Freddy vs Jason—The Most Ambitious Crossover of 2003
2003 was a strange year to say the least. It was the middle child in the family, if you get my drift. We got several amazing movies in the years before and after it. But movies in 2003 tried way too hard to be taken seriously while still not committing all the way. Which is why we have shit like this. And while I’ve lambasted Ben Affleck’s Daredevil to kingdom come, today, I want to focus on another movie that made a lot of the same mistakes. Welcome to the most ambitious crossover of 2003: Freddy vs Jason!
After the Springwood townsfolk effectively kills Freddy Krueger (played by Robert Englund) by forgetting him, he concocts a plan to return by using Jason Voorhees (played by Ken Kirzinger) to spread fear. Jason makes his way to Lori Campbell’s (played by Monica Keena) house on Elm Street and kills one of her friends. She begins having nightmares of Krueger as her other friends Kia and Gibb try to convince her that her dreams mean nothing. When her ex-boyfriend Will Rollins (played by Jason Ritter) escapes from a mental institution to warn her about Freddy, she slowly begins to understand that no one is safe, awake or asleep.
Before I start the review, I have a funny story I’d like to share. My dad bought it alongside other films such as Aladdin at this discount movie store. I was only 7 years old and in the hunt of some really scary movies. A friend of a friend found this in my dad’s movie stash and told me this movie was really scary. I wanted to watch it to see how scary it really was. Safe to say, I only lasted about three minutes. But that wasn’t the worst part, no. This movie sparked a fear of Freddy Krueger that would last for 7 years! Every time I caught even a small glimpse of Freddy, I’d be paralyzed by fear. It took a good bit of conditioning to finally overcome my fear. And now, I love horror movies!
As a fan of both the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises, Freddy vs Jason is an odd film to place in their respective timelines. The last time we saw Jason, he was in space as an uber-zombie and Freddy was aware that he was fictional. However, in Freddy’s monologue in the film’s beginning, he mentioned digging Jason from the depths of hell. Now this actually happened in the end of Friday the 13th Part 9: Jason Goes to Hell, where Jason’s hockey mask is dragged into hell by Freddy’s glove. So this means that Freddy vs Jason must take place after Jason Goes to Hell. But how does this fit in with Jason X and New Nightmare? I have no idea and honestly I should spend less time thinking about it because I’m getting a headache now.
Freddy vs Jason is easily the slasher version of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Why? Both star the biggest names in their respective franchises, have entertaining fight scenes and feature humans duller than the stale paint chipping off my walls. The only difference is that King of the Monsters has a consistent tone, and Freddy vs Jason borderlines on being un-ironically funny. What do I mean? Well, one of the most effective parts of the original Nightmare on Elm Street is how the film blurs nightmare and reality. But here, while some of the nightmares are genuinely unsettling, you can clearly tell they’re not real. Meanwhile, some other nightmares are hilarious, like when the stoner teen sees a “Kruger caterpillar” smoking a hookah. I’m sorry, is this supposed to be scary? I can’t believe I was actually terrified of this movie when I was a kid; it’s actually hilarious!
The only time the movie truly shines is when we actually see Freddy and Jason face off. We get to see Jason slam Freddy into walls and bash him through windows. Meanwhile, Freddy relies on his speed to outmaneuver Jason’s slower but more powerful attacks. He even tries kicking Jason in the groin, only to break his foot! Talk about having balls of steel. It’s so fun to watch you almost forget the first boring 2/3 of the movie. Almost. Because the rest of the movie is spent on stupid one dimensional teens who serve little more than a bunch of stock slasher tropes. And to no one’s surprise, most of them die.
Which brings me to our main characters, Lori and Will. Lori is easily the blandest final girl I’ve seen in a slasher flick. Her only character traits are that she’s the innocent virgin to juxtapose her with her boy and party obsessed friends Gibb and Kia. I literally can’t tell you anything else about her. But she’s not the worst, oh no. Will is no better, in fact, he’s just as vanilla as Lori. So I guess they’re perfect for each other. His only motivation in this movie is to tell Lori about Krueger and be there for her. I’m not lying when I say you could replace them with two sticks you found in your backyard and the movie still would’ve worked. Hell, it would’ve been better since I don’t have to waste my time with these two schmucks. As a Gravity Falls fan, it’s always a pleasure to see Jason Ritter in any project. Too bad he’s completely wasted here.
Remember how I said Freddy was forgotten by Springwood? Do you want to know how they forgot him? Simply by blurring his name out of all their public records and doctoring his victims’ fates. I’m sorry, but how does erasing his name make people forget him? Do men in black come and wipe the minds of those affected? Just imagine if they did that with real world atrocities. I’m sure that would work wonders! In fact, we find out that Will and his friend Mark were institutionalized because they remember Freddy. So now the town just locks up anyone who knows Krueger? I’m sure the no one will ask questions there!
To make matter worse, the CGI also looks like shit. Literally. Remember the Krueger caterpillar? That is only ONE of the most egregious examples. We see some of the most rubbery effects since this travesty of a movie that just take you out of any horrifying scene. The title sequence tries to be cool by trying to create this gory 3D explosion effect, but the 3D conversion is so bad it just ends up baffling you. We even get CGI blood in one scene! Did they run out of regular fake blood? Oh but speaking of fake blood, this movie really likes to feature fake blood spraying out of wounds like in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Did everyone just so happen to have red hoses in their bodies?
With all that being said, I think I’ll end it here. Is Freddy vs Jason the worst slasher crossover film? No, far from it. I think that honor belongs to Alien vs Predator: Requiem. However, with an indecisive tone, bad CGI and bland characters to drag out its runtime, it’s no surprise that the film suffered tremendously. Despite making a hefty $117 million on a $30 million budget, we never got a sequel. And you know what? Maybe this was for the best. We’ve seen Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees too often for them to really be scary. And this movie was the final nail in the coffin for both franchises until they were inevitably rebooted. And we all know how well that went. Should you go check this movie out? You could if you turned off your brain. Then again, you could also watch paint dry if you turn off your brain. The choice is yours.
