freeburg (Kyle Labine). There's also Trey (Jesse Hutch) and Blake (David Kopp) but they aren't around long. They do a decent job with Trey as a complete douchebag and Blake as a semi-douche. The main group of teenagers all do a solid job with the material. They understand completely what film they are in and it's definitely not Henry V. It actually feels like a nice blending of Elm Street and F13th casts. Yeah, there's a loose string of motivation for Lori to be against Freddy. It's not one of the film's finer points.
The manipulation that Freddy uses with Jason. I think it's pretty great. It's interesting that Jason would live out a Friday the 13th film in like four minutes. It's actually a cool way of bringing Jason into the story. Then appearing as Mrs. Voorhees to get Jason fired up. This was something I applaud. It makes the most sense that is what would make Jason come back. Plus the actress that plays Mrs. Voorhees delivers a great performance.
I also enjoyed the Jason dream sequences. The only point I'd dock is the pinball gag. That's definitely into camp territory and felt like one step too far. Other than that, it's interesting getting to see what's going on with Jason. Even if it results in images of Jason forever taking care of everyone that comes to Camp Crystal Lake. Now that I think about it, it's Jason's purgatory. Towards the end of the film, we see a dream flashback to Jason's time at Crystal Lake to his drowning. Again, this felt like a natural extension on what could have happened. Well except for Counselor Krueger spending quality time with another counselor.
Another aspect I really like was the idea that to think about Freddy is to spread the fear. That honestly was pulling from the end of the original Elm Street. Because that's how Nancy defeats Freddy by taking away that fear. It's all the small details and references to the other films that are nice to see. They show a respect to the source material. Well, in this case, I would say a respect to the first Elm Street and the first two Friday the 13ths.
Robert Englund delivers another great Freddy performance. He knows what works and what doesn't by now. The makeup design in this film is one of my absolute favorite looks. It's perfect in my opinion. And I even enjoy the Dream Demon that we see when Freddy gets really pissed off.
The film is good. It may not be the greatest. But I feel like it's the best we could have gotten at the time. Do I think we could get a better one at some point? One could hope. But this film is a nice comfort horror movie. It's fun. It doesn't overstay it's welcome. It knows exactly what it wants to be. And it doesn't apologize for it. I recommend it.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
And if you do end up getting it on blu ray, listen to the commentary with Englund, Kirzinger and Yu. They have a blast talking about the film.
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