The movie does a great job of exploring what makes them both tick. Stunt performer Ken Kirzinger portrays him as a cold, reflexive murdering machine that moves with the unstoppable forward momentum of a shark. Jason, on the other hand, is as close to the Terminator as he’s ever been here. Robert Englund is clearly having an absolute blast and maintains a pitch-perfect balance of repulsive sleaze and gleeful comedy. Under Yu’s direction, Freddy and Jason come to life with flawless characterization. Jason delivers exactly what the title promises. No stranger to the kind of quick-paced meta-humor that movies like Scream popularized, Yu is a Hong Kong native whose second American-language film was the 1998 horror classic Bride of Chucky.įreddy vs. Director Ronny Yu brings these qualities to life with a distinct visual and atmospheric flair. The script is filled with dialogue, visual cues, and narrative references that pay homage to Freddy and Jason’s greatest hits, including the return of Hypnocil as well as Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. One of the reasons the film is so beloved by horror fans despite its flaws is that it is such an unabashed love letter to both iconic franchises. But when Jason’s off-switch stops working, the two mass murderers turn their blades on each other. In an effort to revive himself, Freddy recruits Jason to stir up some gruesome trouble in Springwood. Opening with an extended montage of Freddy’s many gory demises over the years, it’s revealed that the Springwood Slasher has lost his powers due to people forgetting his legacy (a bit of a meta-wink at Freddy’s fall from pop culture grace). Screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift had their jobs cut out for them, but surprisingly, one of the best parts of Freddy vs Jason is how well it restructures the canon of both franchises to fit together. The most recent Nightmare movie had featured Freddy escaping into the real world, while Jason Voorhees was floating around in orbit circa 2455, courtesy of 2001’s Jason X. And what you need to know before you do.īy 2003, both the Jason and Freddy franchises had become sprawling, convoluted webs of loosely connected canon. Against all odds, it manages to rise above the absurdity of its premise and deliver a pulse-pounding crowd-pleaser - provided you’re willing to indulge in its stupidity.įreddy vs Jason is streaming now on HBO Max, but it leaves on November 30. Developed as far back as 1987 and teased in 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy vs Jason was a smackdown 16 years in the making. Pinhead), but only one of them gained enough traction to actually happen. Tons of franchises languished in development hell as studio executives tried increasingly outlandish ideas to win back fans, but out of all of them, none proved as tantalizing as the concept of the versus crossover.įor over a decade, Hollywood was plagued by failed attempts to produce ridiculous horror crossovers such as Candyman vs Leprechaun and Helloween (that’s Michael Myers vs. As the twilight age of the slasher movie began to fade towards the end of the ‘90s, studios that had built empires off larger-than-life villains began spitballing ways to keep them relevant.
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