Freddy vs Jason Film Review

by The Wanderer

Director: Ronny Yu

Cast: Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, Chris George Marquette, Lochlyn Munro, Ken Kirzinger, Robert Englund

Series: A Nightmare on Elm Street/ Friday the 13th (Crossover)

MPAA Rating: R

Length: 97 minutes

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Crossover Cash Grab

The final film in the Friday the 13th sequence and the Nightmare on Elm Street sequence, before each series was rebooted was this crossover disaster that each franchise would be better off forgetting ever happened.  Freddy vs Jason pits the invincible super strong machete wielding Jason against the dream manipulating clawed glove of Freddy.  The film looks to draw people in by asking which of these two popular slasher villains will come out on top?  I honestly could care less and as the movie dragged on the only thing I was wishing for was that all that terrible teen actors would just shut up and die.

The film gets some some voice over narration by Freddy (Robert Englund) to set the plot in motion …. and because Jason (Ken Kirzinger) can’t utter a single line of dialogue.  It’s been a number of years since Freddy’s been able to terrorize the teens in Springwood because everyone there has forgotten about him.  Freddy takes the guise of Jason’s mother, resurrecting him and sending him to Elm Street in order to start killing people.  As Jason begins a new reign of terror, the citizens of Springwood thinking the new murders are the fault of Freddy, unwittingly bring him back by leaking his existence to their teenage kids.  The peaceful existence between two legendary killers isn’t meant to be, and soon Freddy and Jason find themselves fighting each other.

In a pivotal character vs character battle there’s not a whole lot of story you can tell when one of the characters can’t even talk.  Jason is literally a big dude with hockey mask and a machete, his whole story has to be told by Freddy.  The character requires no skill to play, in fact they didn’t even give the role to Kane Hodder (who played Jason in the previous Friday the 13th movies), and instead offered it to his stunt double from Jason VIII.

The premise for the plot is pretty shaky.  Both Freddy and Jason have been defeated dozens of times now, so bringing them back is pretty underwhelming.  Having them work together only to turn on each other is predictable.  The reason given for this is Jason steals a kill from Freddy, and so now they must destroy each other.  Granted it’s a crossover and its horror, even this genre can’t make something that lame appear to be somewhat fun and entertaining.  This film’s ending is just as predictable as Jason and Freddy’s team-up/break-up.  This film lacked the courage to put one franchise over the other, which simply means this is a movie with an ending that will definitely disappoint everyone.

There are a lot of stupid teenagers for these killers to destroy, and I’m thankful for that. There’s Lori (Monica Keena) the good girl virgin, Kia (Kelly Rowland) the insecure best friend with a lame crappy attitude, Gibb (Katharine Isabelle) the slutty party chick, Charlie (Chris Marquette) the giant nerd with a crush on Lori that forgets he’s a nerd half way through the movie in order to be a potential hunk, Will (Jason Ritter) Lori’s pretend crazy ex-boyfriend that won’t try to sleep with her because he respects her that much, Mark (Brendan Fletcher) an actual crazy person, Blake (David Kopp), a douchey hunk of man meat, Trey (Jesse Hutch) an even douchier hunk of man meat, Freeburg (Kyle Labine) a stupid stoner, and Scott (Lochlyn Munro) a newly appointed cop in Springwood that looks and acts just as dumb as the teenagers he randomly decides to help.  That’s a long list, and the best part is, as each of the characters get killed off, new and stupider teens take their place.  It’s like lining up pigs for the slaughter.

Violence is off the charts in this movie.  Jason kills a ton of people, Freddy kills a few people.  Needless to say there are enough dead teenagers during the short time span that the movie takes place in to warrant calling in the National Guard.  It never happens, but then again nearly all the decisions made by the “should be protagonists” never do.  When Freddy and Jason finally get to fighting each other they each take a serious beating, serious enough that each character probably should have died a dozen times over.  Seriously, how many times can someone be beaten, stabbed, drugged, shot, crushed with large objects, and dismembered?

Freddy vs Jason will certainly satisfy anyone with a craving for bloodlust.  If you were fans of either of these horror franchises, or killers, you’ll probably be disappointed by the way the plot is treated.  There are certainly some entertaining moments, but there is just too much filmmaking incompetence for this gorefest to overcome.

Score: 3.8