I’ve seen Freddy Vs Jason a few times so once again I’ll have to ditch my ‘what I was expecting’ and ‘what I got’ format. This is a hard film to review as it’s not really a Friday The 13^th film but at the same time it’s not completely A Nightmare On Elm Street. However, watching it with the memory of all the Nightmare on Elm Streets and all the Friday The 13ths so far, I can see that Freddy Vs Jason makes for a decent crossover film. Both of their franchises share so much. While there are periods where it feels mostly like a new Elm Street film, there’re little touches (references, characters) that are undoubtedly Friday The 13^th.

Being totally forgotten by the people of Springwood, ghostly killer Freddy Kruger resurrects immortal Jason Voorhees to terrorise the locals while he regains his power. When Jason claims too many of Freddy’s kills however, the Springwood Slasher targets the Crystal Lake Killer, resulting in an epic stand-off between the two monsters.

The Characters

On paper, the characters are mostly the cast of an Elm Street with a few Friday The 13^th members sprinkled in. The Elm Street lot are high schoolers; they drink, they smoke, they have sex and utter lines that were clearly written by people older than them. The Friday The 13^th contributions are a bunch of jocks and a stoner.

Just like with most of the Friday The 13ths, you don’t care about the main characters. However, considering that this came out ten years after the last Elm Street and Friday The 13^th, it’s interesting to see these archetypes, that took form in the 80s’, deployed in a relatively recent period. Oh, and there’s Kelly Rowland. Nothing to say about her character, just that it’s incredible to see a huge name in mainstream music interact with cult figures like Freddy and Jason.

Speaking of them, while you do have to sit through a lot of teenage rubbish to see them fight, it’s worth it. I know I said something similar about Jason X and I can totally see people disagreeing with that, but in the case of Freddy Vs Jason, I think a strong argument can be made for enduring the talky bits.

In this story Jason is depicted mostly as the less of two evils. At the beginning Freddy controls him like a puppet and while Jason does earn some gruesome kills of his own, it’s not long before the Crystal Lake killer is asleep. There, in Freddy realm, he’s savaged like a dog toy. In addition to the film being more of an Elm Street film than a Friday The 13^th, Jason is kind of an underdog most of the time. This is what makes the climax so satisfying as Freddy is brought before Jason in reality, where he’s nothing but a burnt victim with a few razors. I couldn’t help but cheer a little as Jason bashed and slashed the man who’d been his tyrant up to that point.

The Horror (a.k.a The Gore)

Fortunately, Freddy and Jason fighting aren’t the only things worth enduring the talky bits for. Glorious creative kills are scattered throughout the film, both in Freddy’s nightmare world and in Jason’s gritty reality. Plus, even after Jason X, the sight of Jason doing his thing with actual blood and guts on display is still satisfying after the tame parts 5 through 9. One highlight can be found at the beginning where Jason bends a bed inwards with a man in it, snapping his spine. It’s legitimately gruesome.

The final fight is pretty damn good. Worth sitting through the whole film for? I think so. Freddy and Jason’s final confrontation is drenched in blood, literally, making for both an entertaining and visually stunning sequence.

It was made to make money, it has plot holes (Jason’s scared of water yet spends most of the time in it), it has the warts and boils of both franchises but unlike most Friday The 13ths, it’s worth it in the end. The unique sight of 80s’ archetypes living in the 2000s’, the gore and the satisfaction of seeing both Freddy and Jason get their own back at each other makes it one of the most entertaining films to feature Jason Voorhees.

I give Freddy Vs Jason a bloody 5 out of 10.