The ghoulish slashers from Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th meet at last, and it isn't pretty.
By PHILIP BOOTH
Published August 14, 2003
[Times photo: New Line Productions]
Freddy (Robert Englund) discusses his finer points with Jason (Ken Kirzinger) in Freddy Vs. Jason.
View a clip
Idiotic dialogue, nonsensical plotting, endless dream sequences, really bad acting - I'm having a vivid, seriously distressing nightmare, and I can't wake up. Help.
But wait, it's just a movie, the ultimate battle between A Nightmare on Elm Street's burn-disfigured Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) and Friday the 13th's hockey mask-wearing Jason Voorhees (stuntman Ken Kirzinger), two of the most notorious serial killers in slasher-flick history. Think of Freddy Vs. Jason as an unusually bloody but incredibly monotonous WWE smackdown, 90 minutes that feel like three hours.
"It's time to put this bad dog to sleep - for good," Freddy says about his rival during a near-climactic showdown in the nightmare world, not to be confused with the later, more explosive confrontation back at Camp Crystal Lake, where Jason did his dastardly deeds.
Some folks might hold similar kill-the-beast sentiments about the fate of the two franchises.
Cackling, wisecracking Freddy, who commits mayhem with the help of blades attached to his fingers, was last seen nine years ago, in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, while his mute enemy, equipped with a long knife, took his blood lust to a futuristic outer space in 2001's Jason X.
Freddy Vs. Jason, unfortunately, winks at the possibility of future installments.
Director Ronny Yu (Bride of Chucky), opens with a flashback explaining what made Freddy the man he is today. He's been roaming the bowels of hell, see, because of a concerted effort by townsfolk to erase the memory of his bloody rampage, and he can't invade the dreams of those who don't know about his exploits. His vow: "I'll make them remember what fear tastes like."
Enter Jason, summoned to do the dirty work on Elm Street, thus paving the way for Freddy's return. He hacks up the nearest postcoital teenagers, introducing that staple theme of slasher movies: sex = death. But Jason likes his new assignment a little too much, and Freddy gets jealous, with deadly consequences.
Blood flows like a river, spurting, streaming and spewing out of control, forming puddles on the floor and filling bathtubs. Freddy Vs. Jason also gets its kicks from major chest wounds, fatally contorted bodies, decapitations, intimations of incest and necrophilia, and very young victims of mutilation.
Monica Keena, of TV's Undeclared and Dawson's Creek, is Lori, the busty and not coincidentally virginal girl charged with the task of baiting Freddy into the real world. Jason Ritter (Swimfan, Mumford), son of John, is her ex-boyfriend, shipped off to a psychiatric hospital because of what he knows about the original Elm Street murders. Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland makes a satisfying screen debut as Lori's worldly wise best friend.
Kyle Labine (Halloween: Resurrection) makes a good impression as a laid-back stoner dude, in the Jeff Spicoli mold. "That goalie was really p--- about something," he exclaims after one string of bloody dismemberments. Well, yeah. He's probably annoyed about playing temporary lead villain in a nightmare engineered by his archrival. Then again, consider poor Michael Myers (Halloween): He wasn't even invited to the gore fest.
Freddy Vs. Jason
Grade: D+
Director: Ronny Yu
Cast: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Katherine Isabelle, Brendan Fletcher, Christopher George Marquette, Lochlyn Munro
Screenwriters: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Rating: R; graphic violence, nudity, sexual situations, profanity
