Starring: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fletcher.
Director: Ronny Yu.
I've made it to #100! Quite the milestone for me. Hard to believe it's been less than three months. Anyway, gonna go ahead and use Freddy Vs.Jason as a bridge between Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street. Technically, it's out of order but I already did the) first Nightmare and A New Nightmare at the very start of this blog so, at this point, I don't think I really need to worry about chronology. So, here we are.
After many years with both franchises remaining stagnant(mostly due to market fatigue and low box office outings), New Line Cinema finally decided to do a story they had been mulling over for well over a decade by combining Horror's two top boogeymen into one franchise film. Unfortunately(or fortunately, depending on who you talk to) the film was made post-Scream and, as a result, became very self-aware and went very comedic with the property. Ronny Yu, the man who did a lot of damage to the Child's Play series was attached, and off we went.
All things considered, this is probably as good as it was likely to get, and really it isn't nearly as bad as a lot of fans would like to believe. Neither franchise was ever nearly as dark or overly serious as most fans seem to take it, and so the tongue-in-cheek approach is really nothing new. Both characters are actually fairly well serviced in the end. Hell, I'd even wager that Freddy was a bit darker and more aggressive here than he was in, at least, Freddy's Dead.
We have at least two semi-screen queens. Well, one is definite in Katharine Isabelle who always fills me with just the smallest amount of confidence in a project. The other is Monica Keena, who does a pretty decent job with the admittedly thankless role of the prestine good-girl. She gave a pretty decent performance in Night Of The Demons(2009).
Kelly Rowland has an equally thankless role in giving exposition on who our "final girl" is ("Y'know, you don't like anybody ever since your boyfriend left town!"), but not nearly as hard as Brendan Fletcher, who has to carry both male lead Will's backstory but also shoulders all of the Freddy history, too. Lot of exposition in this film. Rowland isn't the actor Fletcher is, but they do mostly handle their respective roles well enough.
Freddy Vs. Jason is ninety-percent fan service and, honestly, expecting anything else would have been a huge mistake. I, for one, really enjoy Freddy Vs. Jason for it's silly fan-service and am kinda looking forward to doing it here. I'm tired, a little grouchy and a tad tipsy from a few beers, but I feel like this might cap off my extremely trying one-night run through of Friday The 13th on a positive note.
True to Friday The 13th mythology, we have two things right off the bat: A boob shot(appearing in Jason's apparent dream sequence, but it still counts) at the lake before skinny dipping, and a really huge asshole in Gibb's Boyfriend Trey. Trey gets one of the absolute best deaths in the film, as Jason folds him in half on a bed. It's the type of over-the-top death scene Jason's franchise was known for, and I remember laughing my head off when I first saw it, and putting a fist in the air in joy.
I do wish Deputy Stubbs was a bigger character. Lochlyn Monroe is capable of way more than I think cinema has offered him at this point. Regardless, one of my favorite things in the film is the initial nightmare: as soon as Lori remembers the name Freddy she's in the dream immediately, which is played up for as much weird, dark Freddy stuff as it possibly can: freaky little girls with no eyes and girls jump roping. It's a nicely done sequence, and dovetails nicely into Blake (poor, stupid Blake) talking trash about how he's going to kill whoever killed Trey and running afoul of Freddy(once again evoking some imagery from the original with shaking bushes, goats and Englund playing with the sillouette) before get hacked up by Jason.
First sighting of LOST star Evangeline Lily. She appears as an extra in a few of the high school background shots. First sighting: nearly run over by a kid on a skateboard.
Oh, right, we have not-Jay from Jay and Silent Bob and not-jack black as characters in this film. That's okay, they ain't so bad.
Second Evangeline Lily sighting, next to Brendan as he starts shouting exposition. She looks scared.
We also have a couple cameos of former New Line Cinemas President Robert Shaye. No Sean S. Cunningham, though. No love for the Jason creator, I guess.
Chris Marquette plays a good nerd, especially one with spine. A little bit of liquid courage and he's there to tell off Kelly Rowland and she starts to like him. That gets shoved to the side, though, because we finally have a Freddy kill to get to. Katharine Isabelle, who is just wonderful, gets too drunk and passes out (much to the delight of the creepy, irritating, living glow stick that is super raver...luckily, Jason takes care of him before he can do terrible things to my lovely Isabelle..except she dies, too), and finds herself in a very lively Freddy nightmare, once again very evocative of the original film(nice use of the razors on the pipes). It's bathed in this neon red glow, meant to symbolize fire, and has some really nice, sparse set design.
Not-Jack Black has some fun moments-though I do question how these guys have the balls to talk trash to a massive man wearing a hockey mask-mocking Jason...and his almost casual "son of a bitch" when Jason snaps his companions neck is genuinely funny. My only problem is that you can see the guy has fake blood in his cheeks as he's running, which he spits out when he's stabbed. Kinda awkward film making, but it's followed up by Jason hacking his way through ravers which I'm totally okay with.
The story of the film, particularly the characterization, isn't so hot. I mean, we did need some sort of hook for Lori to make things personal but...I dunno, killing Nancy Thompson's friends seemed to be good enough for the original. Not sure why it would need to be anything deeper here. In the end, the characters are mostly here because there needed to be something. We know the whole point is for Freddy and Jason to fight, but...at the same time, any real fan knew the real answer to "who would win in a fight between Jason and Freddy" is "the teens they're trying to kill." So, we needed teens. We got some great actors playing mediocre characters with some subpar scripting, but things still work more often than they don't.
It's a shame they get rid of Mark so soon. He's one of the most interesting non-villain characters. It isn't that it doesn't make sense, though: Mark used his exposition card, and so it was time to go. Having him around would have given the kids an edge they shouldn't have. Deputy Stubbs is here to give some Jason exposition...and then he'll get killed, too.
I feel like Jason Ritter gives the most honest performance when he's evil-will from Lori's dream. He's very awkward the rest of the film. I don't want to talk shit about the kid but...he just doesn't give the best performance. Freddy makes a really ugly rape joke, too. There's some of that darkness that fans said they wanted(there really is a treatise coming on that score later, I promise).
"Anything is possible now! God, you just don't get it!" I know you're meant to be a shameless rip-off of Jay from Jay and Silent Bob but...you're okay, Freebird. Your drug-induced dream with the Caterpillar isn't so great...feels a lot like the horrible joke stuff in Freddy's Dead really...and nothing, not even Freddy's Dead should be like Freddy's Dead.
Poor Stubbs. You outlived your usefulness in the script. Jason also gets all of the kills in this film. Freddy gets maybe one and a half, if you consider Freebird a Freddy kill. But, none of that really matters once we get to the madcap insanity of the two icons brawling. It's...really something else, and so much bloody, insane fun that I really feel like anybody who complains about it really is missing the point. There's something amazing about Freddy attempting to destroy Jason with all of his dream powers and Jason just simply being unable to die...especially with Englund giving us his hammy, over-the-top best. There is nothing quite like hearing Robert Englund do his traditional Freddy laugh. Plus, calling a young Jason "You ugly little shit" is...well, it's just good Freddy.
There is something to the idea of Jason being something of an overgrown child, and Freddy being a child killer. It's a simple thing, of course, and not exactly the stuff of poetry and legend, but at least they found a reasonable common ground to place their opposition. The point of Jason being in something of an arrested development is something that is very intelligent, and probably should have been discussed in an earlier installment. It really should have been. It's that smart. It may have been difficult to do without Freddy...the closest they got was Ginny's psychoanalysis way back in Part Two about Jason being a lost child who grew up confused and violent.
They really play up Freddy as sex offender in this film which is...well, it's part of who he is. It's another fairly intelligent element to the character that wasn't specifically brought up much in his actual franchise. It's there, but not explicitly portrayed. But it works.
My absolute favorite part of the film is the look of pure, unadulterated fear that Englund makes cross over Freddy's face when, brought out of the dream by Lori, he sees Jason for the first time. Englund is such a lovable ham, and brings every ounce of it to his subsequent beat down at the hands of Jason. It's such an extraordinary performance.
Kia's speech is the absolute low point of the film. Her use of the homosexual slur is really cringeworthy and, according to the excellent Never Sleep Again:The Elm Street Legacy documentary, not in the original script. Even Ronny Yu says he was surprised it was left in. It was originally meant to be a nod to Nancy's speech about "taking the power back" in the original Nightmare. Instead we got a homophobic comment. Meh.
The "real world" fight between Freddy and Jason is my favorite. Englund gets to do some fun physical comedy(which he does anytime he comes out of the dream world), plus some interesting physical combat that we don't usually see out of Freddy. They bring a lot of fun "speed vs.strength" mentality to the combat...and then it degenerates into them just hacking into each other and spraying blood everywhere. It's great. They even have the villanous moment(complete with musical cues) of Freddy gaining Jason's knife and hacking away. It's so delightfully crazy...and then Freddy stabs out his eyes...and Monica Keena runs towards them with two torches with her...well, it's clearly intentional what the point of the shot of her running is. It fits, though...along with the almost love-story musical swells while Freddy and Jason are literally tearing each other limb from limb. For all it's absurdity, there's a real genuine affection for the source material.
Final Thoughts: Both series are known primarily for excess and insanity, and Freddy Vs.Jason brings both in a big way. The titular characters are well untilized and formed, even if fans might complain that Freddy still isn't "dark" enough(despite his highly pronounced sexual deviancy), with Jason getting more of the characterization(even getting a bit of heroism attached to him in the end, which does work out well enough under the circumstances-compared to Freddy, Jason is a pretty nice guy). The actors involved as the teen foils give a mixed bag of performances, ranging from good(Brendan Fletcher, Monica Keena, Katharine Isabelle) to not-so-good(Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter), and the whole thing is paced really well and gives as much insanity and fan service as it can muster. It may have benefited from being played a little more straight but, considering it was a miracle that it was even made let alone watchable, it's a pretty solid love-letter to the respective franchises.
Final Rating: Three Stars.
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