I’ve been waiting for this moment for eight years. Honestly. Ever since that birthday party in grade six where we managed to get the unrated version of Jason Goes to Hell from a video store that doesn’t care what movies twelve-year-olds watch, I’ve been anticipating this film. You see, at the end of that movie, Jason’s mask sits atop a sandy surface, until suddenly Freddy’s familiar steel claws pull it down to Hades. It was a sign that the clash of the titans would be coming soon.
Soon is a relative term.
In the years since, I’ve sat through Freddy’s credible rebirth in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I’ve had time to relive all the classic slashers I missed in my infancy, and I’ve even had the opportunity to see Jason X, though it still sits unwatched somewhere in the bowels of my computer–I heard bad things about it. Now, nine years after the first not so subtle hint, eight years after my first exposure and countless crappy teen slasher flicks later, it has arrived.
Let me say first, this is not a horror movie. Horror movies have atmosphere, they have timing, they play on fears we didn’t know we had and they do it subtly. This is a slasher movie. People get killed, things say "boo" and while you might be startled, you aren’t really scared unless you have a very weak constitution. So the issue really isn’t whether Freddy vs. Jason is scary, because obviously it isn’t. What’s really at issue here is the entertainment value. In other words, the violence, and the nudity. Both arrive early on.
Freddy explains his origin in a monologue so hammed up that it should come with a kosher option, and seconds later we have skinny dipping. Not to appear sexist, but this is a good thing–Jason movies are based on the principle that all attractive women should go skinny dipping and be killed immediately afterwards. Again, the movie delivers which is, in all, a promising start.
After the plot gets rolling, we meet our cast of cliches: the virgin, the jerky dude and his heavy drinking girlfriend, the shy guy, the geek, the pothead and the token minority. Eventually, they meet up with the crazy guy that isn’t so crazy after all, played by the son of Three’s Company’s John Ritter, and try to take down the two giants of horror. Along the way, many people die, and the audience laughs knowingly at how ridiculous it all is.
What sets this movie apart from the crowd of wannabes is our attachment to the villains. Jason and Freddy are familiar to everyone even remotely interested in horror movies. Along with Mike Meyers and Pinhead, they represent the crème de la crème of evil.
Freddy has always been the more fun of the two, telling bad jokes and finding new and creative ways to kill people in their sleep. Jason has a tiny bit of personality that occasionally sneaks through, but he typically just shows up and kills everyone with whatever’s handy. Both approaches have their advantages and, by combining them, the film gets the best of both worlds. Even if you can’t stand Freddy’s one-liners, there’s no denying the coolness of a flaming Jason in a cornfield. When they finally getting around to duking it out, everyone in the film knows the situation is ludicrous, so they just have fun with it.
I’ve purposely avoided talking about the plot. It just contains the bare essentials necessary to explain the match-up, but it’s still something the die-hards want left as a surprise. In the end, the movie gives us everything it promises: many screaming teens, a fair amount of nudity, two killers killing and a knowing wink at the end. Watching these two beat each other up is definitely entertaining, if you’re into that sort of thing, and the film keeps its energy level up throughout.
Odds are it won’t do well critically, but I can guarantee you everyone at the screening was laughing and having a good time. Just enjoy it for what it is–the kind of movie you dreamed about when you were twelve.