Last Monster Standing: Freddy Vs. Jason
Written: Aug 18 '03 (Updated Aug 18 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Hm...it's almost interesting in spite of itself.
Cons: Where is Kane Hodder?!?!
The Bottom Line: Hey, it's better than Gigli...
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| Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Freddy vs Jason |
Ever since the final shot of Adam Marcus’ 1993 film Jason Goes to Hell (wherein Freddy Krueger’s infamous glove of knives pulls the remnants of Jason’s hockey mask down into the ground) fans have been waiting for Freddy Vs. Jason. The film spent a decade in ‘development hell’ as scripts were written and tossed aside with a frightening amount of regularity and directors were attached to the project (FX guru Rob Bottin was in the running at one point) and then dumped—sometimes publicly, sometimes not. After ten long years, the film that some of us (yours truly included) thought would never see the light of a movie projector’s xenon bulb has finally hit the big screen—and as I walked out of the theater while the credits rolled, I found myself thinking ‘we waited so long for this’?
Granted, Freddy Vs. Jason is not a terrible film. In the realm of mainstream American slasher cinema, it’s actually better than one would expect. These films have a certain set of expectations to fulfill (women will get naked, people will die horribly, the virginal girl will live at the end, and Freddy will crack one-liners) and this film covers them all. So, in this regard, it’s a success. Critics railing against the film as though it marks the end of modern cinema as an artform aren’t the target audience anyway (and really, is Freddy Vs. Jason more dangerous than the insipid Uptown Girls or better yet, Gigli? I somehow doubt it). Freddy Vs. Jason is just an easy target.
It’s easy to complain about this film for simply catering to what an audience wants. I’ve long been a vocal opponent of horror film sequels because they take money away from the production of new films with new characters in order to recycle something that was never meant to be a series to begin with. However, after watching the previews prior to Freddy Vs. Jason (which included a trailer for that abominable remake of Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre--I hope you rot in hell, Michael Bay), sequels aren’t the enemy anymore—remakes are. If you don’t believe me, the crack in the dam that Gus Van Sant created with Psycho is about to turn into a full-fledged floodgate with the upcoming releases of TCM, the Dawn of the Dead remake, and an ill-conceived re-telling of Dario Argento’s Suspiria. In other words, Michael Bay’s gonna have some company. In this regard, Freddy Vs. Jason looks almost innocuous.
But enough ranting about that—that’s a full-length article for another day.
One of the main hurdles in the production of Freddy Vs. Jason was finding a script that actually brought these two titans of terror together in a way that wasn’t complete nonsense. Fortunately, they’ve essentially succeeded.
Springwood has finally found a way to defeat Freddy—by pretending he never existed. All mentions of the Springwood murders, Freddy, or anything that might invoke his memory has been excised from the records. Granted, in this day and age of the internet and media fascination with mass murderers it seems a little unlikely that no one would ever see a Freddy website or a Court TV documentary, but I’ll cut them some slack. Any of the teenagers who might have had Freddy dreams have been carted off to a mental institution where they receive Hypnocil, a dream-suppressing drug. It seems a small price to pay to keep the rest of the populace safe.
Obviously, none of this sits well with everyone’s favorite bastard son of a hundred maniacs. Freddy has no power without fear, after all. So, to get everyone thinking about him again, he concocts the brilliant idea of inspiring Jason to come to Elm Street and start killing. Naturally, everyone in Springwood will think that Freddy’s back, creating a panic that restores the madman to his former glory. There’s only one catch—once Jason starts killing, he doesn’t want to stop. This sets off the last monster standing third act of the film, which is more entertaining than one would probably imagine (given that there’s not a whole lot of inherent suspense in watching two creatures fight to the death who seem incapable of actually dying).
As the past two paragraphs demonstrate, this is a high-concept piece. The human characters (including Monica Keena and Kelly Rowland) aren’t even remotely important to the plot. The teen murder fodder has never been particularly vital to these films (which have always served as cautionary tales about the dangers of being ‘bad’) but Freddy Vs. Jason takes this to a whole new level. Calling these kids human Spam seems to be giving them more importance than they really deserve.
And truthfully, that’s a good thing. No one cares about the protagonists of these films—and fans haven’t cared about them for years (if ever). In a world where fans can endlessly discuss the nuances of each Michael Myers mask in a Halloween film, many couldn’t be bothered to remember the main cast of characters who weren’t carrying sharp-bladed implements of death. Good or bad, fans identify more with these slashers than the normal people—so giving them a film where they can watch two monsters go at it seems to be catering to what the audience wants.
What’s disappointing about the film is a number of things. Some of these things are minor, some aren’t.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of all is that Ronny Yu was stuck directing this film. Most fans will probably remember Yu as the filmmaker responsible for Bride of Chucky. However, the more astute cinephile will realize that he was also the Hong Kong director who gave us the captivating Bride With the White Hair films. Yu does a decent job with the material, but it’s still sad to see him fall prey to the ‘Hong Kong director in Hollywood’ syndrome that has him directing films that aren’t worthy of his immense talents (the same thing happened to both Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam—although both of them got it even worse since they had to work with Jean Claude Van Damme). Yu brings a lot of visual style to the film (far more than one would expect to see, quite honestly), but he really should be making bigger films than this one.
The other big disappointment is one that will only affect the hardcore Friday fans. Kane Hodder doesn’t play Jason this time out (a role he’d made his own since the seventh installment of the series) and is instead replaced by Ken Kirzinger. Don’t get me wrong—playing Jason isn’t exactly a role that requires a master thespian. However, the fans have come to identify with Hodder in the role, and his absence is noticeable in the film. Kirzinger doesn’t seem quite as big or imposing as Hodder, which lessens Jason’s impact a bit.
These negatives are outweighed by a number of positives—including Robert Englund’s portrayal of Freddy, a surprising amount of nudity (nudity was the one slasher staple that seemed to disappear after the '80s) and a lot of gore. Englund is back to being the wisecracking anti-hero after his darker turn in Craven’s New Nightmare, and while I prefer Freddy as a more serious character, I think I’m in the minority.
At any rate, Freddy Vs. Jason isn’t as bad as the mainstream film press would have you believe it is. This ain’t high art, but who goes into a slasher film expecting that to begin with? This is a film made for a very specific audience—and I think that audience will enjoy it for what it is (and if the nearly sold out theater I saw it in is any indication, people like the film quite a bit). I’m not really the target audience for this film, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find a few things to appreciate about it overall. If you love Freddy and Jason, though, seeing this one on the big screen is really a no-brainer.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Mike Bracken
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