Halloween Marathon: Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The first double review of a movie is happening for this Halloween marathon.  My initial idea for this next installment of Nightmare on Elm Street with its crossover with the Friday the 13th series was to do a reblog but you know what, I can’t.  For one simple reason, when I watched it the first time, I knew the Friday the 13th series and Jason Voorhees was the point of reference while I was completely in the dark with Freddy and the Nightmare series. Now, watching this again, I’m looking at it from the Nightmare on Elm Street point of view and its incredibly different.

I’ll have a link to last year’s post at the end of the review 🙂

Let’s check it out!

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Director: Ronny Yu

Cast: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, Brendan Fletcher, Katharine Isabelle, Lochlyn Munro

Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenage population. Except this time, they’re out to get each other, too.-IMDB

The second viewing of Freddy vs. Jason turned out to be a super hard one to complete.  We took about 3 viewings before we managed to get through the whole thing. Does that mean that its a bad one? I think it might. Last year, when I saw it, it didn’t have such a huge thing, mostly because I watched it for the fact of its addition to the Jason/Friday the 13th franchise.  Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs Jason was kind of an accessory to murder.  He was the puppet to kickstart Freddy’s plan that just went off course because we all know, Jason really doesn’t have much on his mind but the blind desire to kill. With that said, his role was taken on very well.  He even played a key role in blocking off Freddy and causing Freddy’s initial plan to not work out and initiating their versus battles.

With that said, Freddy in this one is an absolute goofy character. In a way, I started getting rather angry with this one after understanding Freddy’s character. Freddy wasn’t enjoyable to watch.  If you enjoy the fact that Freddy has gone down the goofy slasher road, then I’m sure you might enjoy this one rather a lot.  But for me, I didn’t and it actually angered me quite a bit.  It felt like they were mocking these two characters to no end.  I’m a fan of Jason Voorhees and I truly believe the Fred Krueger has the essence in his character to be absolutely bone-chilling scary, you know, the things that haunt us in our nightmares literally. But somehow, except for the first one and New Nightmare, we haven’t hit that territory.  I like the Nightmare series because of how it does try to keep a good storyline and Freddy has the reason to be angry and revenge and yet, Freddy vs. Jason was pointless.  I couldn’t place where it was supposed to be in the franchise timeline.  All these things frustrated me.

I guess in the end, Freddy vs. Jason was a disappointment.  It seems whenever you clash two franchises, nothing really good comes out of it except the looks of wanting to grab some quick box office dollars off of the fans of both or either franchises. But, I never do reviews without having a positive. If you do want to enjoy this, the battles between Freddy and Jason are a total joy to watch.  Compared to the script and the dialogue and the portrayal of the characters, put aside the goof, they kind of hit a kind of fun and smart territory.  One of those rare moments when they unite that kind of works.

 Overall, Freddy vs Jason is a nonsensical addition to the series. Freddy is the most campy and goofy he has ever been.  He’s doesn’t instill fear at all.  After knowing both Jason Voorhees and Freddy, while this is more of a Freddy series addition, Jason has a better role here mostly because he matches the “throwing everything together and see if it works out” sort of strategy. We get a bit of Elm Street and we get a bit of Crystal Lake.  We have some stupid teens that do things that make no sense and we have some stupid kills and some pretty decent ones, but what stands out is the battles between Jason and Freddy.

You can see my review of it last year HERE!

Have you seen Freddy vs. Jason? What do you think? What did you like/dislike?