when Freddy met Jason.
the time Crystal Lake came knocking on Elm Street
In the history of slasher cinema. There are two names that have come to define the genre of slasher movies. Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger.
John Carpenter’s 1978 film, Halloween… is credited for acting as a springboard for the many masked on-screen killers that would come to rule terrain of mainstream popular culture throughout the 80s.
While Michael Myers can definitely be argued as the granddaddy of them all, there is no argument that both Freddy and Jason have made great strides to eclipsing even his notoriety among slasher junkies and hardcore horror fans.
Every iconic slasher franchise starts one place… with the original.
It has become the standard practice for these film properties to be milked for as many sequels as possible before failing to produce the returns necessary to justify continued entries. Every franchise hits that point, where you’re sitting there wondering what the fuck were they even thinking when they made this…?
Anytime space gets involved, it’s usually a symptom of… we ran out of shit to fucking do here. But even the worst sequels serve to keep the machine going. And in that, the films that failed to yield the desired box office returns or fans receive poorly and hated or said were trash, are still quite valuable.
The only way a slasher really dies, is not getting a new reboot, or sequel.
The death curse of Crystal Lake began… when Jason Voorhees drowned. His mother claimed revenge, by killing countless teen camp counselors. That legacy continued as he returned to Camp Blood to keep killing, again, and again, and again, and again. He just kept coming back. On… Friday the 13th.
He took an axe to the head, a machete through the face, rose from the grave, was cast back into the lake, then rose yet gain, and still returned to Take Manhattan. Hell, itself. couldn’t keep his evil contained.
Freddy Krueger was a child murderer… he stalked to the streets of Springwood killing children. The parents of Springwood burned him alive. His vengeful spirit assumed the form of a phantom specter. Using the power of the dream world to claim the souls of teens. He became, the Nightmare on Elm Street.
In the final moments of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday… as Jason’s mask lie in the dust, partially covered by dirt… Freddy’s unmistakable glove rose from the ground and claimed the mask into the depths of the abyss.
It was the man famed for his menacing portrayal of the Jason character, Kane Hodder, whose hand was in that glove, but it was the sinister laughter of Freddy that hinted at the possibility of these two titans of slasher cinema finally clashing against each other sometime in the future.
With both Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, both under the control of New Line Cinema, it was only inevitable this teased showdown would eventually come to become a reality.
After about a decade in development hell, it finally did.
Freddy vs Jason premiered on August 15, 2003. In some ways, it was exactly what was promised to audiences. The big guy and the guy in the sweater duking it out for the title belt of slasher supremacy. It was that. In a lot of ways… I’d say it succeeded. But in a number of other ways, it miserably failed in spectacular fashion.
The worst thing about this movie is… it is not Kane Hodder’s Jason. Kane Hodder did what other actors behind slasher icons failed to do. He became more than just another stuntman in a mask.
Hodder’s portrayal of the character carries this intensity and physicality that is totally unique to his performance. Never replicated. His head moves first, moving with a fast jerk. Followed by the rest of his body echoing the trajectory of his head’s motion like a terrible weapon inhumanly locking onto its identified target for slaughter.
He portrayed Jason in Parts 8 - 10 in the Friday the 13th franchise. Including The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell, and Jason X… aka, Jason Goes to Space, unofficially.
While these four films are not my favorite in the franchise, neither are they the ones I’d say are the best of the franchise, Hodder is without question the most iconic and resonant performance of the character over all others.
Freddy vs Jason stands in stark contrast to the rest of the films from both franchises in that cinematography and filmmaking overall had experienced great advancements for special effects. Freddy looks incredible in this movie, best out of any other film other than maybe the first movie, because of how sinisterly creepy he was in that original film. Jason on the other hand looks his worst over any other movie.
Kane Hodder was replaced by another actor, and it shows. The Freddy Vs Jason, Jason, feels like a dull zombie minion of his former self. Largely only Jason in name and in costume. But not in spirit, and essence.
We were teased the showdown between Kane Hodder’s Jason and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. While the producers knew that Englund couldn’t be replace for this crossover, for some reason they thought Hodder could be.
I am not sure what the thinking behind this was, behind the scenes, but I think that Ghostface might need to make a few phone calls to rectify this…
From what I’ve seen of the making of footage from this film, director Ronny Yu didn’t respect either property… it seemed like he just thought it was stupid and didn’t take it seriously in a sense. Brendan Fletcher remarked how upon asking for clear character motivation, Yu simply brushed him off like it didn’t really matter.
Ronny Yu may seem like a great choice given his background in Hong Kong action cinema, I will say the almost kung fu style fight sequences between Freddy and Jason feels very 2000s Chinese martial arts movie import, and it’s cool, in that regard, I feel a more veteran American horror director that was a fan of both properties would have made for a better final product.
Freddy vs Jason wasn’t just a campy slasher sequel akin to 1998’s Bride of Chucky that Yu directed. It was a major cultural event, and we deserved better.
Where this movie shines is, in delivering what was promised that they do manage to follow through with. Pitting Freddy against Jason. Freddy resurrects Jason from hell as a way of sparking a revival in his own legend to make the teens of Springwood fear him again.
Revealing that covering up his horrific history of murder, carnage, and hauntings on Elm Street, ultimately led to Springwood ridding their town of the specter that once stalked their streets. I think this was more than a sufficient premise to set up the fight that ensues for the killing of our cast of teenage victims.
Brendan Fletcher is great. Katherin Isabelle, aka, Ginger from Ginger Snaps… has some great screen time. Her shower scene does not give up the goods but seeing her almost naked is more than good enough for me.
Monica Keena is honestly one of the best standouts in this movie because she is just insanely hot. It’s a shame she wasn’t in more stuff I remember seeing after this. But that aspect of the film has only aged like fine wine. Some of the other stuff like super fake looking industrial steel factory set pieces from Freddy’s boiler room dreamscape have aged quite badly.
There was nearly a Michael Myers vs Pinhead crossover movie between the Hellraiser and Halloween franchises, but it didn’t happen.
A comic book miniseries titled Freddy vs Jason vs Ash takes this whole thing a step further and pits Ash Willians from Evil Dead against both Freddy and Jason, but when they approached the legend Bruce Campbell to do the movie, they didn’t want to let Ash defeat the two slasher icons, so he declined it.
We’ve never seen a slasher showdown like this on this scale of mainstream spectacle since 2003. With the announcement of a new Elm Street reboot and the Crystal Lake tv series relaunching Friday the 13th… it definitely begs the question, will we see Freddy and Jason clash yet again…?
And what about all those other slasher icons…? Freddy vs Jason brought in nearly five times its budget. Didn’t it prove the success of pitting two iconic properties of such popularity and longevity profitable…? I guess only time will tell.
Michael Myers walks into a toy store, stopping in front of a row of Good Guy dolls… *laughter from Chucky echoes*
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this work was authored by En Pandit Cole.
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